Cozy Detective

Stephen Munro, a demobbed army officer, reconciles himself to taking a job as a footman to make ends meet. Employed at Wintringham Hall, the delightful but decaying Sussex country residence of the elderly Lady Susan Carey, his first task entails welcoming her eccentric guests to a weekend house-party, at which her bombastic nephew—who recognises Stephen from his former life—decides that an after-dinner séance would be more entertaining than bridge. Then Cicely disappears!

The ladies of the Mayfair Orchid and Exotic Plant Society are known for a bit of friendly rivalry, but the backstabbing has never been literal - until now. When Hiram Filmore, an orchid hunter and supplier, is found dead in Mrs. Helena Rayburn's conservatory, Inspector Witherspoon is called in to weed out a murderer. When it comes out that Mrs. Rayburn and her flowery friends knew each other from long ago, Mrs. Jeffries begins to suspect that there's more to unearth about this case than meets the eye.

Jem Jago is back at work with her antique books, and spending her weekends exploring her new home - the windswept Isles of Scilly - in her little sailboat, 'Bellatrix'. She’s really starting to settle into island life. Unfortunately, murder in the Scillies is not as rare as some of her manuscripts. In Tatteredly’s second-hand bookstore, she discovers the body of beautiful Gina Marrak. Poking around the scene of the crime, Jem finds an unusual book, which leads her down an unlikely path.

Dreams of stardom had lured Martyn Tarne from faraway New Zealand to make the dreary, soul-destroying round of West End agents and managers in search of work. The Vulcan Theatre had been her last forlorn hope, and now, driven by sheer necessity, she was glad to accept the humble job of dresser to its leading lady. And then came the eagerly awaited opening night.

Eccentric Annabeth Gentry pretty much keeps to herself. Besides her recent inheritance - and the attention her bloodhound gets for digging up the body of a murdered thief - her life is in fact, rather dull. So why does she think that someone is trying to kill her? That's what Mrs. Jeffries and her staff has to find out. What they discover is a dead body next door, and three attempts on Annabeth's life. It sounds like there's a jealous dog in their midst. Mrs. Jeffries will have to sniff out some clues before the plot thickens....

England, 1930. An antiques dealer is found robbed and murdered in a third class train compartment on a remote Suffolk branch line. The police believe they know who the killer is, and an arrest is soon made. A passenger on the same train, the Reverend Lucian Shaw, country parson and former army chaplain, is concerned that the police have the wrong man and begins an investigation of his own. Before long, Shaw is drawn into a web of intrigue, deceit, and murder which lurks beneath the surface of a seemingly peaceful country parish.

When Detective Kate Rosetti is startled awake in the middle of the night by a phone call from her mother, she knows it’s not good news. It turns out Kate’s father, the notorious Angelo Rosetti, is missing. There are no witnesses and no leads, and with only a week to go before Christmas, Kate hopes to find her father before the New Year. As Kate begins the hunt for her father, she gets another case added to her plate at the precinct.

Aunt Bessie is somewhere past 60 and old enough to ignore the rude woman that does her best to ruin the first session of the beginning Manx language class they are both taking. Moirrey's sudden death is harder to ignore. Aunt Bessie believes that Moirrey's death was the result of the heart condition that Moirrey always complained about. The police investigation, however, suggests that someone switched some of the dead woman's essential medications for something far more deadly.

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.

Dan Corrigan wants to disappear. Burnt out by the pressures of corporate life, he escapes to the countryside. But when he least expects it, a chance discovery draws him into a compelling mystery. An ancient legend, a coded message on a stone slab, and a secret concealed in a country manor house: these are the clues that take Dan on a journey into the past, delving deeper into a hidden history.

Jane Steward's resort is hopping - not only is Peppermint Press' conference in full swing, there are also lots of families staying on the premises, bringing their kids to events like a scavenger hunt through the Fairy Tale Forest. Then a woman dressed like Little Red Riding Hood is found dead from a plot device straight out of a fairy tale-with a rare and valuable copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales in her basket. Not long after, a second victim is killed, with yet another treasure - a volume by Hans Christian Andersen worth thousands of dollars - nearby.

The town is gripped by a big freeze, and blizzard after blizzard has engulfed the feline community, leaving shops and businesses snowbound. Hettie Bagshot and her sidekick, Tilly Jenkins, have found sanctuary by their fireside but soon they are bucketed into a terrifying nightmare, called to investigate the disappearance of the town's kittens as - one by one - they are taken in the snow. Who are the strange cats living in Wither-Fork Woods?

The local mayor has a dinner date with death... With school out for the summer, dinner ladies Margery and Clementine Butcher-Baker are off on holiday to the picturesque village of St-Martins-on-the-Water. But on their first night, their meal at the hotel ends in disaster, when the local mayor is found dead on the restaurant floor, supposedly poisoned by his dinner. The village has a history of poisoning, and the locals are convinced the Poisoner is back. Immediately suspicion turns on Margery and – in particular – Clementine.

When Lily Mason's uncle is accused of murdering a prominent Moonrise citizen, the amateur detective and her loyal pitbull Smooshie must dig out the truth and find the real killer. Integrating isn't easy for a shifter in an all-human town, but Lily Mason is finally making it work. She has love in her life, enjoys a great job, attends community college, and best of all, her fixer-upper house is nearly livable. She couldn't be happier. Until her Uncle Buzz is accused of murder.

When showbiz gets ugly...The world of showbiz comes to Bexford when the new series of hit TV show Foul Murder is launched there. Soon, life imitates art as a murder is committed, live on stage. Luckily, Detective Sergeant Guy Poole and Detective Inspector Sam Brock are in the audience to take charge of the scene. When it becomes clear that one of their own is the prime suspect, they are determined to help prove his innocence, no matter how annoying he is.

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.

Showbiz comes to Oxford in the form of Britain's hottest new talent show, and tearoom owner Gemma Rose gets a peek behind the scenes when she's asked to cater for the event. But with the Old Biddies, entering the contest as England's first "granny band", and her little tabby, Muesli, stealing the limelight, Gemma soon ends up with more than she bargained for... and that's before she comes across a frozen dead body! Now, she's on the trail of a murderer, with four nosy old ladies giving her a helping hand, while also dealing with her embarrassing mother, and more.

The lives of the inhabitants of Swevenings are disrupted only by a fierce competition to catch the Old Un, a monster trout known to dwell in a beautiful stream which winds past their homes. Then one of their small community is found brutally murdered; beside him is the freshly killed trout. Both died by violence - but Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn's murder investigation seems to be much more interested in the fish.... Scales of Justice was first published in 1955.

Retired police detective Lulu Lewis’s life changed forever when she met a street cat named Conrad. There’s something very special about Conrad, but it’s a secret she has to keep to herself. When Lulu takes her narrowboat to Oxford, she is planning nothing more stressful than attending a friend’s birthday party. And drinking a few glasses of Chardonnay. But a brutal murder and a daring art theft means her plans are shattered – instead she and Conrad find themselves on the trail of a killer.

It's not always a question of "whodunit?" Sometimes there's more mystery in the why or how. And although we usually know the unhealthy fates of both victim and perpetrator, what of those clever few who plan and carry out the perfect crime? The ones who aren't brought down even though they're found out? And what about those who do the finding out who witness a murder or who identify the murderer but keep the information to themselves? These are some of the mysteries that we follow through those six stories.