Hat Shop Mystery

The Hat Shop Mystery series by Jenn McKinlay is the most distinctive of her three mystery series — set not in small- town America but in London’s Notting Hill, where American milliner Scarlett Parker has come to help her British cousin Vivienne Tremont run Mim’s Whims, a bespoke hat shop with a loyal and eccentric clientele. The premise is irresistible: an outsider thrust into a world of English fashion, English manners, and English reluctance to say what anyone actually means.

The transatlantic friction gives the series a light comic energy that never quite settles. Scarlett is warm, direct, and slightly baffled by the rituals of British social life. Vivienne, with her deep roots in London’s fashion and social worlds, serves as both guide and foil — she reads every room her cousin misreads, and their dynamic gives the series its emotional engine. They are not simply friends who happen to solve murders; they are family, with all the exasperation and genuine affection that implies.

Hats give the books their visual identity and, frequently, their plot machinery. Cloches, fascinators, berets, and elaborate statement pieces are not just backdrop — they turn up at the scenes of crimes, commission jobs entangle Scarlett in dangerous social webs, and the millinery world provides a cast of competitors, collectors, and clients with reasons to be difficult. McKinlay knows her subject, and it shows. The books feel genuinely embedded in the craft rather than using it as decorative window dressing.

The London setting is painted with real affection: Notting Hill’s market streets, the neighbourhood’s mix of old money and new commerce, and the occasional foray to Paris or further afield keep the series from becoming static. Assault and Beret takes Scarlett to France, and the change of scene refreshes both character and plot without losing the series’s particular flavour.

With gaps of three years between books five and six, and another three before book seven, the series has published at a more measured pace than McKinlay’s American work — but each instalment maintains the same tone and quality readers expect. There is no sense of the wheels coming off; the characters simply continue, at their own pace, in their corner of London.

Reading Order

Read in publication order from Cloche and Dagger. The mysteries are self-contained, but Scarlett’s adjustment to London life, her growing confidence in the business, her relationship with Viv, and a slow- building romantic subplot are all best followed from the beginning. The payoff in the later books is richer for having earned it.

Who Will Enjoy This Series

Readers who enjoy British settings, fashion, and a light, humorous touch will find this the most inviting entry point into McKinlay’s work. The London atmosphere and the fashion-world backdrop make it feel genuinely distinct from the American cosies that dominate the genre — there is nothing quite like it in the field.

Fans looking for McKinlay’s fuller output should explore the Cupcake Bakery Mystery for culinary-focused cosy mysteries, or the Library Lover’s Mystery for a bookish, community-centred American series. All three can be read independently and in any order.