Amateur Detective

Charlie and Diesel, along with Charlie's fiancee, Helen Louise Brady, are heading to Asheville, North Carolina, to spend a week at a boutique hotel and participate in a gathering of a mystery reader's club composed of patrons of the Athena Public Library. The always spry Ducote sisters, friends of the hotel's owners, are helping underwrite the expenses, and they've insisted that Charlie, Helen, and Diesel join them. When an intrusive, uninvited guest turns up dead, only one mystery club member with a connection to the deceased appears to have a motive to kill.

Jon Talbot is a history professor who makes sense of the past by examining facts. He also knows how to speculate about the what-ifs. Jon’s doing both following the death of his wife, Pax. Driving home late from a volunteer assignment, she plunged off a mountain highway and died. The police find nothing suspicious about the facts: a deer in the road, a blown tire, a broken neck. But the what-ifs are leading Jon down a twisting trail of secrets. After five years of marriage, he is finally getting to know his wife.

Alix London, the art restorer and FBI consultant renowned as the Art Whisperer, can spot a counterfeit masterpiece before the paint even dries. What she can't see is why an elite European art dealer would offer her big money for a little mirror that's no more than a homemade gift from her beloved uncle Tiny. Not that Alix would part with it at any price. But when the mirror is abruptly stolen from her home, she realizes that someone sees more in the looking glass than mere sentimental value.

In A Fatal Winter, Max Tudor - Anglican priest, former MI5 agent, and village heartthrob - investigates two deaths at Chedrow Castle. But his growing attraction to Awena Owen complicates his case, as does the recent arrival at Chedrow Castle of a raucous group of long-lost, greedy relatives, any one of whom has a motive for murder. With a cozy setting, intricate puzzles, and a handsome (non-celibate) priest doing the sleuthing, the books in this series are destined to become instant classics in the mystery world.

For Ellery Queen, there is no puzzle that reason cannot solve. In his time, he has faced down killers, thugs, and thieves, protected only by the might of his brain - and the odd bit of timely intervention by his father, a burly New York police inspector. But when a university professor asks Queen to teach a class, the detective finds there are people whom reason cannot touch: college students. Queen's adventure on campus is only the first of this incomparable collection of short mysteries.

Lucy McGuffin makes the best muffins in Whispering Bay, but her secret talent as a human lie detector hasn't always been as sweet. When she stumbles upon a dead body and her priest brother becomes a suspect, Lucy must use her skills to clear his name.

After losing her copywriting job, young Gwynne Dacres seeks a place to live when she stumbles upon Mrs. Garr's old boarding house. Despite the gruff landlady and an assortment of shifty tenants, Gwynne rents a room for herself. She spends her first few nights at 593 Trent Street tensely awake, the house creaking and groaning as if listening to everything that happens behind its closed doors. A chain of chilling events leads to the gruesome discovery of a mutilated body in the basement kitchen, dead of unknown circumstances. Was it an accident or murder?

Trapped on a burning mountain, the Queens take refuge with a killer. Dashing detective Ellery Queen and his father are driving over the pothole-scarred Arrow Mountain Road when they come face to face with a wall of flame. They tear back in the other direction, fire at their fenders, and finally find safety in a clearing, at the home of Dr. Xavier, a renowned surgeon. He is a genial man, but his distracted, mysterious smile conceals dark secrets.

Thanks to Aunt Peg and her enthusiastic dog show pals, Melanie's aptly named Bite Club reading group has book lovers all over town burying their noses in thrilling murder mysteries. But another pet project surfaces when Melanie reluctantly agrees to train a Bulldog puppy for elusive member Evan Major. Between the unusual bruise on his face and a bizarre run-in with an unknown dog show attendee, introverted Evan's penchant for trouble sends him to an early grave - while landing Melanie in the hot seat for homicide.

Trixie’s daughter Martha has taken up residence in the kitchen she shares with her friend Evangeline. Martha is frantically testing last-minute recipes to meet the deadline for her cookbook, helped by Jocasta, her overworked editor. When a strange man bursts into their lives, it’s revealed that Martha was not the first choice for the cookbook, and that the woman originally working on it died after eating something at a cooking demonstration. Unwanted guests descend on the already crowded and tense apartment, one of whom ends up dead.

As yuletide settles upon Gwenafwy Abbey, the rural Welsh convent's peace is shattered when Tiffany Reese, president of the Village Art Society, is found dead on the floor of the parish hall. Sister Agatha, whose interests lie more with reading and writing mystery stories than with making the abbey's world-renowned organic gouda, is not shy about inserting herself into the case. With the not-entirely eager assistance of Father Selwyn, she begins her investigation.

Erin Coleridge's used bookstore in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, England, is a meeting place for the villagers and, in particular, for the local Jane Austen Society. At the Society's monthly meeting, matters come to a head between the old guard and its young turks. After the meeting breaks for tea, persuasion gives way to murder with extreme prejudice when president Sylvia Pemberthy falls dead to the floor. Poisoned? Presumably, but by whom? And was Sylvia the only target?

Margaret Starling wasn't the sort of woman anyone expected to be murdered. She was a wealthy upper-class widow. But money alone won't protect you when someone decides it's high time you met your maker. Margaret wasn't as well-regarded as she'd always thought she was. But Mrs. Jeffries and Inspector Witherspoon know that justice isn't a popularity contest, and they won't rest until they sift through the suspects to catch a sinister scrooge.

Undercover mobster Joey "The Weasel" Frizzone needs to lay low before he testifies against a notorious mob boss, so the feds hide him in a place no one would ever think to look-sleepy Whispering Bay, Florida. But someone in the FBI must have a big mouth because soon there are enough hitmen in town to make it look like a Sopranos reunion. Local baker and amateur sleuth Lucy McGuffin just wants her quaint little beach town back-minus the mobsters. As the body count begins to rise, Lucy is forced to team up with handsome, but know-it-all cop Travis Fontaine.

While looking forward to her high school reunion back in California, Robbie's anticipation is complicated by memories of her mother's untimely death. At first, she has fun hanging out with her old classmates and reuniting with the local flavors - avocados, citrus, fish, and spicy Cali-Mex dishes. But then she gets wind of rumors that her mother, an environmental activist, may not have died of natural causes. With the help of friends, Robbie starts clearing the smoke surrounding the mystery - but what she finds could make it hard to get back to Indiana alive.

Autumn has come and gone on Scotland’s Isle of Glenroth, and the islanders gather for the Tartan Ball, the annual end-of-tourist-season gala. Spirits are high. A recently published novel about island history has brought hordes of tourists to the small Hebridean resort community. On the guest list is American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton. Kate returns reluctantly to the island where her husband died, determined to repair her relationship with his sister, proprietor of the island’s luxe country-house hotel, famous for its connection with Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The Book of Extraordinary Impossible Crimes and Puzzling Deaths is the latest collection from legendary murder mystery editor and writer Maxim Jakubowski. Filled with impossible murders and puzzling plot twists that keep your brain on the mysteries until the last minute. Clever fictional crime stories. Some of mystery fiction's most inventive talents from the USA and UK offer a series of brand-new ingenious murder stories that will have you scratching your brow until the very last minute and delighting in Machiavellian solutions.

Claire Hendricks can see ghosts, but she can't see herself having a fun vacation. Yet when her new friends/found family, Basher and Alex, insist, Claire and her dead BFF, Sophie, pack themselves off to a remote Irish island. This tempest-tossed isle is indeed full of noises: not only is the hotel where the gang is staying double booked with a posh private party, the island's crumbling old fort is being fought over by rival ghost pirates. In death, as in life, they're vying over a legendary stash of loot, supposedly hidden somewhere on the island or in the surrounding rough seas.

Sa première journée d'homme libre depuis vingt-sept ans. Elle a filé à une allure qui lui donne le tournis. Les derniers clients du restaurant s'en vont. Il ne va pas tarder, lui non plus. Il a hâte de se coucher dans un vrai lit. Il salue la patronne, une grosse femme joviale, et il sort. La soirée est douce. Derrière lui, le bruit d'une moto qu'on vient de mettre en marche...Il a tant d'idées en tête, tellement de sensations qui l'occupent tout entier qu'il ne prend pas la peine de se retourner. Il a tort.

Watson et Holmes au secours de la jeune fille éplorée, mais surtout face à une énigme pleine de mystères imbriqués. Mary Morstan a en effet perdu son père quelques années plus tôt mais reçoit chaque année une perle de grande beauté d'un mystérieux donateur. Et voilà que celui-ci est prêt à révéler non seulement son identité, mais aussi la raison de ses cadeaux. La rencontre tourne à la découverte d'un meurtre, et à la recherche sur les bords de la Tamise de meurtriers insaisissables.