Amateur Sleuth Suspense

It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favorite criminal. But when Elizabeth meets a wedding guest who’s in trouble, kidnap and death are hot on their heels. A villain wants access to an uncrackable code and will stop at nothing to get it. Plunged back into action once more, can the gang solve the puzzle and a murder in time?

Meg Gates could use a guidebook for life. Indeed, she's faced some challenges. She dropped out of college to work for a tech startup that failed—and her fiancé just took her bridesmaid to Italy on what was supposed to be Meg's honeymoon. Now, at twenty-six, Meg has taken the ferry ride of shame from Seattle back to Bainbridge Island to live with her family. At least she has her rescue cocker spaniel, Watson, by her side. But it's Meg who could use a rescue—and she's hoping it will come in the form of a part-time gig doing research for a bestselling mystery writer.

Judith Potts is 77 years old and blissfully happy. She lives on her own in a faded mansion just outside Marlow, there’s no man in her life to tell her what to do or how much whisky to drink, and to keep herself busy she sets crosswords for The Times newspaper. One evening, while out swimming in the Thames, Judith witnesses a brutal murder. The local police don’t believe her story, so she decides to investigate for herself and is soon joined in her quest by Suzie, a salt-of-the-earth dog-walker, and Becks, the prim and proper wife of the local vicar.

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran-and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.

Kalina Greystone’s return home to Ellesworth, MA, to take over the family's comic book shop brings back old friends and even older secrets. The death of her great-aunt Agatha in plain sight at the annual Solstice Fair pushes her to snoop where she doesn't belong—much to the chagrin of former high school sweetheart, Detective Christian Harper. As Kalina digs into her great aunt's past, she uncovers a dark truth that Agatha and her closest friends were hoping to take to the grave. A truth the killer wants revealed.

England, 1941. The tranquil village of Crofter’s Green seems like a haven from the chaos of wartime. But when a local air raid warden is found dead in the village churchyard, five villagers--some getting on in years and none of them policemen--decide they need to uncover the truth.

Ruth and Nelson investigate a string of murders and disappearances deep within the abandoned tunnels hidden far beneath the streets of Norwich. Norwich is riddled with old chalk-mining tunnels, but no one's sure exactly how many. When Ruth is called in to investigate a set of human remains found in one of them, she notices the bones are almost translucent - a sign they were boiled soon after death. Once more she finds herself at the helm of a murder investigation.

Sharing lodging in the sleepy English village of Walmsley Parva has eased some of the financial strain on the two old school chums, but money is still tight in these years following the Great War. So when the local vicar - and pigeon-racing club president - approaches them with a private inquiry opportunity, the ladies accept. There's been a spot of bother: The treasurer has absconded with the club's funds and several prized birds. But when they visit the man's loft, they find their elusive quarry lying in white feathers and a pool of crimson blood - the only witnesses cooing mournfully.

In 1814, Atlas Catesby, a brilliant adventurer and youngest son of a baron, is anxious to resume his world travels after a carriage accident left him injured in London. But his plans are derailed when, passing through a country village, he discovers a helpless woman being auctioned off to the highest bidder - by her husband. In order to save her, Atlas purchases the lady, Lilliana, on the spot to set her free. But Lilliana, desperate to be with her young sons and knowing the laws of England give a father all parental rights, refuses to be rescued.

No one would ever accuse famous opera star Dame Serena Levante of lacking a flare for the dramatic. Unfortunately, it's curtains down on the dysfunctional diva when she's found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her elegant home. Solving an opera singer's murder may not be the typical hairdresser's aria of expertise. But Dame Serena was the mother of Daisy's best friend Floria, so Daisy must do-or-dye her best to get to the roots of the case.

Frances Wynn, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, enjoys more freedom as a widow than she did as a wife. After an obligatory year spent mourning her philandering husband, Reggie, she puts aside her drab black gowns, leaving the countryside and her money-grubbing in-laws behind. With her young daughter in tow, Frances rents a home in Belgravia and prepares to welcome her sister, Lily, arriving from New York - for her first London season.

Tucked away among Devon's rolling green hills, Mallowan Hall combines the best of English tradition with the modern conveniences of 1930. Housekeeper Phyllida Bright, as efficient as she is personable, manages the large household with an iron fist in her very elegant glove. In one respect, however, Mallowan Hall stands far apart from other picturesque country houses. The manor is home to archaeologist Max Mallowan and his famous wife, Agatha Christie.

Aristocratic adventurer Atlas Catesby has spent the last year trying to forget Lady Lilliana Warwick, but when she reappears in his life imploring him to help her solve a murder, Atlas feels compelled to say yes. The ner're-do-well brother of Lilliana's maid died of arsenic poisoning. Authorities are ruling his death an accident, but his sister suspects he was murdered.

After the unexpected death of her father, college student Jane Sharp longs for a distraction from her grief. She becomes obsessed with true crime, befriending armchair detectives who teach her how to hunt killers from afar. In this morbid internet underground, Jane finds friendship, purpose and even glory. So when news of the shocking deaths of three college girls in Delphine, Idaho, takes the world by storm, and sleuths everywhere race to solve the crimes, Jane and her friends are determined to beat them. But the case turns out to be stranger than anyone expected.

Pamela is hosting the next Knit and Nibble meeting and can't wait to liven up her otherwise empty home with colorful yarn, baking, and a little harmless gossip. She even recruits Amy Morgan, an old friend who recently moved to town, as the group's newest member. But on the night of the gathering, Amy doesn't show. Not until Pamela finds the woman dead outside - a knitting needle stabbed through the front of her handmade sweater....

Thanks to a series of unfortunate events - and one backstabbing frenemy - home is exactly where I'm headed. Back to Winterspell Lake, where magic runs rampant and humans are outlawed. Faster than you can say hocus pocus I'm unpacking my bags and settling into the guest room of my parents' house, trying to ignore the creeping sensation that I'll never break free again. The one thing Winterspell has going for it is the sweets shop in the center of town, a bakery filled with magical creations designed to enchant the taste buds and charm even the pickiest of connoisseurs.

Follow Mae West as she searches for clues to bring killers to justice in this Campers and Criminals Cozy Mystery bundle.

After Lindsey Bakeswell catches her celebrity chef fiance sizzling in the arms of another woman, Lindsey leaves big city Wall Street for small town Beacon Harbor, Michigan, to pursue her own passion as a pastry baker - and gets mixed up in someone's sweet taste of revenge.

Known as the Brighton of the North, Nairn is both a charming Scottish town and a popular seaside resort - but to Paislee Shaw, it's simply home - unfortunately to a murderer....

When acclaimed mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers first began compiling anthologies of the best crime stories in the 1920s and ’30s, the genre was in the flush of its first golden age. While it is hard to imagine today - after every possible mystery plot has been told, retold, subverted, and played straight again by hundreds of writers over nearly a century - in Sayers’s day there were still twists that had never been seen, and machinations of crime that would shock even jaded Jazz Age fans.