Amateur Sleuth

Winchester, 1925. When heiress and amateur sleuth Cressida Fawcett is invited to her aunt’s mansion on Cloister Close, she is looking forward to a quiet stay in the historic town. The views of the cathedral are heavenly–and her aunt’s maid, Nancy, makes devilishly good ginger biscuits! But it seems Cressy and her pug Ruby won’t be allowed to rest in peace… On a tour of the crypt, they are shocked to stumble across the body of Anthony, the gentle, devoted verger. And a wild-eyed Nancy is standing over him, bloodied candlestick in hand…

The cast and crew of a popular TV crime drama are shooting in the Lake District – but behind the scenes, relationships are as tense as on-screen. The director’s reputation proceeds him, the two lead stars are feuding and rumours swirl. Meanwhile the locals are enjoying the filming. But when on-screen slaughter gets swapped for real-life murder at the concert hall where the TV drama is based, and the genuine police are as baffled as the TV detectives, it falls to the locals to search for the truth.

They were destined to be best friends. The four girls – all born that same hot summer. They predicted a safe and happy life for them all…More than thirty years later, it’s more than an unbreakable friendship – it’s more like a sisterhood. It’s the girls who Jess reaches out to because she’s worried about her grandparents who’ve raised her since her mother disappeared, who Erin tells about her new business idea, who Melissa calls to say she’s desperate to escape her toxic job. But then Chantelle messages saying she’s discovered her husband is having an affair.

Reporter Freya Sinclair has always known she was different. While waiting on the outcome of an autism assessment, Freya uproots her life in Glasgow, quitting her job at one of Scotland’s top broadsheets and taking a local beat in her childhood home of Orkney. But her plans for a quiet life are shattered when human remains are exhumed by a winter storm on Orkney’s wild Atlantic coast. The identity of the bones opens old wounds in the islands, and sheds light on a darker truth nobody wants to accept.

A seemingly idyllic picnic ends in a macabre murder that echoes a pair of slayings fourteen years earlier in this riveting new historical mystery from the USA Today bestselling author of Who Cries for the Lost.

Little Oakley Art Gallery teams up with the local animal rescue center, Best Friends Furever, for a fundraiser. Emily is delighted to help in any way she can. Planning out the event gives her an entirely new focus for her blog, one that could be a real winner this time. But when a robbery sends the whole affair into panic, our amateur sleuth finds that there’s more than just art theft at play!

Sarah Malloy has just helped with the delivery of a bouncing baby girl at her women's clinic, when she receives a visit from an engaging and determined young woman writing an article for New Century Magazine. Louisa Rodgers explains that she is researching the dangers of patent remedies. Sarah is only too happy to tell Louisa exactly what she thinks of the so-called medicines. A few days later, Sarah receives a visit from a bereft Bernard Rodgers, who explains that his daughter, Louisa, has been found strangled in the lobby of the building where New Century has its offices.

When a community center opens in town, many embrace it as a space where locals of all ages can gather and create. Others view it as a waste of taxpayer dollars. The director, Darleen Busby-Platt, is no less controversial. Intense and showy, Darleen has huge plans for her new role. But Lucy Stone believes the woman isn’t exactly as warm hearted—or qualified—as she seems. That hunch deepens when Darleen and a young employee vanish...and dismembered remains appear!

With the August heat strong enough to melt solid chocolate into syrup, Jake and Ellie crave a break from the bakery ovens, despite tourist season promising a sweet payday. But they never envisioned spending the last weeks of summer drifting around Passamaquoddy Bay searching for pirate’s treasure—and a dead body. Sally Coates believes her husband was murdered off the coast, and begs Ellie, a trusted childhood friend, to locate his remains. It’s unusual that a skilled fisherman would vanish along with the gold doubloon he inherited from his grandfather.

When a server is found with a stake through her heart onstage at Nightmare Saloon, everyone at Nightmare Sanctuary Haunted House worries a vampire hunter is in town. After all, the murder happened just before the curtain rose for Allie Nunes, a vampire singer traveling through Nightmare.

When twenty-five-year-old Danika Delaney, black sheep of the Delaney clan, returns home to Long Island to take over Jimmie's, her eccentric uncle's old fashioned malt shop on eastern Long Island, she's not exactly thrilled. But things start to look up when her uncle tells her she can do whatever she'd like with the shop, and it seems she might realize her dream of a small trendy cafe. That is, until she discovers the body of her ex-boyfriend's estranged wife in a melted puddle of rocky road in the malt shop basement.

In Barbara Ross's award-winning series featuring sleuth Julia Snowden and her family's coastal Maine clambake business, Morrow Island is a perfect spot for a wedding—and a Snowden Family Clambake. Julia Snowden is busy organizing both—until a mysterious wedding crasher drops dead amid the festivities . . .

When local college student, Jaden Pierce, disappears one night playing "Manhunt in the Woods" with his fraternity brothers, Nicole, an empathetic stay-at-home mom living a blissful life, joins the search party. Combing through the wooded area, Nicole unearths her son Kyle's license and withholds this potential piece of evidence. She trusts him, but a sliver of doubt festers below the surface, thanks to one unresolved incident from middle school and his shady pastime.

The Fourth of July always means endless celebrations in Cranberry Cove, and this year Monica and Greg have the added pleasure of spending it with Monica's college roommate, Kelly Cargill. When they join Kelly and her family to watch the fireworks, it's all very exciting-until the elderly matriarch of the family dies on the spot. Then evidence comes to light that she was poisoned, and Monica promises to do what she can to catch the culprit.

In between spring break and summer is usually a downtime for Corrie and the campground, even with Bike Rally Weekend on the horizon. This April, however, peace and quiet are not an option. A disconcertingly attractive biker arrives, who arouses the suspicions of Corrie's childhood friend and one-time ex, Sheriff Rick Sutton. Then, one of Corrie's favorite guests is shot dead in his own RV, leaving his wheelchair-bound wife in the care of a son whom no one knew existed.