Cozy Crime Fiction

It’s been a quiet few weeks on the crime front in Somerset and Sukey Reynolds is starting to wonder if all the villains have gone on holiday. Although Sukey loves solving crimes, she’s happy to have a bit of extra time to spend with the handsome journalist who lives just around the corner.... But when she is summoned to charming Sycamore House, it seems that Sukey has tempted fate.

In a poisonous cloud of spray, the curtain falls on a drama queen. Little did beloved British actress Mary Bellamy know that she would be done in at her own birthday party - choked by toxic mist from the bottle of Slaypest, a deadly insecticide. Basking in the glow of her most adoring fans - who all happened to be her most duplicitous enemies - Mary would make her final performance.

Siglufjörður: an idyllically quiet fishing village in Northern Iceland, where no one locks their doors - accessible only via a small mountain tunnel. Ari Thór Arason: a rookie policeman on his first posting, far from his girlfriend in Reykjavik - with a past that he’s unable to leave behind.

When the penniless FitzHenrys, proprietors of the rundown Combe Castle Heritage Site, find themselves victims of a threatening campaign to oust them from their ancestral home, Jack and Sarah are called in to track down the culprit. But nothing is what it seems at this castle - from the curious and unnerving waxwork displays of the 'Odditorium' to the in-laws and neighbours who can't wait to see the last of aristocratic couple. Soon Jack and Sarah discover that truth is often stranger than fiction, and in Combe Castle things do indeed go bump in the night.

Murder, blackmail and drug dealing on the Tiber combine in one of Ngaio Marsh’s liveliest and most evocative novels. When their guide disappears mysteriously in the depths of a Roman basilica, the members of Mr. Sebastian Mailer’s tour group seem strangely unperturbed. But when a body is discovered in an Etruscan sarcophagus, Superintendent Alleyn, in Rome incognito on the trail of an international drug racket, is very much concerned.

Leighann Dobbs and Harmony Williams present Book 5 in the Lady Katherine Regency Mysteries.

Christmastime in an isolated country house and, following a flaming row in the kitchen, there’s murder inside. When a much disliked visiting servant disappears without trace after playing Santa Claus, foul play is at once suspected - and foul play it proves to be. Only suspicion falls not on the staff but on the guests, all so unimpeachably respectable that the very thought of murder in connection with any of them seems almost heresy.

When a young woman comes forward saying she’s the reincarnation of Riya Kaur, a wife and mother who vanished during the bloody 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Puri is dismissive. He’s busy enough dealing with an irate matrimonial client whose daughter is complaining about her groom’s thunderous snoring. Puri’s indomitable Mummy-ji, however, is adamant the client is genuine. How else could she so accurately describe under hypnosis Riya Kaur’s life and final hours?

Halloween, Whitby. DCI Jim Oldroyd’s daughter Louise is in town with friends for a goth festival. But their visit to an escape room ends in bloody murder when one of the group stabs his girlfriend and flees the scene. It’s a crime with three witnesses - but Louise refuses to take what she saw at face value. Oldroyd and DS Carter are called in to solve the case, assisted from the sidelines by Louise. But the closer they investigate, the more complex the web of deceit appears. This is no straightforward crime of passion.

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.

After a disastrous accident derails Tempest Raj’s career, and life, she heads back to her childhood home in California to comfort herself with her grandfather’s Indian home-cooked meals. Though she resists, every day brings her closer to the inevitable: working for her father’s company. Secret Staircase Construction specializes in bringing the magic of childhood to all by transforming clients’ homes with sliding bookcases, intricate locks, backyard treehouses, and hidden reading nooks.

Traumatisée après qu'une coiffeuse rancunière l'a shampouinée à la crème dépilatoire, Agatha Raisin se réfugie incognito dans un hôtel de la côte en attendant que sa chevelure repousse. N'ayant plus rien à perdre, elle consulte également une sorcière réputée pour ses talents. Miracle, la magie opère, mais pour peu de temps, car la sorcière est retrouvée assassinée... Agatha renoue aussitôt avec ses réflexes de détective, aidée par l'inspecteur Jimmy Jessop, ensorcelé par ses charmes. À moins que ce ne soient les effets du philtre d'amour qu'Agatha a acheté à la pauvre sorcière ?

Pagan revelry and morris dancing in the middle of a very cold winter set the scene for one of Ngaio Marsh’s most fascinating murder mysteries. When the pesky Anna Bünz arrives at Mardian to investigate the rare survival of folk dancing still practised there, she quickly antagonizes the villagers. But Mrs Bünz is not the only source of friction - two of the other enthusiasts are also spoiling for a fight.

In the village of Spire, murder is afoot. Wealthy landowner Alexander, Earl of Greengrass, is caught with his trousers down in the village graveyard before meeting a gruesome end. Luckily Susie Mahl happens to be on hand. With her artist’s eye for detail and her curious nature, she is soon on the scent of the murderer....

The year 1934. Kitty Underhay steps out of the battered Rolls Royce and onto the graveled driveway of Thurscomb Castle in deepest Yorkshire. She’s honored to be a bridesmaid at her cousin Lucy’s wedding to the reluctant Lord Rupert Woodcomb, but as family and friends gather for welcome drinks, Kitty dodges intrusive questions about her own marital status by taking a stroll about the castle grounds. As she passes through the manicured gardens, a fatal shot rings out....

It's a quiet, snowy morning at The Cracked Spine bookshop when book seller Delaney Nichols receives a mysterious visitor, a messenger. He presents her with a perplexing note: an invitation to a meeting with eccentric socialite Shelagh O'Conner, who requests Delaney's participation in an exclusive treasure hunt.

Dylan McCabe - a livewire Irish labourer on a rushed Cherringham building Project - has been making noises about the site's lack of safety. When he's discovered dead after a fall, it seems that Dylan's own warnings were all too true. That is... until Jack and Sarah get involved, and suddenly what looks like an accident becomes a case of cold-blooded murder. With a festive Cherringham Christmas just days away, Jack and Sarah set out to find the culprit. But soon they find their own lives being threatened too.

Back in her natural habitat, Dr Nell Ward heads to a woodland pond to survey local newt populations. She's shocked to discover a car submerged in the water - with the driver dead behind the wheel. Nell recognises the dead man as professional racing driver, and tabloid love rat, Jack Rafferty, whose performance on (and off) Finchmere's racetrack had earned him enemies. Suspecting this isn't the tragic accident it appears DI James Clark calls upon Nell and her ecological skills to help find the murderer.

The people of Penrith are delighted when local businessman Hal Mulberry succeeds in his childhood dream of buying the world famous painting, Buttermere at Dawn. And he’s determined not to keep it to himself, but to bring it back to the Lake District where it belongs and put it on show. Hal has a plan to turn Penrith Village Hall into a cultural hotspot – with the painting at its heart. But not everyone is pleased.

Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki’s teen mother disappeared from the hospital. Ricki’s dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, the city’s legendary restauranteur.