Cozy Crime Fiction

Sussex, 1955: When bookshop owner Flora Steele goes for a walk along the pier she isn’t expecting to spot a young woman’s body in the stormy waters below. And she’s shocked to discover the victim is someone she knows.... Convinced the death was not an accident, Flora persuades attractive local crime writer Jack Carrington to help her find out what really happened to poor Polly Dakers, a popular young woman with a complicated love life, who’d been at the heart of village life in Abbeymead.

In the rolling hills just outside Gaborone, surrounded by a grove of acacia trees, lies the Great Hippopotamus Hotel. With spacious rooms overlooking the Botswanan countryside and a fine and loyal staff, the hotel has served as a refuge to weary travelers for many years. But a sudden string of misfortunes threatens to ruin the hotel’s reputation. Food poisoning befalls an unlucky diner, laundry mysteriously disappears from the drying line, and a scorpion stings one of the guests. Mishap after mishap occurs, until it becomes apparent that these incidents are more than simple coincidences.

Jack's a retired ex-cop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but quiet as the two team up to solve Cherringham's criminal mysteries. This compilation contains episodes 28 - 30. A DINNER TO DIE FOR. When a new restaurant with a starred American chef opens in Cherringham, it seems the Spotted Pig has a worthy rival. But a series of disturbing incidents turns that rivalry into something dangerous - perhaps even fatal.

Every summer for the past ten years, six awe-struck bakers have descended on the grounds of Grafton, the leafy and imposing Vermont estate that is not only the filming site for “Bake Week” but also the childhood home of the show’s famous host, celebrated baker Betsy Martin.

Two Cherringham locals, roaming a farm with metal detectors, discover an amazing treasure - a silver Roman plate worth millions. They must share the reward with both the farmer and the owner of the land, the formidable Lady Repton, but there will be plenty for everyone. That night, while the village pubs do a roaring trade, archaeologist Professor Peregrine Cartwright offers to keep the plate safe in his massive wall safe. But when the British Museum expert arrives to verify the find next morning, the safe is empty! Police blame a notorious gang of art thieves operating in the county.

Former New Yorker and interior designer Tara Meehan is eagerly anticipating the grand opening of her architectural salvage shop Renewals in her newly adopted home of Galway. She's in the midst of preparations when heiress Veronica O'Farrell bursts in to announce she's ready for some renewal of her own. To celebrate one year of sobriety, she's invited seven people she wronged in her drinking days to historic Ballynahinch Castle Hotel in neighboring Connemara to make amends in style. But perhaps one among them is not so eager to pardon her past misdeeds.

Wealthy Sir Hubert Handesley's original and lively weekend house parties are deservedly famous. To amuse his guests, he has devised a new form of the fashionable Murder Game, in which a guest is secretly selected to commit a 'murder' in the dark, and everyone assembles to solve the crime. But when the lights go up this time, there is a real corpse....

Ngaio Marsh’s most popular novel begins when a young New Zealander’s first contact with the English gentry is the body of Lord Wutherford - with a meat skewer through the eye.... The Lampreys had plenty of charm - but no cash. They all knew they were peculiar - and rather gloried in it. The double and triple charades, for instance, with which they would entertain their guests - like rich but awful Uncle Gabriel, who was always such a bore.

Winter, 1921. Lady Eleanor Swift, amateur sleuth and reluctant lady of the manor, has been invited to spend Christmas in Scotland, at the beautiful castle of her dear friends Baron and Baroness Ashley. Even her favourite companion, master of mischief Gladstone the bulldog, is coming along to share a slice of turkey. As snow begins to fall outside, the rather mismatched group are cozy by the roaring fire, sharing a tipple over a plate of Mrs. Trotman’s famous mince pies.

Opening her shop Cashmere Crush and making a new home for herself, her son Brody, Gramps, and their black Scottish terrier Wallace in the beautiful Scottish village of Nairn, is a dream come true. So Paislee is happy to give back by donating a luxurious cashmere sweater for an auction to raise money for the Nairn Food Bank. She's less happy to make the acquaintance of a clique of competitive moms at the charity event, who treat a baking contest like it's life or death. It turns out to be the latter for queen bee Kirsten Buchanan.

When a woman's body is found at the foot of a cliff near St. Denis, Bruno suspects a connection to the great ruin that stands on the cliff above: the Chateau de Commarque, a long-ago Knights Templar stronghold that, along with the labyrinth of prehistoric caves beneath it, continues to draw the interest of scholars. With the help of Amelie, a young newcomer to the Dordogne, Bruno learns that the dead woman was an archaeologist searching for a religious artifact of incredible importance.

When the beautiful Kit goes to meet an anonymous stranger - who's been sending her roses - the man drops dead at her feet before she even could even get his name. Game on. Andy Broussard soon learns that the man carried a lethal pathogen similar to the deadly Ebola virus. Soon, another body turns up with the same bug. Panic is imminent as the threat of pandemic is more real than ever before.

Jack's a retired ex-cop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village to find herself. But their lives are anything but quiet as the two team up to solve Cherringham's criminal mysteries. This compilation contains episodes 19 - 21: "GHOST OF A CHANCE": Every Halloween, the supposedly haunted Bell Hotel hosts its famous 'Ghost-Hunters Dinner', complete with scary stories, spooky apparitions and things that go bump in the night. But this year's event ends in a terrifying accident, and suddenly everyone wonders... Is there a real ghost loose in the hotel?

It is the early spring of 2016 and Queen Elizabeth is at Windsor Castle in advance of her 90th birthday celebrations. But the preparations are interrupted when a guest is found dead in one of the Castle bedrooms. The scene suggests the young Russian pianist strangled himself, but a badly tied knot leads MI5 to suspect foul play was involved. The Queen leaves the investigation to the professionals—until their suspicions point them in the wrong direction. Unhappy at the mishandling of the case and concerned for her staff's morale, the monarch decides to take matters into her own hands.

"The Song Never Dies": 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.

Gemma loves the quiet life of her bookshop, the Bookworm—a haven for book lovers in a quaint town in the heart of Derbyshire. But everything changes when Gemma discovers the body of local author Dominic Westley during the shop’s latest book signing event. When the police rule the death as an accidental overdose, Dominic’s estranged widow points the finger at one of his past lovers. Gemma and her trusty assistant, Mavis, won’t rest until they uncover the truth. Was it an accidental overdose or something more sinister?

"When I say, therefore, that [my brother] has better powers of observation than I...I am speaking the exact and literal truth." (Sherlock Holmes) This story occurs when Mycroft, an athletic Cambridge graduate, assists the secretary of state. He becomes embroiled in a mystery in Trinidad based on actual history. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a huge Holmesian, seven feet two inches tall, basketball's all-time leading scorer, and a US cultural ambassador. Anna Waterhouse is a professional screenwriter and script consultant.

Elizabeth II's coronation is looming, but DI Edgar Stephens is busy investigating the death of a local fortune-teller. Meanwhile, his old pal, the magician Max Mephisto, is rehearsing for his television debut, a Coronation Day variety show. But upon hearing that their wartime commander, Colonel Cartwright, has been found dead in his flat, the two men join forces to find out what happened. While Max is stuck in rehearsals, Edgar finds himself heading to New York, hot on the trail of a mesmerist he's sure has valuable information for them.

Molly Gray, Head Maid and now newly minted Special Events Manager at the Regency Grand Hotel, finds herself making perfectly polished plans for two of the biggest events in her event-planning career. The first is a conference featuring two of her and Gran's favorite celebrities, Baxley & Beagle, antique appraisers. And the second event—even more excitingly—is Molly's own wedding to her beau. Molly brings some of Gran's treasures to Baxley & Beagle for appraisal, just for a bit of fun. But much to everyone's surprise, one of Molly's items is deemed priceless.

Why would a killer ignore expensive jewellery and take a pair of turtledoves as the only bounty? This is only one of the questions that piques Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune's interest after a senior attaché with the Mexican Consulate is found murdered alongside the director of a local bird sanctuary. The fact that the director's death has opened up a full-time research position hasn't eluded Jejeune either. Could this be his escape from policing?