Amateur Sleuth Suspense

The Queens are intrigued when a grisly murder mars a small town's Christmas. It's Christmas in Chicago, and Detective Richard Queen is enjoying a busman's holiday at a conference on gangland violence - but his son, amateur sleuth Ellery, is bored silly. Until, that is, Ellery reads of an unusual killing in rural Arroyo, West Virginia. A schoolmaster has been found beheaded and crucified. Ellery hustles his father into his roadster and heads east, since there is nothing he'd like better for Christmas than a juicy, gruesome puzzle.

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.

There are only two possibilities: either lovely old Miss Beresford from Earlsraven is suffering from dementia or there's something fishy going on at her house! But what has Nathalie got to do with it? The young woman has just moved from Liverpool to tranquil Earlsraven to take up her aunt's legacy: the Black Feather pub. But when Miss Beresford discovers a dead body in her garden, Nathalie and her cook Louise begin to investigate. About the series: There was nothing in the will about this... Cottages, English roses and rolling hills: that's Earlsraven.

St Michael’s Church may be derelict but it’s not deserted. Someone still comes here to worship on nights when the moon is full. Arnold Landon should know. He’s seen the grisly evidence for himself. Blood among the roses. The butchered remains of a man, tangled in the undergrowth. The victim was a traveler. How did he come to be in the churchyard? Arnold has a theory that leads back centuries, all the way to the cult of the Raging Wolf. Everyone tells him it’s impossible, that the cultists are dead and buried. But the devil wears many faces.

Heavens to Betsy Devonshire! She never intended to get so caught up in this year's antique car race. But as sponsor of one of the entrants, she can't help but keep a close eye on the outcome - and it's not pretty. One of the drivers never makes it to the finish line. His car is found exploded in flames. Now Betsy and her crafty friends must determine if it was an accident or the work of a jealous competitor. The answer may be in a piece of needlework, but pinning down a suspect won't be easy....

Rick Montoya has just moved from Santa Fe to Rome, embracing the life of a translator. He's beginning to settle in to la dolce vita when school friend Beppo, now senior in the Italian Art Squad, recruits Rick for an unofficial undercover role. Armed with a list of galleries, suspects, and an expense account, Rick arrives in Tuscany posing as a buyer for a Santa Fe gallery to flush out traffickers in priceless burial urns. However, before sunset on his first day in Volterra, the challenge intensifies. Rick has one quick conversation with a gallery employee who dies minutes later in a brutal fall from a high cliff.

When an elderly homeless woman is found dead on the shore of Lake Minnetonka, she's wearing something that holds the key to her identity but also opens up a mystery. Embroidered on her blouse is her will, in which she bequeaths everything she owns to her niece: Emily Hame, a member of the Monday Bunch at Betsy Devonshire's Crewel World needlework shop! Emily's aunt turns out to be the second homeless woman to be found dead under mysterious circumstances.

A twister, a kidnapping, and a murder - oh my! Scumble River may never be the same. For school psychologist Skye Denison, there's certainly no place like home. When a violent tornado devastates her small hometown of Scumble River, she can't see how the community will ever recover - especially since town councilman Zeke Lyons appears to have perished in the twister. But things get even worse for Skye when her police chief husband, Wally, disappears in the midst of investigating Zeke's death, and evidence arises pointing to foul play.

Mystery author Rachel Goldman is getting used to the idea that her fictional creation, Duffy Madison, has somehow taken flesh-and-blood form and is investigating missing person cases not far from where Rachel lives. Wait. No. She's not getting used to it at all, and the presence of this real-life Duffy is making her current manuscript - what's the word? - lousy.

Professor Theo Cray is trained to see patterns where others see chaos. So when mutilated bodies found deep in the Montana woods leave the cops searching blindly for clues, Theo sees something they missed. Something unnatural. Something only he can stop. As a computational biologist, Theo is more familiar with digital code and microbes than the dark arts of forensic sleuthing.

Only Murders in Gotham, the smash hit streaming show, is famous for filming in authentic New York City locations and using real New Yorkers as extras. For their latest episode, they've chosen to spotlight the century-old Village Blend and its quirky crew of baristas. But when the film crew's week of shooting delivers an actual shooting, coffeehouse manager and master roaster Clare Cosi and her staff find themselves at the scene of a true crime.

When a local woman begins searching for a couple she hasn't seen since the 1960s, Redwood Cove Bed and Breakfast manager Kelly Jackson and the crime-solving group the Silver Sentinels are quick to help out. They're also quick to guess that they're in over their heads after the woman is found dead beside the body of a Greek fortune teller - and a fellow Sentinel gets attacked.

Fresh off solving a murder that hit too close to home, Mack's trust is shattered. But when Milwaukee Police Detective Duncan Albright asks for her help with a shooting, she can't resist using her extra-perceptive senses to benefit others. It turns out the victim was the ruthless businessman their friend Mal was investigating undercover. And now Mal is missing - and his fingerprints are on the gun. Was his cover blown, forcing him into hiding? Or could he be a straight-up killer on the run?

It is 1934. Returning to the West Country after their latest adventure in London, lady's maid Verity Hunter and cook Joan Hart are ready to embrace a quieter life. Their mistress, the glamorous young heiress Dorothy Drew, is attempting to rein in her enthusiasm for too many cocktails and takes up the offer of a place to rest and recuperate from an old family friend, Mrs Ashford. All seems well, until the day after they arrive, when everyone in the house is struck down by what appears to be mushroom poisoning. The deadly dish proves fatal for one unlucky soul.

In the summer of 1915, the sudden death of a young girl brings grief and notoriety to Charleston Farmhouse on the Sussex Downs. Years later, Josephine Tey returns to the same house - now much changed - and remembers the two women with whom she once lodged as a young teacher during the Great War. As past and present collide, with murders decades apart, Josephine is forced to face the possibility that the scandal which threatened to destroy those women's lives hid a much darker secret.

Spring has sprung in quaint Taylorsford, Virginia, and the mayor has revived the town's long-defunct May Day celebration to boost tourism. As part of the festivities, library director Amy Webber is helping to organize a research project and presentation by a local folklore expert. All seems well at first - but spring takes on a sudden chill when a university student inexplicably vanishes during a bonfire.

Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B&B in the Vallée de Follet. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really, that’s the way he likes it. Until scandal erupts in the nearby town of Saint-Sauver when its famous restaurant is downgraded from three Michelin stars to two. The restaurant is shamed, the town is in shock, and the leading goat cheese supplier drowns himself in one of his own pasteurization tanks. Or does he? Valérie d’Orçay, who staying at the B&B while house-hunting in the area, isn’t convinced that it’s a suicide.

Arnold Landon can’t help but feel drawn to Oldham Manor, an atmospheric medieval house in the middle of nowhere. When he is invited to catalogue the library there, he jumps at the chance. The place is a maze of musty old papers and books. And that’s not all. Late one night, he stumbles on a secret passage, twisting deep under the ground. Where will it take him? And why was it walled up? When a stranger turns up dead in a ditch, Landon begins to realize that someone is watching his every move. And they have a plan to ensure the past stays buried for good.

Clare's grown very fond of Alfred Glockner, the part-time comic and genuinely jolly charity Santa who's been using her coffeehouse as a place to warm his mittens. When she finds him gunned down in a nearby alley, a few subtle clues convince her that Alfred's death was something more than the tragic result of a random mugging, despite the conclusions of the police. Between baking delicious Christmas goodies and fending off the attentions of a persistent professional elf, Clare sets out to solve St. Nick's murder.

Life is looking rosy for Florrie Fox, manager of the Color Me Read bookstore in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. The bookstore's weekly coloring club is a source of friendship and entertainment, and no member is more vibrant than Dolly Cavanaugh. When Dolly's love of garage sales results in her showing up at Color Me Read with a rare book in hand, Florrie is astounded. The Florist was first published in 1760, and an original copy would be worth a fortune. That same evening, Florrie finds Dolly dead on the floor of her apartment, a corner of a coloring book page clutched in her hand.