Cozy Crime Fiction

It’s the bitterly cold spring season in alpine Aosta, and a girl has been kidnapped. Chiara Berguet, daughter of the owners of a local construction firm, was targeted thanks to the sizable debt her parents owe. But like many a best-laid plan, a blown tire causes the crime to go haywire as the kidnappers’ van skids off the road and crashes into a pair of larch trees. Both the driver and his accomplice die on impact, leaving the girl in the back, gagged and bound and unable to break herself free.

Delaney Nichols has settled so comfortably into her new life in Edinburgh that she truly feels it's become more home than her once beloved Kansas. Her job at the Cracked Spine, a bookshop that specializes in rare manuscripts as well as other sundry valuable historical objects, is everything she had dreamed. Her latest task includes a trip to Castle Doune to retrieve a hard-to-find edition of an old Scottish comic, an "Oor Wullie", in a cloak-and-dagger transaction that Edwin has orchestrated.

It's spring in Shady Hollow, and romance is in the air. Even reporter Vera Vixen is caught up in the season as her relationship with new police chief Orville Braun blossoms. But true love is not always smooth sailing, as two of the hollow's young residents come to find. Jonah Atwater and Stasia von Beaverpelt find themselves battling their families in order to be together. And when Alan's father, Shelby, goes over the top of Twilight Falls, all signs point to Stasia being the murderer.

Plus piquante et acide que jamais : Hannah Swensen est de retour ! La pétillante Hannah Swensen n'a que très peu de temps pour elle. Confectionner les meilleurs gâteaux de Lake Eden est en effet une occupation à plein temps. Elle doit également faire avec ses deux prétendants, toujours aussi envahissants. Sans oublier sa mère, omniprésente, et son chat Moshe qu'elle soupçonne de faire une dépression nerveuse. Serait-elle en train de frôler le burn-out ? Et pire que tout pour cette irréductible gourmande, elle doit, après des années de laisser-aller, se résoudre à faire un régime.

The elderly Emily Pride is perfectly pleased to have inherited an island, even if her starchy pragmatism is ever so faintly appalled by the Pixie Falls spring and its reported miraculous healing properties. But really, the locals' attempts to capitalize on the 'miracles' are entirely too tacky - Ye Olde Gift Shoppe, the neon signs…not on Miss Emily’s watch, thank you.

When the exuberant president of Ng'ombwana proposes to dispense with the usual security arrangements on an official visit to London, his old schoolmate, Chief Superintendent Alleyn, is called in to persuade him otherwise. Consequently, on the night of the embassy's reception, the house and grounds are stiff with police.

Date with Poison is the brilliant fourth novel in Julia Chapman's Dales Detective Agency series and is perfect of fans of M C Beaton's Agatha Raisin series and Gervase Phinn. A young teenager has gone missing. Can Samson O'Brien and Delilah Metcalfe find him? Spring is in the air in Bruncliffe. But not everyone is filled with the joys of the season. Implicated in the murder of a man in Leeds, the Dales Detective Agency’s Samson O’Brien is facing tough questions from the police....

The April Fool’s Day had been a roaring success for all, it seemed - except for poor Mr. Cartell, who had ended up in the ditch - forever. Then there was the case of Mr. Percival Pyke Period’s letter of condolence, sent before the body was found - not to mention the family squabbles. It was a puzzling crime for Superintendent Alleyn.

It's a beautiful day in Como, and the Caswell-Jones family are surrounded their nearest and dearest in their Villa Janus. But when Jonty Caswell-Jones is found dead in his study, it is clear the only suspects are the guests and the family. It seems all this time, tensions have been brewing, guests seething, and rivalries have reared their ugly head....

Everyone in Saxford St Peter is desperate to know more about Harry Tennant, the newcomer who owns the Old Mill. He usually keeps himself to himself, but he’s finally invited the villagers round for drinks, and Eve Mallow isn’t the only one looking forward to having some questions answered. But two days before the party, a terrible fire sweeps through the mill, and Harry is found dead. When Eve passes the burned remains of his beautiful house, she can’t resist the call to investigate.

When new bride Kaveri Murthy reluctantly agrees to investigate a minor crime during the blood moon eclipse to please her domineering mother-in-law, she doesn't expect to stumble upon a murder - again. With anti-British sentiments on the rise, a charismatic religious leader growing in influence, and the fight for women's suffrage gaining steam, Bangalore is turning out to be a far more dangerous place than Kaveri ever imagined, and everyone's motives are suspect.

When a film shoot on Wharfedale’s vintage railway turns into a grisly crime scene, DCI Oldroyd’s idyllic visit to the countryside with his partner Deborah is well and truly stopped in its tracks. One of the film’s stars has been shot dead in a train carriage while the cameras rolled outside. But nobody else went in—or came out. Has the killer really pulled off the perfect, impossible crime?

À la suite d'un accident mortel survenu à la foire aux bestiaux de Bruncliffe, le commissaire-priseur Harry Furness engage Samson et Delilah pour mener l'enquête. Mais ce qui semblait n'être qu'une simple vérification de routine prend vite un tour plus sombre quand les détectives découvrent que cet accident a probablement été provoqué...

Early October is "winding down" time in Busman's Harbor, Maine, but there's nothing relaxing about it for Julia Snowden. Between busloads of weekend leaf peepers at the Snowden Family Clambake and a gut renovation of the old mansion on Morrow Island, she's keeping it all together with a potentially volatile skeleton crew - until one of them turns up dead under the firewood. When the Russian demo team clearing out the mansion discovers a room that's been sealed off, Julia's baffled as to its purpose and it's secrets. When one of the workers is found murdered, things come to a boil.

Agatha est ravie ! Chargée d'organiser une garden-party spectaculaire dans le château de son ami Charles Fraith, elle fourmille d'idées... Au programme : envol de montgolfières et vente aux enchères. Pour se mettre dans le bain, elle assiste à une vente locale et y acquiert, pour une fortune, une horloge ancienne. Mais lorsqu'elle reçoit des menaces de mort sous forme de charades et découvre le cadavre de l'antiquaire à qui elle avait confié le précieux objet (qui entretemps s'est envolé), l'esprit festif cède la place à la peur.

Scandal hits the staid publishing house of Barnabas when one of the directors is found dead in the strong-room. Suspicion immediately falls on his wife's lover, the junior partner in the firm. But how does an unpublished Restoration comedy come to feature in the tragedy? And what of the odd disappearance of another director twenty years before?

Depuis qu’elle s’est découvert un talent particulier pour retirer les taches de sang de ses vêtements, Finlay Donovan, autrice à succès et mère célibataire, en voit de toutes les couleurs. Et ce n’est pas fini ! Lorsqu’elle s’est retrouvée contrainte d’" emprunter " une voiture de luxe avec sa nounou et partner in crime, Vero, la mafia russe les a sorties d’affaire et désormais Finlay lui est redevable. Derrière les barreaux, le boss de la mafia, Feliks, qui continue de faire la loi, a une mission à lui confier : retrouver un tueur à gages.

When her mother telephones from France with news of her imminent arrest, Ella along with her aunt and an eccentric friend rush to her aid. But what starts as a simple disappearance quickly turns to murder and Ella finds herself embroiled in a mystery which is far more complex than she'd anticipated.

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.

For Sophie it’s a trip home and for Hector it’s time to meet Sophie’s parents... Though their trip has village tongues wagging about a stop at Scotland’s notorious elopement spot, Gretna Green. No matter what, it’ll make a nice break from the murder and mayhem that has been plaguing their beautiful Cotswolds village. But Sophie and Hector are barely across the border on the way to Inverness before a sinister encounter leaves them shaken.