Amateur Sleuth Suspense

It's Christmas time in Caerphilly, and the town is preparing for their live nativity. During rehearsals, Meg discovers a real baby in the manger, with a note attached that says the mother is leaving the baby girl there so that her father can take care of her, and the wording of the note implicates Meg's brother, Rob, as the father. Rob protests that he can't possibly be the father, but the town's suspicion creates a rift between him and his new girlfriend. Rob asks Meg to investigate on his behalf‚ to clear his name and to find the real parents of the baby.

Gossip columnists love a bold-faced name - but "Miss Newsy" at Greyborne Harbor's local paper seems to specialize in bald-faced lies. She's pointed a finger of suspicion at Addie after librarian June Winslow never makes it home from a book club meeting. And when June's found at the bottom of a steep flight of stairs, Addie's not only dealing with a busybody, but a dead body. It's a good thing the guy Addie's dating is the police chief. But both the case and her love life get more complicated when a lanky blonde reporter from Los Angeles shows up.

Frances and her husband, George, have two points of interest in Paris. One is an impromptu holiday to visit the Paris Exposition. The other is personal. George’s Aunt Julia has requested her nephew’s help in looking into the suspicious death of renowned artist Paul Ducasse. Though Julia is not entirely forthcoming about her reasons, she is clearly a woman mourning a lost love. At the exposition, swarming with tourists, tragedy casts a pall on the festivities. A footbridge collapses. Julia is among the casualties. However, she was not just another fateful victim.

Murder is a dish best served ice cold... In the idyllic, small town of Dewstow, Margery and Clementine are eagerly awaiting retirement from their work on the front-line serving meals to the students at Summerview secondary school. Their peaceful life is shattered when their kitchen manager is found dead in the school’s walk-in freezer. The police are adamant that it’s an open-and-shut case of accidental death. But Margery and Clementine are convinced that something more sinister is afoot and take it upon themselves to investigate.

Alfie McAlister has retreated from London to the peace and quiet of the country to recover from a personal tragedy. But an accidental death - which may have been no accident - reveals that the heart of England is far from the tranquil backwater he imagined. After arriving in Bunburry, he is co-opted as an amateur detective by Liz and Marge, two elderly ladies who were best friends with Alfie's late Aunt Augusta. And it is not long before their investigations take an even more dramatic turn.

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 . . .

After the West London Museum suffers extensive fire damage, the shop owners on Baker Street come together to hold an afternoon auction tea to raise funds to rebuild it. Cape Cod's cognoscenti file into Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room, but the auction never happens. Before the gavel can fall, museum-board chair Kathy Lamb is found dead in the back room. Wrapped tightly around her neck is a long rope of decorative knotted tea cups. Gemma's boyfriend in blue, Ryan Ashburton, arrives on the scene with Detective Louise Estrada. But the suspect list is long, and the case is far from elementary.

C.S. Harris’ best-selling Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries transport listeners back to the elegance and courtly drama of Regency England. When a wealthy diamond merchant turns up dead, Sebastian sets out to prove the innocence of the man accused - his former lover Kat’s husband. A missing gem seems to be the key, but as Sebastian traces its origins, he discovers unsettling ties to black magic.

In 1982, Italian financier Roberto Calvi, known as “God’s Banker”, was discovered hanging under London’s Blackfriars Bridge. What wasn’t found was the briefcase he was known to have had with him the night before, reportedly stuffed with incriminating documents, a special key, and a computer disk filled with codes, which together unlock a piece of the Vatican’s troubled past. When the briefcase mysteriously reappears in the Vatican Secret Archives, Father Michael Dominic and his team are up against two powerful and enigmatic organizations.

When a local Maui resort is attacked, it’s all hands on deck to try and find the culprit. Which means Charlie is on the case, but so is Jake. And the last time they worked the same case was choppier than the North Shore waves during a storm surge. But Charlie’s got more to worry about than just solving this case. For one thing, why has her mom been acting strangely? And have the Ham brothers in Seattle gotten the message to leave her alone? Charlie could really use another drink, but she’s going to have to keep a clear head if she’s going to get to the bottom of this case.

It’s almost Halloween, and the small island of Charm, North Carolina, is decked out for the festivities. When Everly Swan agrees to close her iced tea shop early to help her aunts host their annual haunted historic walking tour, she expects some good-natured spooks. But the night turns grave when one of the ghostly actors is found dead. To complicate matters, the victim scratched Everly’s name into the ground before she died, making her a key suspect.

Bostonian Maura is beginning to feel settled in her new Irish home, just in time for summer tourist season to bring fresh business to her pub. But the first traveler to arrive is thirsty for more than just a pint of Guinness. Althea Melville is hot on the trail of a long-lost Van Dyck painting. Maura agrees to help Althea meet with the residents at the local manor house, the most likely location of the missing art. But when the manor's gardener is found murdered, Maura wonders what Althea's real motives are.

It’s Christmas, and things are looking good at the Slocombe house. Thea’s daughter Jessica has come to stay, much to her stepdaughter Stephanie’s delight. But then things take a turn for the worse. A local family, the Frowses, finds themselves increasingly harassed by an aggressive landlord. When Beverley Frowse goes missing, Thea and Stephanie both feel they should do their best to help her husband and son to solve the mystery.

A haunted library is no place for a girl who can see ghosts, but when Verity Long stumbles on a dead body in the middle of the main reading room, she has to believe someone…even a dead someone…must have witnessed the crime. Her ghostly sidekick Frankie warns her to stay out of it. The very alive, very handsome deputy sheriff, Ellis Wydell, inadvertently places her directly in the middle of it. And her ex-fiancé, Ellis’s brother, is back with an agenda of his own.

Surprise ! Beatrice Hyde-Clare, éternelle célibataire, se retrouve fiancée au duc de Kesgrave... et accablée par les obligations d'une telle union sous la Régence anglaise. Submergée par l'interminable liste de ses devoirs en tant que future duchesse de Kesgrave, Beatrice n'a qu'une envie : se changer les idées avec un bon mystère à résoudre. Heureusement, c'est exactement ce que la comtesse d'Abercrombie lui a promis ! Or celle-ci refuse maintenant de lui donner les détails de l'affaire et Bea découvre que cette nouvelle enquête la touche de beaucoup plus près qu'elle ne l'aurait jamais imaginé.

When millionaire magnate, Rex Hunter is found with his head bashed in on the eighth hole of his prestigious golf and country club in beautiful Chianti, it’s a clear case of murder. Hunter was rich and successful and the envy of many, so retired DCI Dan Armstrong thinks the case will be a hole in one to solve.But as Dan and his trusty sidekick Oscar begin to dig deeper into Hunter’s lifestyle, they discover a man despised by many. A renowned womaniser, ruthless boss and heartless family man, it seems no one is particularly sorry to see Hunter dead.

Aurora "Roe" Teagarden's fortunes change when a deceased acquaintance names her as heir to a rather substantial estate, including money, jewelry, and a house complete with a skull hidden in a window seat. Roe concludes that the elderly women has purposely left her a murder to solve. So she must identify the victim and figure out which one of her new, ordinary-seeming neighbors is a murderer - without putting herself in deadly danger.

When Marlow House reopens as a bed and breakfast, one of its first guests is Danielle's former mother-in-law, who Danielle has not talked to since moving to Oregon. The mother-in-law brings with her one of the country's top mediums. Or as Danielle calls him, one of the country's top con-men.

It's late spring in Juliet's charming hamlet of Ashland. Torte is baking a bevy of spring delights—lemon curd cupcakes, mini coconut cream pies, grapefruit tartlets, and chocolate dipped almond Tuiles. Meanwhile, Juliet's friend Lance, the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, is taking center stage with his new theater troupe—the Fair Verona Players. Their performance in Uva's vineyard promises to be a modern, gender-bending twist on "The Taming of the Shrew," but as the curtain rises, so do the strange occurrences.

When Val’s forced to take up dog-sitting as a second career, she runs into one tiny snag. She’s afraid of dogs. In fact, the only thing she’s more afraid of is Tom moving in and wrecking her Sweatpants Saturdays. With neighbor Laverne facing the same impending doom, the two women decide sabotage is the perfect solution to change the plans of their cohabitation-minded boyfriends. But their scheme soon gets sidetracked when a swarthy guy with a shady past moves in next door and neighborhood dogs start disappearing.