Amateur Sleuth Cozy

What better time than Halloween to dig into a bracing discussion of a diabolical murder mystery? And what better choice for the Jane Doe Book Club than Agatha Christie's Crooked House? Lyla Moody and her friends are soon embroiled in debate over whether the heroine's actions are particularly believable. But not long after the meeting, sleepy Sweet Mountain, Georgia, is rocked by a murder that uncannily echoes the novel in question.

It promises to be Greyborne Harbor's wedding of the year. The impending nuptials of Serena Chandler and Zach Ludlow will take place aboard his family's luxurious super-yacht, currently moored in the harbor and the talk of the town. But on the day of the wedding, a man's body washes up on the beach with no ID, only a torn page from a book in his pocket. As owner of Beyond the Page Books and Curios, bibliophile Addie is called in to identify the book, but she cannot.

When a prominent family's daughter flees sleepy Sussex to seek a career on the stages of a glittering West End, Harry and Kat are asked to check in on the young woman. But the two of them soon discover that there is a much bigger danger to the woman and her family than mere acting dreams being crushed. Nathaniel Parker, born in 1962, graduated from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and went on to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. His television career began in 1988 when he played Flying Officer 'Flash' Gordon in the LWT mini-series "Piece of Cake".

Pearl Nolan always wanted to be a detective, but life and a teenage pregnancy got in the way of a police career and instead she built up a successful seafood restaurant in her coastal home town of Whitstable - famous for its native oysters. Now, at 39, and with son Charlie away at university, Pearl finds herself suffering from empty nest syndrome...until she discovers the drowned body of local oyster fisherman Vinnie Rowe, weighted down with an anchor chain, on the eve of Whitstable’s annual oyster festival.

Three weeks before Thanksgiving, bookshop owner Addie Greyborne already has a full plate - and a killer on her case....

Late October 1909, and the season of ghouls and things that go bump in the night has descended on the village of Littleton Cotterell. Lady Hardcastle and her trusted lady’s maid, Florence, find themselves hosting a colorful cast of actors whose spooky moving picture, The Witch’s Downfall, is being shown to mark Halloween. But things take a macabre turn when the first night’s screening ends with a mysterious murder, and the second night with another. One by one the actors turn up dead in ways that eerily echo their film.

Peter is an odd duck, obsessed with logic and measurable facts, an obsession he puts to good use in his veterinary practice. When a murder is connected to the swine barn explosion and his friend Tom becomes the prime suspect, Peter feels compelled to put his reasoning skills, and his dog Pippin’s remarkable nose, to use to help clear him. The situation darkens with a second murder and a series of break-ins, including at Peter’s house and clinic, but Peter has a hard time knowing when he is out of his depth, despite warnings from his brother-in-law Kevin, an RCMP officer.

When a fellow partygoer is poisoned while bobbing for apples, Francie needs to get justice for her friend. But just days after the crime, she gets devastating news: the Jibbleson sisters’ fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. Even though most (okay, all) of their inventions explode, Francie knows they’d never commit murder. She promises to get them out of their jail cell and back to their workshop faster than you can sing the Monster Mash.

Two things got Rarity Jones through her breast cancer treatments: friends and books. Now cancer-free, Rarity is devoting her life to helping others find their way through the maze to healing. She's opened a bookstore focusing on the power of healing—Eastern medicine, Western medicine, the healing power of food, the power of meditation, and the importance of developing a support community. To that end, she's also started the Tuesday Night Survivors book club. But their therapeutic unity is disrupted when one of their members suddenly goes missing.

September 1909, and Lady Hardcastle and her maid, Florence, have been invited to Lord Riddlethorpe’s country estate for a week of motor racing and parties. They both agree that it sounds like a perfectly charming holiday. But when one of the drivers dies in a crash during the very first race, they discover that what seemed like an uncharacteristic error in judgement may have a more sinister explanation...

Legendary stage and movie star Sir Nigel Bellingham arrives on Cape Cod to star in a stage production of The Hound of the Baskervilles put on by the West London Theater Festival. When Sir Nigel, some of the cast, and the director visit the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop at 222 Baker Street, Gemma Doyle realizes that Sir Nigel is not at all suited to the role. He's long past his prime and an old drunk to boot. The cast is not happy, but the show must go on. Before the play opens, Jayne's mother arranges a fundraising afternoon tea to be catered by Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room. The tea is a huge success, but, when it's time to leave, Sir Nigel has gone missing - only to be found at the bottom of the rocky cliff, dead. When the police focus their attention on Jayne's mother despite numerous other suspects, the game is once again afoot, and it's up to Gemma and Jayne to clear Jayne's mother's name.

In "A Taste of Murder," the third Bunburry book, a local beef farmer is found dead and Betty Thorndike, vegetarian and Bunburry's only Green Party member, is in the frame. Despite what everyone thinks, Betty is absolutely not Alfie McAlister's girlfriend. But Alfie knows what it's like to be wrongly accused, and enlists the help of his fellow amateur detectives, Liz and Marge, to find out who's responsible. There's just one problem about a farm-based investigation - Alfie's scared of cows.

Assisting an overwhelmed insurance appraiser with the inventory, Addie discovers an 1887 magazine containing Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, which she estimates to be worth over $150,000. But when Addie later finds the appraiser dead in the estate's private library, with the door bolted from the inside, and the priceless edition missing, it's a mystery worthy of the Great Detective himself. She's certain the death and the robbery are connected - but who, other than a ghost who can walk through walls, could have gotten in to do the deed?

Knit and Nibble's numbers are growing! The knitting club just welcomed their newest member, Caralee Lorimer, who's learning to knit for her upcoming role in A Tale of Two Cities. According to the amateur actress, the behind-the-scenes drama at the theater is getting downright catty, and Caralee wants a reckoning for Arborville's pretentious suburbanites. But before she can finish her snitchy stitches, Caralee is killed in a suspicious theater accident. Someone thinks they've staged a perfect murder, but Pamela and her Knit and Nibblers are ready to pounce on the real killer.

As Addie slips into her white dress her thoughts are focused on a bright future with Dr. Simon Emerson. But a discovery in her attic leads her to startling revelations about the past. As the owner of Beyond the Page Books and Curios and a lifelong bibliophile, Addie is delighted to find a rare collection of classic children's books gathering dust in a secret room beneath the rafters, including a first edition of The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. To her surprise, a handwritten inscription on the title page provides a clue to unraveling a complex mystery in Addie's family.

College English professor Alison Bergeron thought that dating a cute NYPD detective like Bobby Crawford would be exciting and involve a lot of riding around in cruisers and putting away sleazy crooks, but he has yet to invite her on any stakeouts.... Then when a friend asks her to help him find his nephew, she goes to Bobby for advice only to find out that he already knows about the case. He pulled the boy out of the Hudson River a few days earlier. The boy’s employer calls it an accident, but Alison and Bobby aren’t convinced.

Winifred Page’s twin brothers-in-law are finally ready to open their invention shop right next to the Cozy Corgi Bookshop and Bakery. But the noise level is keeping customers away from the bookshop and driving Fred and her corgi sidekick, Watson, out of their minds. Adding to her stress, family and friends are gearing up to celebrate Fred’s fortieth birthday—not that she’s overly concerned about her age … Mere hours after entering her new decade of life, resentments reach an explosive level as downtown Estes Park is rocked by a fearsome calamity.

If Poppy didn't believe she was in too deep as the only female juror in a high-profile assault case involving an infamously hot-tempered crooner, she's sure of it upon meeting blast-from-her-past Rod Harper. A former TV costar from her short-lived acting days, Rod is as dashing as ever, and now he wants to partner again - this time to locate his missing daughter. Returning a pampered songstress with a penchant for running away back home unscathed shouldn't be too challenging. But dodging Rod's charms while on the job is another story - and so is finding a dead body!

Melissa Craig is settling in nicely to a new teaching position in the quaint little village of Upper Bembury, getting to know her way around, drinking tea with the eccentric staff, even sewing the first seeds of romance. But when she arrives one morning to find police outside her classroom, Melissa is shocked to hear that her beautiful colleague Angelica has been found dead in her home. As everyone in Angelica’s life comes under suspicion, Melissa makes it her mission to go in search of the truth.

Meg Langslow is pregnant with twins when Michael asks if she wouldn't mind having a houseguest. One of his doctoral students is directing his new translation of a play by a minor Spanish playwright, who will come to town for the production. Señor Mendoza turns out to be a partygoer who loves to spend raucous evenings among adoring students...at Casa Langslow. Into this chaos arrives the dean of the English department, who insists the play be canceled. Then the dean is found murdered.