Historical Cozy

She keeps house for Inspector Witherspoon...and keeps him on his toes. Everyone's awed by his Scotland Yard successes - but they don't know about his secret weapon. No matter how messy the murder or how dirty the deed, Mrs. Jeffries' polished detection skills are up to the task...proving that behind every great man, there's a woman - and that a crime-solver's work is never done.

Tautly narrated and excruciatingly suspenseful, Double Indemnity gives us an X-ray view of guilt, of duplicity, and of the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches. First published in 1936, this novel reaffirmed James M. Cain as a virtuoso of the roman noir...

Here together for the first time on CD, Santa Teresa P.I. Kinsey Millhone is still on the case… "G" Is for Gumshoe Kinsey Millhone’s thirty-third birthday brings about final renovations to her apartment, a new case, and the top slot on Tyrone Patty’s hit list. Obviously, it would turn out...

The evidence was all there: a dead body, two dessert plates, and a gun. Could it be that Mr. Ashbury was sharing his cake with his killer? The old bloke had enemies galore - even his own daughter disliked him. Mr. Ashbury's son-in-law doesn't want Inspector Witherspoon asking questions. Of course this doesn't stop Mrs. Jeffries and her staff from snooping around.

On a snowy Thursday morning in Lent 1964, a stranger seeks sanctuary in Grantchester’s church, convinced he has murdered his wife. Sidney and his wife Hildegard go for a shooting weekend in the country and find their hostess has a sinister burn on her neck. Sidney’s friend Amanda receives poison pen letters when at last she appears to be approaching matrimony. A firm of removal men 'accidentally' drop a Steinway piano on a musician’s head outside a Cambridge college.

As the London Daily Gazette’s popular gossip columnist, she is extremely adept at sneaking into houses, assuming disguises and overseeing a vast network of spies to ensure she stays abreast of the beau monde’s comings and goings. If it sometimes seems as though she was hiding behind the settee during a particularly fierce quarrel between a husband and his wife, it’s most likely because she was hiding behind the settee during their fierce quarrel.

Three murder mysteries. One diarist. Two brilliant but unlikely sleuths. Step into the dark heart of Restoration England with celebrated diarist, Samuel Pepys, and his loyal inquisitors, Abigail Harcourt and Jacob Standish, as they unravel deadly plotting behind respectable façades.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Hailed as “a combination of Eloise and Sherlock Holmes” by The Boston Globe, Flavia de Luce returns in a Christmas mystery from award-winning author Alan Bradley. In spite of being ejected from Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy in Canada, twelve-year-old Flavia...

In this fresh and immersive murder mystery that riffs on crime classics, the reader is put in the role of the Great Detective, reinvestigating an infamous never-before-solved case from 1970s England. You are invited to a very special murder mystery party. The game is simple: Listen to the...

Lord Edgington of Cranley Hall has some living to do. The next item to cross off on his list of grand ambitions is a serene balloon flight above his palatial estate. But, after a man falls to his death, the pleasant pursuit is interrupted, and the esteemed detective suspects foul play. With the help of his hapless grandson, their loyal golden retriever and a couple of parachutes, Lord Edgington must solve the murder before the meddlesome police arrive to take control of the case. But, when all of the suspects seem like such nice chaps, it's awfully difficult to spot a killer.

Evangeline "Evie" Parker, Countess of Woodridge, has trekked out to her country estate, Halton House. It's time to pick up the reins and re-establish herself in the district. No easy task when one of her afternoon tea guests is poisoned. Is it a coincidence when another guest is found dead from poison? Scotland Yard steps in. While Evie trusts they will find the killer, she takes exception when the finger of suspicion is pointed at her.

Outside the pale of the Abbey of Saint Peters and Saint Paul, in September of the year of our Lord 1140, a priestly emissary for King Stephen has been reported missing. But inside the pale, what troubles Brother Cadfael is a proud, secretive 19-year-old novice. Brother Cadfael has never seen two men more estranged than the Lord of Aspley and Meriet, the son he coldly delivers to the abbey to begin a religious vocation. Meriet, meek by day, is so racked by dreams at night that his howls earn him the nickname the Devil's Novice. Shunned and feared, Meriet is soon linked to the missing priest's dreadful fate. Only Brother Cadfael believes in Meriet's innocence, and only the good sleuth can uncover the truth before a boy's pure passion, not evil intent, leads a novice to the noose.

The gripping conclusion to the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling Gemma Doyle trilogy, an exhilarating and haunting saga from the author of The Diviners series and Under the Same Stars. "A rare treat . . . beautifully crafted."--People It has been a year of change since Gemma Doyle...

In September 1926, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher visits Sybil Sutherby, a school friend now living in Derbyshire as the confidential secretary to a novelist. Suspecting that something is seriously amiss, Sybil has asked Daisy to discretely investigate. Upon arrival, Daisy finds a household of relatives and would-be suitors living off the hospitality of Humphrey Birtwhistle, who had been supporting them through his thrice-yearly, pseudonymous Westerns. When he took ill, though, Sybil took over writing them while he recovered, only to see the sales increase. Now, she fears that someone in the household is poisoning Birtwhistle to keep him ill and Sybil writing the better-paying versions.

Lucy and Robert's joy in christening their new daughter, surrounded by extended family and loved ones who have gathered in the village of Kurland St. Mary, is only enhanced when Robert's aunt Rose - now the second wife of Lucy's father, Ambrose - announces that she is with child. However, not everyone is happy about the news, in particular Rose's adult daughter, Henrietta, and her husband, who fear for their inheritance. Following the christening, Rose's disagreeable son-in-law Basil Northam threatens to turn afternoon tea in the rectory into an unsightly brawl.

The most dramatic installment yet in the Nero Award–winning Pentecost and Parker series, as Will scrambles to solve a shocking murder before Lillian takes the fall for the crime. NEW YORK CITY, 1947: Wealthy financier and ghoulish connoisseur of crime, Jessup Quincannon, is dead, and famed...

Bath, England, 1890. Mystery author Lady Amy Lovell receives an anonymous letter containing shocking news: her fiancé, Mr. Ronald St. Vincent, has been dabbling in something illegal, which causes her to promptly break their engagement. Two evenings later, as Lady Amy awaits a visit from Lord William Wethington, fellow member of the Bath Mystery Book Club, her former fiancé makes an unexpected and most unwelcome appearance at her house.

Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, will not do the bidding of Hell and Fury Hawes. It does not matter how difficult it is to find new murder mysteries to investigate, especially ones where the victim was stabbed with a chisel. She absolutely refuses to lift a finger to help him figure out who killed one of his associates.

Thomas Mundy checks in to London's Wrexley Hotel, but he never checks out. The maid finds him on the floor of his room, bludgeoned to death by his own walking stick. Inspector Witherspoon is soon on the case and learns Mundy was an unlikely victim for such a violent crime. But Mrs. Jeffries and the household staff uncover that Mundy was less an amiable businessman and more a duplicitous con man with enemies on both sides of the Atlantic. Now Witherspoon and his staff must determine who on their lengthy list of suspects had the motive to put Mundy in the red.

Bridgestead is a peaceful spot: a babbling brook, rolling hills, and a working mill at its heart. Pretty and remote, nothing exceptional happens...until the day that Master of the Mill Joshua Braithwaite goes missing under dramatic circumstances, never to be heard of again. Now Joshua's daughter is getting married and wants to make one last attempt at finding her father. Kate Shackleton has always loved solving puzzles. So who better to get to the bottom of Joshua's mysterious disappearance?