Cozy Crime Fiction

Scandal hits the staid publishing house of Barnabas when one of the directors is found dead in the strong-room. Suspicion immediately falls on his wife's lover, the junior partner in the firm. But how does an unpublished Restoration comedy come to feature in the tragedy? And what of the odd disappearance of another director twenty years before?

Autumn, 1921. Lady Eleanor Swift is invited to her old school, St Mary’s, as a guest speaker. Her favorite teacher, Mrs. Wadsworth, has asked that Eleanor talk about her intrepid travels around the globe - travelling the Silk Road by bicycle, crossing the Himalayas and even befriending the Maharaja of India. But in the circumstances, perhaps it would have been a good idea to talk about her career as a daring detective. Because no sooner has Eleanor brushed up on her times tables than she is greeted by terrible news: Mrs. Wadsworth has been murdered.

Winter, 1921. Lady Eleanor Swift, amateur sleuth and reluctant lady of the manor, has been invited to spend Christmas in Scotland, at the beautiful castle of her dear friends Baron and Baroness Ashley. Even her favourite companion, master of mischief Gladstone the bulldog, is coming along to share a slice of turkey. As snow begins to fall outside, the rather mismatched group are cozy by the roaring fire, sharing a tipple over a plate of Mrs. Trotman’s famous mince pies.

"The Song Never Dies": When Alex King, leader of legendary 90s rock group Lizard, hosts a party to get the band back together, old grudges surface. At dawn Alex is found floating in the pool of his Cherringham mansion. To the police it's a drug-fueled accident. But when Jack and Sarah get involved, they quickly discover that while a song may never die - the person, who wrote it, might have been murdered.

Discover clean and fun best-selling cozy mysteries by Amber Crewes to enjoy! A light cozy-mystery series with an amateur female sleuth, mouth-watering culinary desserts, and 13 gripping murder mysteries!

A winter weekend ends in snowbound disaster in a novel which remains a favourite among Marsh readers. It began as an entertainment: eight people, many of them enemies, gathered for a winter weekend by a host with a love for theatre. They would be the characters in a drama that he would devise. It ended in snowbound disaster. Everyone had an alibi - and most had motives as well. But Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn, when he finally arrived, knew it all hung on Thomas, the dancing footman....

Cherringham - a quiet town in the Cotswolds. Nothing ever happens there, or so it seems - until one morning a woman's body is found in the river. A terrible accident, according to the police. But is this true? Sarah believes there must be more to it. In Jack, a former NYPD homicide detective, she finds a partner who is willing to start investigating with her. They soon find out that things are not as clear as the police want them to be ... This first - of many cases brings Sarah and Jack together in an unlikely partnership.

When Adeline Bertrand-Verdon, the haughty, conniving president of the Proust Association, is murdered, Inspector Jean-Pierre Foucheroux is called on to lead the investigation. Soon Inspector Foucheroux is overwhelmed by a seemingly endless list of suspects: from her assistant to her colleagues, her fiancé to her lover, almost everyone Adeline knew had motive to kill her.

My Grandmother, Agnes Bartlett, used to own Cardinal Woolsey's knitting shop then died and left her shop to me, without informing me that she wasn't actually dead. She's a vampire and part of the world's strangest craft circle-the Vampire Knitting Club. As you might imagine, this means she's free to interfere in how I run the business that used to be hers. She's trying to teach me to knit, and it's not going well. She's also trying to teach me how to be a witch, since it turns out I'm from a long line of witches.

Murder, blackmail and drug dealing on the Tiber combine in one of Ngaio Marsh’s liveliest and most evocative novels. When their guide disappears mysteriously in the depths of a Roman basilica, the members of Mr. Sebastian Mailer’s tour group seem strangely unperturbed. But when a body is discovered in an Etruscan sarcophagus, Superintendent Alleyn, in Rome incognito on the trail of an international drug racket, is very much concerned.

Romance is in the air on Harrington Street, Oxford. Detective Inspector Ian Chisholm is finally showing interest in Lucy, though the members of the vampire knitting club aren't too thrilled to have the police hanging around so close to Cardinal Woolsey's yarn shop. Up the street at Frogg Books, shop assistant Alice is in love with her bookish boss, Charlie, who doesn't seem to notice.

Christmastime in an isolated country house and, following a flaming row in the kitchen, there’s murder inside. When a much disliked visiting servant disappears without trace after playing Santa Claus, foul play is at once suspected - and foul play it proves to be. Only suspicion falls not on the staff but on the guests, all so unimpeachably respectable that the very thought of murder in connection with any of them seems almost heresy.

The past doesn’t always stay in the past. Deeds can come back to haunt us. That’s what happens to florist Peony Bellefleur’s protégé and young witch, Char, when her old boyfriend turns up out of the blue saying he wants another chance. Turns out he’s really on the run from crime.

A body is discovered deep in a cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales. Leading the investigation into the mysterious death are experienced DCI Jim Oldroyd and his partner DS Carter, a newcomer from London. The deceased is Dave Atkins, well known throughout the village but not well liked. While there is no shortage of suspects, the details of the crime leave Oldroyd and Carter stumped.

In Lace and Lies, the knitting shop's been chosen to appear on TV with celebrity knitting designer Teddy Lamont, but things go wrong on and off the camera, and somebody doesn't make it to the final credits.

Winter, 1920. Amateur sleuth Lady Eleanor Swift is feeling festive. She is playing host to the entire village at Henley Hall. She’s also purchased perfect presents for each of her household - not forgetting the biggest bone in the butcher’s shop for her partner in crime, Gladstone the bulldog - and is looking forward to celebrating her first English country Christmas. As snowflakes fall, Eleanor is cheering on contestants in the traditional Christmas fun run in the grounds of the hall. But tragedy strikes when one of the runners drops dead at the finish line.

Annie Murray's festive plans at the Secret Bookcase are thrown into disarray when a celebrity baker drops dead during a gingerbread-baking competition… As whispers of foul play swirl like snowflakes, Annie soon finds herself tangled in a web of secrets, small-town rivalry, and long-buried mysteries. With pub owner and new love Liam by her side and the help of her loyal bookstore colleagues, Annie sets out to solve Redwood Grove’s latest murder mystery.

Newly appointed police inspector Domenic Jejeune doesn't mind ruffling a few feathers. His success has elevated him into a poster boy for the police. The problem is Jejeune doesn't really want to be a detective at all; he much prefers watching birds. Recently reassigned to the small Norfolk town of Saltmarsh, Jejeune's two worlds collide with the grisly murder of a prominent ecological activist.

Mercy and Lizzie McCarthy are settling in to the charming seaside village of Shamrock Cove on the west coast of Ireland. Lizzie throws herself into organizing a book festival and mystery writer Mercy even agrees to come out of her bookish hidey-hole to do get involved. But then the star author for the event is found dead. James Brandt was killed by a falling bookshelf in his own cottage… The local detective is not convinced by Mercy’s suspicion of murder but when someone else turns up dead, the police cannot ignore it.

Carpenter, the Paterson, N.J., lawyer whose wealth allows him to work as seldom as he chooses, is recovering from the loss of the love of his life, Laurie Collins, who has moved home to Findlay, Wis., to become the acting chief of police. When Laurie calls Andy for help after arresting 21-year-old Jeremy Davidson for murders that she thinks he didn't commit, Andy can't resist heading off to Findlay with his faithful dog, Tara.