Cozy Crime Fiction

Dr Nell Ward is in the lush, emerald hills of Ireland, to attend the wedding of two dear friends at a picture-perfect farmhouse. But family tensions are running high in the days before the happy couple tie the knot. And when Nell sees a fox kill a hare in the early morning light, it sends shivers down her spine. Almost like it is a sign of something to come... Then one of the locals makes a gruesome discovery in a nearby peat bog. Famous for the ancient bodies these habitats preserve, what has been found instead is a woman who died much more recently...

1945. Fen Churche follows her dreams and sails for New York. She books passage on a steam ship from France to America, excited to dance the night away in the glamorous ballroom and play games on deck. Nothing will stand in the way of her trip, not even when an eccentric heiress’s diamond tiara goes missing....

Nell Valenti is settling into her role of transforming the Villa Orlandini into a superb farm-to-table cooking school, and the time has finally come for a full taste test run. But when Chef Orlandini prepares to reveal his top secret marinara recipe for the first time to a group of American gastro-tourists, Nell realizes she might have bitten off more than she can chew.

It started as a student exercise, the knife under the drape, the model's pose chalked in place. But before Agatha Troy, artist and instructor, returns to the class, the pose has been re-enacted in earnest: the model is dead, fixed for ever in one of the most dramatic poses Troy has ever seen. It's a difficult case for Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn. How can he believe that the woman he loves is a murderess? And yet no one can be above suspicion.

Wycliffe takles a case which reaches back down the generations.... When Cedric Tremain is charged with murdering his father by booby-trapping his fishing boat, all the locals are agreed that he is an unlikely murderer. But the case against him is strong: he has the motive, the opportunity, and the know-how; not to mention the fact that there is some hard circumstantial evidence against him.

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....

All is not well on the mean streets of Barnes. A double homicide in trendy deli Bohemia is followed by a spate of mysterious thefts across Castelnau's parade of shops. And there are rumors. Whispers of supernatural beings stirring, of dark forces from the dawn of time. Only one PI can solve this baffling mystery. Only one hero can crack the case. The terror of sparrows. The prodigal snoozer. The esteemed and revered Detective Buscemi Daintypaws Twinklefur. The crime-solving cat.

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.

When Charlotte befriends Lisa Swanson, her dreams of owning a cupcake bakery finally begin to come true. But when a body is discovered and all signs point to Lisa being the guilty one, Charlotte doesn't know what to believe.

In this follow-up to Austenland, Charlotte Kinder is eager to escape the numbness she feels after her divorce. Deciding to get away, she visits the Regency-themed Pembrook Park resort in England, where talented actors set the perfect scene. But with everyone playing a role, it’s hard to distinguish reality from fantasy. So when Charlotte’s heart stirs, she wonders if she’s simply caught up in the experience - or if her ability to feel is finally returning.

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.

London's gourmet detective is contemplating an empty bank account and, worse, an empty stomach, when a phone call solves both problems at once. Over lunch, Desmond Lansdown, world-renowned actor and burgeoning restaurateur, hires the detective for a chef-hunt, sending him to Italy to eat until he can decide which cook Lansdown should hire. It's a demanding gig, but this detective is never one to shy away from hard work. However, it doesn't take long for this plush assignment to turn prickly.

After two hit reality TV shows brought ex-detective Georgia Thornton into America's living rooms, audiences can't get enough of her quest for love and justice. Now producers have come up with an all-new show set in a haunted castle in Golden, California. Georgia and nine other contestants will need to solve the mystery of a young woman who disappeared at the castle in 1960. Except there's a problem waiting for everyone when they arrive: a groundskeeper is found drowned at the bottom of the castle's empty pool.

After six long months with no new cases for her Edge of the World Detective Agency, Donna ‘Deadly’ Nightshade jumps at the chance to spend a weekend undercover on St Michael’s Mount. With seven high profile attendees – including the Home Secretary – Donna doesn’t expect much tension. But as a storm descends on the tidal island, and they’re cut off from the rest of the world, friends turn to enemies and before the rain has ceased it’s not just one murder Donna has to worry about – it’s two.

1930: Miss Clara Vale, chemistry major turned detective, is taking a night off from sleuthing to attend the launch party of a new exhibition at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle. But when the piece de resistance, a rare ornate sarcophagus, is finally opened and it turns out the mummy inside it is a fake it looks like there is no rest for Clara after all... Later that night, she is summoned back to the museum and asked to investigate a series of stolen Egyptian artefacts.

Penelope Parish has hit a streak of bad luck, including a severe case of writer's block that is threatening her sophomore book. Hoping a writer in residence position at The Open Book bookstore in Upper Chumley-on-Stoke, England, will shake the cobwebs loose, Pen, as she's affectionately known, packs her typewriter and heads across the pond. Unfortunately, life in Chumley is far from quiet, and when the chairwoman of the local Worthington Fest is found dead, fingers are pointed at Charlotte Davenport, an American romance novelist and the future duchess of Worthington.

When librarian and budding Private Investigator Kitt Hartley visits her ex-assistant Grace Edwards in Durham, she soon learns of an unsolved murder. A year ago, Jodie Perkins, a Mechanics student, disappeared after her student-radio broadcast was cut short with a deafening scream. The police suspect Jodie was murdered although her body was never found. Keen to be on the front line of one of Kitt's investigations, Grace convinces Kit to use her recent private investigator training to solve the mystery.

Suffolk, 1955. Rosy Gilchrist is asked by her friend Lady Fawcett to join her on a trip to Southwold to visit Delia Dovedale, an old school chum she hasn’t seen in years. Rosy reluctantly agrees to be her companion on the reunion jaunt, but on arrival they discover that their hostess is dead - recently murdered at the local flower festival. Faced with incompetent village police officers and a stern manservant with an eyepatch, Rosy and her friends face the impossible task of finding the murderer in a town of suspicious characters - before the body count rises.

Die Apfelernte in St. Applewood war vielversprechend und Barrington macht sich auf den Weg in die Cider-Brauerei Ainsley. Er leiht sich den alten Lieferwagen seines Onkels John aus, der bereits unterwegs seltsame Geräusche von sich gibt. Auf der Rückfahrt von der Brauerei versagt der Motor ausgerechnet in einem dunklen undurchdringlichen Wald. Barrington findet tief im Wald verborgen das Mädcheninternat Crossbill-House. Die Rektorin des Hauses erlaubt ihm, dort zu übernachten.

Fran's dream of winning the top prize of ten thousand dollars as a contestant on a new TV baking show is quickly shattered when one of the famous judges, Jeremy Johnson, is brutally stabbed in the middle of filming. As Fran investigates, she uncovers a web of deceit, jealousy, and betrayal among the contestants and judges. With tensions high and suspicions swirling, Fran realizes that the murderer could be someone she knows all too well.