Amateur Sleuth Suspense

Mr. Thipps wakes up to the worst day ever. A dead body in his bathtub wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez. So many questions. Luckily, Lord Peter Wimsey catches wind of this – for he has a keen mind for solving crimes, although he is the pampered aristocratic amateur. With the connections that privilege offers, he has returned somewhat battered from the war with a penchant for crime solving. This case of near-sighted nudity, taking place during the plague of 1918, takes on twists and turns both unforeseen and unwelcome.

Frances Wynn, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, enjoys more freedom as a widow than she did as a wife. After an obligatory year spent mourning her philandering husband, Reggie, she puts aside her drab black gowns, leaving the countryside and her money-grubbing in-laws behind. With her young daughter in tow, Frances rents a home in Belgravia and prepares to welcome her sister, Lily, arriving from New York - for her first London season.

Kat Holloway knows that her beau and confidante Daniel McAdam has a talent for dangerous work as a Scotland Yard agent. At long last though, Daniel’s coldhearted boss has promised that after a final mission, his debt will be repaid, and he’ll finally be free. However, Daniel must risk his life one last time, masquerading as a secretary to an elderly viscount who could be the mastermind behind the recent plots against the Queen and her government.

Retired schoolteachers Liz, Pat and Thelma never expected they would be caught up in a crime even once in their lives, let alone twice. But when poison pen letters start landing on the doorsteps of friends and neighbours in their Yorkshire village, old secrets come to light. With the potential for deadly consequences. It won’t be long until the three friends are out on a case yet again.

August 1911. Emily Hardcastle and her inimitable lady’s maid Florence Armstrong are enjoying a fine summer until Harry, Lady H’s brother, turns up out of the blue with a mystery for them to solve. A routine parachute test at a local aeroplane factory has gone horribly wrong - with pilot Dickie Dupree plummeting to his death. Harry is certain there is more to this ‘tragic accident’ than meets the eye, having discovered that someone at the airfield is leaking top secret intelligence to foreign rivals.

In the gentle coastal town of South Cove, California, all Jill Gardner wants is to keep her store - Coffee, Books, and More - open and running. So why is she caught up in the business of murder? When Jill's elderly friend Miss Emily calls in a fit of pique, she already knows that the city council is trying to force Emily to sell her dilapidated old house. But Emily's gumption goes for naught when she dies unexpectedly and leaves the house to Jill, along with all of her problems...and her enemies.

The year 1920: Flying in the face of convention, legendary American adventuress Beryl Helliwell never fails to surprise and shock. The last thing her adoring public would expect is that she craves some peace and quiet. The humdrum hamlet of Walmsley Parva in the English countryside seems just the ticket. And, honestly, until America comes to its senses and repeals Prohibition, Beryl has no intention of returning stateside and subjecting herself to bathtub gin.

If Alison Kerby really wanted peace and quiet, she never should have opened the Haunted Guesthouse. The Jersey Shore lodge's latest polter-guest is Richard Harrison, the recently murdered brother of long-time resident ghost PI Paul Harrison. Alas, a beyond-the-grave brotherly reunion is nowhere in the foreseeable future - phantasmal Paul left the guesthouse months ago for parts unknown, and for all her ghost-whispering prowess, Alison has no idea how to find him. And she's going to need Paul, because Richard's isn't the only murder still unsolved.

When Polyester Monroe was young, she loved playing in her family's textile store. But after a fatal tragedy, Land of a Thousand Fabrics was boarded up and Poly never expected to see the inside again. These days her time is spent designing prom dresses from cheap fabrics. When her great uncle passes away and leaves her the fabric store, she sees it as a sign to change her life. But when a man connected to her family's tragedy is found dead in the parking lot behind the store the day after she moves in, her illusions of reopening the glamorous fabric store are shredded.

When two skeletons are accidentally uncovered in the quiet town, an unlikely trio is suddenly thrust together by a common goal: to solve a mystery everyone else seems eager to keep under wraps. United by a sense of justice and the desire to right old wrongs, Sara, Kate, and Jack will have to dig into Lachlan's murky past to unravel the small town's dark secrets and work to bring the awful truth to light.

The streets of San Francisco would be lined with hardcovers if rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright had her way. And her mentor wouldn't be lying in a pool of his own blood on the eve of a celebration for his latest book restoration. With his final breath he leaves Brooklyn a cryptic message, and gives her a priceless - and supposedly cursed - copy of Goethe's Faust for safekeeping.

Ruth and Nelson investigate a string of murders and disappearances deep within the abandoned tunnels hidden far beneath the streets of Norwich. Norwich is riddled with old chalk-mining tunnels, but no one's sure exactly how many. When Ruth is called in to investigate a set of human remains found in one of them, she notices the bones are almost translucent - a sign they were boiled soon after death. Once more she finds herself at the helm of a murder investigation.

After graduating from culinary school, Juliet Capshaw returns to her quaint hometown of Ashland, Oregon, to heal a broken heart and help her mom at the family bakery. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is bringing in lots of tourists looking for some crumpets to go with their heroic couplets. But when one of Torte's customers turns up dead, there's much ado about murder.

When Gemma finds a rare and potentially valuable magazine hidden in the bookshop, she and her friend Jayne set off to find the owner, only to stumble upon a dead body. The highly perceptive Gemma is the police's first suspect, so she puts her consummate powers of deduction to work to clear her name, investigating a handsome rare books expert, the dead woman's suspiciously unmoved son, and a whole family of greedy characters desperate to cash in on their inheritance.

Every story of Chesterton's unassuming little priest detective, from the first four published collections: The Innocence of Father Brown (1911), The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914), The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926), and The Secret of Father Brown (1927).

Miyagaki Yōtarō is one of Japan's most famed mystery writers, but several years ago he put down his pen and left the Tokyo literary world for a life of seclusion in the remote Labyrinth House, built by the notorious architect Nakamura Seiji. When four of the country's most exciting up-and-coming crime writers are invited to the house for Yōtarō's birthday party, they are honored to accept. But no sooner have they arrived than they are confronted with a shocking death, then lured into a bizarre, deadly competition with each other . . .

Even during the holidays, Shannon is more spackle than sparkle, which is why she leaps at the chance to transform a grand old Victorian mansion into 10 charming apartments for homeless families. Filled with the spirit of the season, all of Lighthouse Cove turns out to help - including her best friends, a troupe of far-from-angelic Santa Claus impersonators, and her father, Jack. But their merriment is soon dashed by a heated scuffle between Jack and the miserly president of the bank who's backing the project.

July 1910. Lady Hardcastle and her tireless sidekick Flo have finally embarked on a long-overdue seaside break. But just as they’re wavering between ice creams and donkey rides, their fellow guests start to go missing - and the duo find themselves with a hysterical hotel manager and a case to solve. The first to disappear is Dr Goddard, a scientist doing something terribly top-secret for the government.

During the election of a new Pope in the mid-18th century, famed violinist Antonio Vivaldi learns of a ring of art forgers who are replacing the Vatican’s priceless treasures with expertly-painted fakes. Desperate, the composer hides a message in a special melody, hoping someone, someday, will take down the culprits....

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.