Cozy Crime Fiction

Kitt Hartley wakes to the news that a murder has been committed in Irendale, a village high on the wild Yorkshire moors where her boyfriend, DI Malcolm Halloran lived with his ex-wife until she, too, was murdered. The MO of the two crimes is identical, right down to the runic symbols carved into the victims' hands. Unable to leave it to the local police to solve, Kitt and Halloran travel to Irendale, where a literary mystery awaits. A line of Anglo-Saxon poetry found on the victim leads to a hiding place, and another cryptic clue.

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.

Out walking near the rain-swelled river running past her small Welsh town, she comes across the body of Amber Morgan. Fabia’s police training tells her instantly that the death is the result of foul play. But no longer in the force, all she can do is call it in. Yet she has mixed feelings when she discovers it is her former colleague, Matt Lambert, newly promoted to chief inspector, who will head the investigation into the girl’s death.

1957. Lord James Harrington and his wife, Beth, run a country hotel in the village of Cavendish, deep in the heart of West Sussex. James and Beth are discussing the latest Cavendish Players production, The Devil Incarnate, when their cleaner informs them that farmer Alec Grimes is missing.

This holiday trip to Dublin had been very hard on Doyle’s husband - although he was making a monumental effort to disguise this fact - and unless she very much missed her guess, it was all somehow connected to the grisly murder on the station house steps. That, and an African cabdriver who wore a jaunty tam-o’-shanter.

When Tilly Edgely lands a position working at Ashton’s bookshop in Cambridge, she thinks she’s found her perfect job. But one winter’s morning, when she arrives to open up, she discovers the body of her boss suspended from the ceiling, hanging by a rope around his neck. DCI Barrett and DI Palmer are called to the scene and quickly find themselves searching for a twisted killer whose identity and motive are nearly impossible to trace. But just when they think they have the murderer in their sights, another body shows up throwing the case wide open....

Sukey Reynolds is invited to an evening at her local library to hear Jennifer Cottrell, a noted novelist, speak about her latest book. But instead of an interesting event attended by the author’s fans, a woman in the audience, Wendy Downie, accuses Jennifer of killing her lover. Before a shocked Sukey can go after her, she flees into the night. The very next day, Jennifer is found dead.... The police chase after Wendy, convinced she must have attacked Jennifer. But they find that she too has been killed - in the grounds of Jennifer’s beautiful manor.

While watching the opera at La Fenice, Nancy Tremayne is shocked to see a woman fall to her death. But how did this tragedy occur? Newlywed Nancy is accompanying her art professor husband, Leo, on a work trip. As she explores Italy’s beautiful city on the water, she is increasingly compelled to uncover the mysterious circumstances surrounding the woman’s death. Leo is adamant it was an accident but his assistant, Archie, reluctantly helps Nancy. Nancy’s determination to reveal the facts puts her in harm’s way more than once....

In Scotland, the Gandiegow quilters are in an uproar when their favorite fictional quilters - the Buttermilk Guild - are killed off by a best-selling mystery author. Diana McKellen is called in by the publisher to fix this PR nightmare. It's said, there's no such thing as bad publicity, but Diana questions this long-standing notion when an editor is murdered at a book signing.

After a series of personal tragedies and abuse from his alcoholic mother, 18 year old Bax is determined to rebuild his life. Using money left to him by his father, he finds a place to live, and a job at the local coffee shop. But after he begins to experience psychic visions after touching certain objects, Bax realizes that a normal life may not be in store for him.

Nikki is a flirtatious six-time divorcee. Geraldine is her quirky grandmother. Mix in a bunch of gun-toting grannies, an outrageous retirement home, and unsolved mysteries, and there's definitely going to be some excitement. Follow along as Nikki and the cast of retirement home vigilantes work to solve the mystery before everything goes up in smoke.

When a big movie production comes to Cherringham, complete with lords, ladies, and flashing swords, the whole village is abuzz with excitement. But when a series of dangerous accidents threatens the life of the young lead, Zoe Harding, Sarah and Jack get involved. Are these really accidents? Or could they be something more sinister - even deadly? Who is trying to destroy the career of the beautiful young star - and why?

Monica Noble and her husband Graham, the local vicar, are invited to participate in a high-flying church conference being held at a swanky manor house hotel in their village. At the Saturday night dinner, the ambitious female cleric Celia Gordon tragically dies, seemingly of a peanut allergy. But when Chief Superintendent Jason Dury arrives on the scene he quickly discovers that it's a case of murder.

Vivienne Rose, owner of Desert Doulas, arrives home from work to find cops swarming the place and a body floating in her pool. Her silver fox next-door neighbor, mentalist Rex Redondo, admits that he’s the one who saw the body and called the police. But his involvement in this is far from over. When the police stop investigating the case, due to a personnel shortage, Viv calls on Rex and his roommate, ex-marine Sutton Greer, to help her track down the killer.

Milton Arrowsmith is murdered by a poisoned box of chocolates on the morning of an art fundraiser, and a valuable painting is stolen from his apartment. His friends hire Al, both for their own security, and to find out what happened to Milton. Al investigates their social circle, and finds out everyone has secrets, some even connected to the case. It turns out the killer is much closer to home than anyone could have imagined....

When a doddering Harry Platt tumbles from the top of his stairs in a deadly fall, it looks like an unfortunate accident. But solicitor Tony Standish's suspicions are aroused when he meets the beneficiaries and discovers the immense size of the estate. Jack and Sarah investigate and find that nothing is what it seems when it comes to families - not when money and secrets are involved. Cherringham is a serial novel à la Charles Dickens, with a new audio episode released every two weeks.

When she finds a wounded member of British Intelligence in her bedroom, Patricia really isn’t that surprised. I mean, it happens all the time, doesn’t it? However, she is surprised, and really not delighted, to hear that he has a secret task for her. Find his contact, hand over a harmless looking data storage device that just happens to have the details of a superweapon on it, and save the world from certain disaster. Her country needs her. Well, that’s just perfect.

Miss Julia has promised her husband, Sam, to mind her own business. What a relief! She doesn't have to spring into action when a dead body is found in a toolshed six blocks from her house. Instead, she can concentrate on what's really important-like figuring out who's been passing bad checks in her name and, most important, preparing for Hazel Marie's impending due date. Then again, who else can figure out why that awful Thurlow Jones is trying to cast suspicion on someone Miss Julia feels certain is innocent? And, after all, what Sam doesn't know won't hurt him, right?

When widow Mrs Pargeter decides to have her morning coffee on the patio of her mansion in Chigwell, her intention is to admire her beautiful garden in peace and quiet. Little does she expect one of the patio's paving slabs to crack in two, depositing her on the ground—and revealing a human skull with a neat hole in the middle of its forehead! Not wanting to bother the police just yet, Mrs Pargeter decides to save them some trouble and starts investigating the curious find herself.

When Dorothy Martin goes to France—alone because Alan is stuck back home in Sherebury with a broken ankle—she worries about her ability to get along in a language she barely speaks, and in a country she hasn’t seen for over fifty years. But by the time Alan joins her a week later, Dorothy has found herself embroiled in one mystery after another: a woman drowning in quicksand; a man suffering a near-fatal fall in the abbey at Mont Saint Michel; and a missing American archaeologist—all seemingly connected to a monk named Abelard who has been dead for almost nine hundred years.