Cozy Crime Fiction

In the past . . . On a blisteringly hot August afternoon in Crystal Palace, once home to the tragically destroyed Great Exhibition, a solitary thirteen-year-old boy meets his next-door neighbor, a recently widowed young teacher hoping to make a new start in the tight-knit South London community...

Lucien Comte de Chacarasse genießt das Leben an der Côte d’Azur in vollen Zügen: azurblaues Wasser, provenzalische Köstlichkeiten und die Leichtigkeit des Sommers. Doch dann überbringt sein Onkel Edmond einen neuen Mordauftrag. Das Opfer, ein schwerreicher Argentinier, lebt auf Sardinien. Und der Mann soll unbedingt vor seiner deutlich älteren Frau das Zeitliche segnen. Warum, will Edmond nicht verraten. Notgedrungen reist Lucien auf die italienische Mittelmeerinsel. Während er sein Opfer ausspioniert, hat er eine geniale Idee: Er inszeniert eine Entführung – und geht im letzten Moment dazwischen.

If America had a royal family, the Taylor Winthrops would wear the crown. The popular, charismatic Winthrops have captured the imagination of the world with their public service, their enormous charity, and their glamorous lives. But in the period of one year, all five members of the family are...

The Premier No.1 Garage is the place to go in Mumbai if you want a luxury car. Even Mumbai's biggest gangster shops there - he's just ordered a classic race car worth millions. But now the car is gone. Stolen from a locked room in the middle of the night. Who stole it? The mechanic who is addicted to gambling? The angry ex-worker? The car thief pulling off one last job? And how on earth did they make it vanish from the locked garage? Inspector Chopra has just days to find the culprit - and the missing car - before its gangster owner finds out...and takes violent revenge.

Sheriff Joanna Brady’s best intentions to stay on maternity leave take a hit when a serial homicide case rocks Cochise County, dragging her into a far-reaching investigation to bring down a relentless killer in this chilling tale of suspense from New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance...

“A little beauty of a story….A hot, fast read with pungent characters.” —Los Angeles Times “A slam-bang, no-bull action thriller…and nobody but nobody writes better dialogue.” —New York Daily News It’s an established fact: Elmore Leonard is “the uncontested master of the...

He is a record collector and a connoisseur of vinyl, hunting out rare and elusive LPs. His business card describes him as the Vinyl Detective, and some people take this more literally than others. For example, the beautiful, mysterious woman who wants to pay him a large sum of money to find a priceless lost recording on behalf of an extremely wealthy yet shadowy client. And so begins a painful and dangerous odyssey in search of the rarest jazz record of them all....

Venice, 1954. Rosy Gilchrist thinks luck may be on her side. Her boss at the British Museum has chosen her to travel to Venice to track down a rare edition of Horace's Odes for their collection. Things soon take a drastic downward spiral. A wealthy recluse offers a million-pound reward for anyone who can find the treasure. Soon Rosy finds herself in a race against time as her rivals will do anything for money. Even murder.

The acclaimed author of haunting crime novels of the Pacific Northwest reaches new heights of suspense. Four times in his 10-year search for the perfect woman, Gordon Murphy has been wrong. Now, he's set his sights on Cassandra Mitchell--despite the fact that she's living happily with Staff...

Fans have been fed short rations when it comes to Kinsey Millhone's past. We know of the aunt who raised her, the second husband who left her, the long-lost family up the California coast. But husband number one, vice-cop Mickey Macgruder, remained a mystery, until now. The call came from a...

In the picturesque seaside town of St Ives, Detective Sergeant Sophie Keane is a pillar of the community. Between the occasional collar and lazy weekends spent on the beach, it seems a perfect life. But for Sophie, the golden sands and crystal waters hide a dark secret, one that's lain buried for twenty years. When a body turns up on the opening night of a glittering new art gallery on the seafront, the town is left shaken—especially Sophie, who recognizes the killer's style but knows that what she fears just couldn't be possible.

“Elmore Leonard can write circles around almost anybody active in the crime novel today.” —New York Times Book Review With more than forty novels to his credit and still going strong, the legendary Elmore Leonard has well earned the title, “America’s greatest crime writer” (Newsweek)...

During the week between Christmas and New Year's, the year-round population of Key West, Florida, faces a tsunami of tourists and snowbirds. It doesn't help that outrageously wealthy key-lime-pie aficionado David Sloan has persuaded the city to host his pie-baking contest. Every pie purveyor on the island is out to win the coveted Key Lime Key to the City, and Key Zest food-critic Hayley Snow is on the scene to report it. Meanwhile, Hayley's home life is turning more tart than sweet.

Out walking near the rain-swelled river running past her small Welsh town, she comes across the body of Amber Morgan. Fabia’s police training tells her instantly that the death is the result of foul play. But no longer in the force, all she can do is call it in. Yet she has mixed feelings when she discovers it is her former colleague, Matt Lambert, newly promoted to chief inspector, who will head the investigation into the girl’s death.

As the sun rises, a wealthy young woman, Samantha Seabrook, is found drowned in the ornamental fountain of a deserted Cambridge courtyard, the only clue: an antique silver chain wound tightly around her throat. It’s Tara Thorpe’s job to discover what happened to Miss Seabrook. But the case becomes personal when she learns that Samantha had been receiving death threats, rather like the one that landed on Tara’s doorstep the night the woman died. Together with Detective Inspector Garstin Blake, Tara tracks the killer to the dank and dangerous fens on the outskirts of the city.

In a symbolic journey of reconciliation, the Monsoon Express is travelling between hostile neighbours India and Pakistan. The passenger list includes politicians, celebrities, former Mumbai policeman Inspector Chopra and his baby elephant ward, Ganesha. Then a senior diplomat is found murdered in his cabin. Accusations fly, tensions rise and an international incident seems certain. But is the murder political - or personal?

“Cat Chaser is just what one would expect from Elmore Leonard—quirky, peopled with oddball characters…and more twists and turns than a roller coaster.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer “A superior example of gritty writing and violent action.” —New York Times There are numerous reasons...

For Libby Beckett, opening her charming yarn shop, and introducing customers to the joys of knitting and crochet, is the work she was meant to do. Until the yarn she loves is used for murder…. Libby has come home to Collinstown, Maryland to live her dream and open her own yarn shop, aptly...

A classic Ngaio Marsh mystery thriller combining drugs and sacrifice. High in the mountains stands the magnificent Saracen fortress, home of the mysterious Mr. Oberon, leader of a coven of witches. It is not the historic castle, however, that intrigues Roderick Alleyn, on holiday with his family, but the suspicion that a huge drugs ring operates from within its ancient portals. But before the holiday is over, someone else has stumbled upon the secret.

Marion Sharpe and her mother seem an unlikely duo to be found on the wrong side of the law. Quiet and ordinary, they have led a peaceful and unremarkable life at their country home, The Franchise. Unremarkable that is, until the police turn up with a demure young woman on their doorstep.Not only does Betty Kane accuse them of kidnap and abuse, she can back up her claim with a detailed description of the attic room in which she was kept, right down to the crack in its round window.