Amateur Detective

The eccentric Olive Kettering swore someone was trying to harm her. Too bad no one listened, though plenty wanted her dead. When Olive is shot and killed, Mrs. Jeffries has no problem speaking her mind to see justice served.

Train enthusiast Francis Humphreys took his last breath while relatives and neighbors visited downstairs. But if everyone was downstairs, who could have stolen into Uncle Francis's study, killed him, and escaped? Mrs. Jeffries will have to lend her downstairs common sense to this upstairs murder mystery.

“A royal treat….Welcome back, Vicky Bliss!...For readers new to Vicky’s sassy and distinctively smart stories, The Laughter of Dead Kings will mark the start of a beautiful friendship.” —Tampa Tribune New York Times bestselling Grand Master Elizabeth Peters—author of the thrilling...

Vicar Max Tudor, reveling in his new-found personal happiness with Awena Owen, feels that life at the moment holds no greater challenge than writing his Easter sermon. With Awena away, he looks forward to a dinner that includes newcomers to the village like West End dramatist Thaddeus Bottle and his downtrodden wife Melinda. But when one of the dinner guests is found dead in the pre-dawn hours, Max knows a poisonous atmosphere has once again enveloped his perfect village of Nether Monkslip.

Pub owner Maura Donovan hasn't seen her mother for over 20 years, so when she suddenly shows up in Maura's pub, Maura's not sure what to expect. Her mother is trying to find a life for herself back home and has taken up a position working with the new owners of the Crann Mor hotel just outside Skibbereen. That is until her new boss is found dead in the gardens, dumped down the hillside behind the hotel.

Juniper Song knows secrets - how to keep them and how to search them out. As a girl, noir fiction was her favorite escape, and Philip Marlowe has always been her literary idol. So when her friend, Luke, asks her to investigate a possible affair between his father and a young employee, Juniper (or "Song" as her friends call her) finds an opportunity to play detective.

When Hannah Greenwood is murdered at the queen's jubilee, suspicion falls on the members of her literary circle. The case makes a baffling turn when it seems that no one has a motive for the murder. Since Inspector Witherspoon was a guest at the ball, the job of finding the murderer falls to him.

Snow is a rarity in Maura Donovan's small village in County Cork, Ireland, so she wasn't sure what to expect when a major snowstorm rolled in around Sullivan's pub. But now she's stranded in a bar full of patrons - and a suspected killer in a long-ago murder. Maura's been in Ireland less than a year and hasn't heard about the decades-old unsolved crime that took place nearby, let alone the infamous suspect, Diane Caldwell.

When the body of the glamorous film star Margot Browne washes ashore, Max's former colleague, Patrice Logan, requests his help. It's a perfect closed-circle murder: Margot must have been killed by one of the actors, stylists, scriptwriters, or second-tier royalty aboard the yacht. Patrice suspects the yacht's owner, a playboy film director she's been keeping tabs on for smuggling, but Max isn't so sure.

The first of the classic mysteries featuring governess-turned-detective Miss Silver, who investigates a deadly conspiratorial ring. Charles Moray has come home to England to collect his inheritance. After four years wandering the jungles of India and South America, the hardy young man returns to the manor of his birth, where generations of Morays have lived and died. Strangely, he finds the house unlocked, and sees a light on in one of its abandoned rooms. Eavesdropping, he learns of a conspiracy to commit a fearsome crime.

London, 1815. Amateur sleuth Atlas Catesby is about to discover the dark side of the bright lights. His long-awaited night at the opera with Lady Lilliana ends abruptly when a notorious courtesan is shot to death in Covent Garden. The infamous victim was the mistress of the powerful Marquess of Vessey. Atlas believes that the marquess - his former brother in law - is responsible for the long-ago death of Atlas' sister, Phoebe. Atlas seizes the opportunity to potentially avenge his sister's death.

New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller! In New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson’s second novel in the Truly Devious series, there are more twists and turns than Stevie Bell can imagine. No answer is given freely, and someone will pay for the truth with their life...

Alex Torkelsson has just gotten word: His late uncle Magnus's plane has been found south of Hawaii's Big Island after 10 long years. So too have Magnus' few skeletal remains, now handed over to the only man who can fit together the pieces of this mystery. What forensic detective Gideon Oliver discovers could shake the Torkelsson family tree to its very roots. But this time his work is yielding more questions about the past than answers. Questions about the long-ago execution-style murder of Magnus's brother...about a mysterious will that benefits - as well as incriminates - its heirs.

Rachel Goldman writes mysteries in which Duffy Madison, consultant to the county prosecutor's office, helps find missing persons. Rachel is busy working on her next book when a man calls out of the blue asking for help in a missing person case. The caller's name? Duffy Madison. Is this real, or has she lost her mind? She doesn't have much time to find out, because a serial killer is on the loose, kidnapping and murdering mystery authors. And Rachel may just be the next target.

Siobhán O'Sullivan's hopes for a quiet Irish Christmas are dashed when the local Santa turns up dead in a carnival dunk tank of hot cocoa. Now instead of hunting down holiday gifts, she's pursuing a heartless killer. Seems the dead Santa was no angel either, stealing neighborhood dogs to guide his sleigh. But was it his holiday antics - or worse - that led to his death by chocolate?

The first entry in a clever, lighthearted mystery series set in modern Provence—a delightful blend of Agatha Christie and Peter Mayle—featuring the irrepressible Penelope Kite, a young-at-heart divorcee with a knack for stumbling across dead bodies. It’s love at first sight when Penelope...

In the small village of Becklesfield, dressmaker Abigail Summers faces the most unusual challenge of her life – solving her own murder. After meeting a group of fellow spirits at the local library, Abigail, with the aid of psychic medium, Hayley Moon and her husband, a police constable, sets out to find her killer. Abigail's investigation leads her to the May Day Fayre stalls and maypole dance at Chiltern Hall. The case takes an unexpected turn when a local boy disappears, and a suicide seems to hold the key to the mystery.

Harriet Andover had no intention of dying young like her silly siblings had. She intended to outlive them and outdo them as she always had. But Harriet discovers that the best intentions can lead to murder when she is strangled inside her mansion with a house full of holiday guests. As much as Inspector Witherspoon enjoys his job delivering justice, the last thing he wanted was a complicated murder case just a week before Christmas. He soon discovers that Harriet's own husband and grown stepchildren are not overcome with grief and neither are most of her friends.

Maura Donovan discovers a body in the ravine behind her pub. And then the Irish gardai reveal that the victim's face has been battered beyond recognition. Who is the faceless victim? Who wanted him dead? And why was his body dumped in the backyard of Sullivan's Pub? Even after the dead man is finally given a name, nobody admits to knowing him. In the tight-knit world of Leap, no one is talking - and now, it's up to Maura to uncover the dark secrets that lurk beneath the seemingly quiet town.

Tanis Lyle was one of those passionate women who always get their own way. Her cousin Laura hated her. Most women did. But men found her irresistible and she used them mercilessly. So when Tanis was found murdered there seemed to be any number of suspects on hand. But Miss Silver had her own suspicions…