How important is the onion for the BB sauce? What happens when it is omitted from the recipe, and does the label need to be updated?

This is an amazing book, has a great pace, is realistic for the era it represents, the characters are well-formed, and the story is super interesting.

It started with the dead man in the vat of BB Sauce at the factory. Then there were the coded messages they found on the sauce labels. And it only got more convoluted from there. Chief Inspector Sam Mason of Erdington Police Station and his constable, O’Rourke, were on the case despite the madness of a factory explosion causing extensive damage to the area and a high death toll. Interesting characters on both sides of the law. Reading the historical notes tells of how truth became fiction in wartime 1944 England.
I requested and received a temporary uncorrected digital galley from BooksGoSocial via NetGalley.
#TheSecretSauce by @m_j_porter #TheErdingtonMysteries #MJpublishing @booksgosocialgroup @ibpalovesindies #historicalfiction #WW2 #procedural #quirky #explosion #corporateespionage #murderinvestigation

I struggled with this book, it felt like it was all over the place. There were characters we only heard from once and then they were gone. I'm sure it was to add some more to the development of the main characters but it did nothing to help me. There were three events that occurred during the same timeframe that the author was trying to intertwine but I felt it didn't work well. The ending wasn't really a surprise for me but a character we only heard about right near the end seemed to disappear and I expected to hear more about what became of them.
The book may appeal to others but it wasn't one that I found I would recommend to others.

I really enjoyed this as a third entry in the Erdington Mysteries series, it had that historical mystery element that I enjoyed from the previous two books. It uses the 1940s perfectly to keep the reader engaged and worked in this setting as a character itself. The characters were written perfectly for this type of book and from the other books I read from MJ Porter.

“A sharp, atmospheric whodunit set in 1920s‑era Erdington: clever plotting, period detail and a sturdy heroine bring simmering tension to life in Porter’s latest mystery.”

(Note: The Secret Sauce is the third Erdington Mysteries book by MJ Porter, slated for release in 2025)