Cozy Detective

Abby Finch arrives at the old church hall armed with festive mistletoe and holly, ready to decorate. But within moments of her walking through the door, tragedy strikes. Edward Marsh reaches to test the antique star at the top of the tree. There's a fizz and the lights go out. Abby hears the sickening thud of a body hitting the floor. When the lights turn back on, Edward is dead.

Semi-retired god of rock guitar and local poseur Erik Make Loud has got himself a new girlfriend. Helene Hilditch - formerly known as Howlin' Hellbitch - of all-girl punk outfit Blue Tits is a mean guitarist, and someone is trying to kill her. With a rare pressing of their first album to find, the Vinyl Detecive and Nevada are soon called into to help, but this time the question is, who isn't a suspect?

Seeing a dog next to a homeless man inspires lawyer Andy Carpenter to give the pair some money to help. Soon after Andy’s encounter with them, man and dog are attacked in the middle of the night on the street. The dog defends its new owner, and the erstwhile attacker is bitten but escapes. But the dog is quarantined, and the man, Don Carrigan, is heartbroken. Andy’s wife, Laurie, can’t resist helping the duo. In a matter of days, Don and his dog, Zoey, are living above Andy’s garage and become two new additions to the family. But things soon go awry....

The life of Lulu Lewis, a retired police detective, took an unforgettable turn when Conrad first introduced himself to her. Visiting an old friend in Manchester, the pair stumble across a chilling news report about a trail of bodies found across the city that echo a string of cold case murders from Lulu’s past in London.

The poison was cyanide, slipped into the sacred wine of ecstasy just before it was presented to Miss Cara Quayne at the House of the Sacred Flame. The victim was a deeply religious initiate who had trained for a month for her last ceremony. She was also a very beautiful woman.... The suspects were the other initiates and the high priest. All claimed they were above earthly passions. But Cara Quayne had provoked lust, jealousy - and murder.

In the chilly depths of a Yorkshire winter, a well-liked rector is found bludgeoned to death in her own church. With no sign of a murder weapon, local superstition quickly pins the blame on the ghost of a medieval monk believed to haunt the building. Well accustomed to unusual murder investigations, DCI Jim Oldroyd takes on the case, along with his assistant, Sergeant Andy Carter, but they are hampered at every turn by the deepening snow and the threat of the supernatural.

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.

It's National Library Week, and the Athena Public Library is planning an exhibit to honor the centenary of famous novelist Electra Barnes Cartwright - creator of the beloved Veronica Thane series. Charlie has a soft spot for Cartwright's girl detective stories (not to mention an extensive collection of her books!). When the author agrees to make a rare public appearance, the news of her whereabouts goes viral overnight, and series devotees and book collectors converge on Athena.

Springtime in Mississippi is abloom with beauty, but the library's employees are too busy worrying to stop and smell the flowers. The new library director, Oscar Reilly, is a brash, unfriendly Yankee who's on a mission to cut costs - and his first targets are the archive and the rare book collection. But his biggest offense is declaring all four-legged creatures banned from the stacks. With enemies aplenty, the suspect list is long when Reilly's body is discovered in the library.

Constable Evan Evans, sole police officer in the charming Welsh village of Llanfair, is assigned to assist an expedition to raise a World War II German bomber plane from a lake. The whole venture is being filmed for a documentary on World War II and Evans tries to assist the film crew by finding them local people with stories to tell. Little does he realize that resurrecting the past can sometimes mean opening old wounds.

Willow Feathers McBeaver, aka Detective Duck, is a crime-solving (and very precocious) little duck. She and her animal pals live on Dogwood Pond, a beautiful pond in New England adjacent to Lazy Days, a human campground. Dogwood Pond has always been a pristine spot with clear water, abundant wildlife, and shady willow trees, but now it is encountering puzzling problems—mysteries that arise from human-caused disruptions in nature, such as water pollution, refuse, warming climate, and human encroachment.

A touring theatre company in New Zealand forms the basis of one of Marsh’s most ambitious and innovative novels. New Zealand theatrical manager Alfred Meyer wanted to celebrate his wife’s birthday in style. The piece de résistance would be the jeroboam of champagne which would descend gently into a nest of fern and coloured lights on the table, set up on stage after the performance. But something went horribly wrong. Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn witnessed it himself.

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.

Lawyer Andy Carpenter and his wife, Laurie, enjoy walking their dogs, Tara and Sebastian. By this point in their marriage, it’s routine. When out for one of their strolls, their simple ritual isn’t so simple anymore. Across the street, a man is mistreating his dog. Three things happen at once: Andy yells, Laurie runs to stop the abuse, and so does a closer passerby, who so thoroughly beats the owner that both are arrested when the cops arrive.

When Inspector Witherspoon becomes the main suspect in a murder case, Scotland Yard refuses to let him investigate. But no one said anything about Mrs. Jeffries and her polished detection skills, proving that behind every great man there's a woman - and that a crime solver's work is never done.

A famous writer is found murdered at the Victorian baths in the Yorkshire town of Harrogate. In a crime worthy of one of his novels, Damian Penrose, who was appearing at the town’s crime writing festival, has been ruthlessly strangled. But with no trace of the murderer and no apparent means of escape, how did the killer simply vanish from the scene of the crime?

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.

The powerful Lord complains loudly to the local bishop, who asks Father Max Tudor, vicar of Nether Monkslip and former MI5 agent, to investigate. Just as Max comes to believe the poisoning was accidental, a body is discovered in the cloister well. Can Max Tudor solve the case and restore order in time to attend his own nuptials?

Holly Miller doesn't believe in spirits, but the Sugar Maple Inn is filled with guests who do. The TV series in development, Apparition Apprehenders, has descended on Wagtail's annual Halloween festivities to investigate supernatural local legends, and Holly has her hands full showing the ghost hunters a scary-fun time. But the frights turn real when Holly's Jack Russell, Trixie, and kitten, Twinkletoes, find a young woman drowned in the Wagtail Springs Hotel's bathhouse.

Bridgestead is a peaceful spot: a babbling brook, rolling hills, and a working mill at its heart. Pretty and remote, nothing exceptional happens...until the day that Master of the Mill Joshua Braithwaite goes missing under dramatic circumstances, never to be heard of again. Now Joshua's daughter is getting married and wants to make one last attempt at finding her father. Kate Shackleton has always loved solving puzzles. So who better to get to the bottom of Joshua's mysterious disappearance?