Cozy Detective

It's that time of year again! It's always Christmas in Holiday Haven, but this December is a special one. Carolyn Highcrest is preparing for her parents to visit for the inn's annual celebration . . . and to finally meet her boyfriend, Spencer. But when a mysterious package thief strikes the local postal service, Carol finds herself compelled to help Spencer find the culprit. Someone seems intent on ruining the holiday fun, with presents disappearing left and right and a spate of bad luck, which reminds Carol of the havoc the previous year wreaked by an out-of-control wishing box.

The first of the classic mysteries featuring governess-turned-detective Miss Silver, who investigates a deadly conspiratorial ring. Charles Moray has come home to England to collect his inheritance. After four years wandering the jungles of India and South America, the hardy young man returns to the manor of his birth, where generations of Morays have lived and died. Strangely, he finds the house unlocked, and sees a light on in one of its abandoned rooms. Eavesdropping, he learns of a conspiracy to commit a fearsome crime.

Max Tudor has adapted well to his post as vicar of St. Edwold's in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. The quiet village seems the perfect home for Max, who has fled a harrowing past as an MI5 agent. But this new-found serenity is quickly shattered when the highly vocal and unpopular president of the Women's Institute turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. The death looks like an accident, but Max's training as a former agent kicks in, and before long he suspects foul play.

In her previous career as a nurse, Mattie Winston's job was to keep death at bay. Now, as a medicolegal investigator, she's required to study death intimately - to figure out causes and timing, and help deduce whether it was natural or suspicious. In the case of Montgomery "Monty" Dixon, a well-to-do Realtor, there can be little doubt: Broken pool cues do not embed themselves. Monty's body is found in the game room of his lavish house, the walls adorned with photos of Monty and various celebrities.

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?

Snow is a rarity in Maura Donovan's small village in County Cork, Ireland, so she wasn't sure what to expect when a major snowstorm rolled in around Sullivan's pub. But now she's stranded in a bar full of patrons - and a suspected killer in a long-ago murder. Maura's been in Ireland less than a year and hasn't heard about the decades-old unsolved crime that took place nearby, let alone the infamous suspect, Diane Caldwell.

Winery-owner Olivier Bonnard is devastated when he discovers a priceless cache of rare vintages has been stolen from his private cellar. Soon after, Monsieur Gilles d'Arras arrives to report another mysterious disappearance: His wife, Pauline, has vanished from their apartment. Madame has always been as tough as nails, but in recent weeks, she's been wandering around town in her slippers, crying for no reason. As the mistral arrives to temper the region's late-summer heat, Commissioner Paulik receives an urgent call from Bonnard: He's just found Pauline d'Arras - dead in his vineyard.

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!

Train enthusiast Francis Humphreys took his last breath while relatives and neighbors visited downstairs. But if everyone was downstairs, who could have stolen into Uncle Francis's study, killed him, and escaped? Mrs. Jeffries will have to lend her downstairs common sense to this upstairs murder mystery.

Though the inheritance from her dearly departed Alexander was meant to set Sarah Kelling up for life, it vanishes quickly in the face of hounding from charitable organizations and the IRS. Facing the loss of her stately Back Bay brownstone, Sarah opens her home to lodgers - deciding she prefers a boardinghouse to the poorhouse. Soon she is cooking meals and serving tea for a cast of quirky residents, a cozy little family that would be quite happy were it not for the unpleasant presence of a certain Barnwell Augustus Quiffen.

The last thing DS Stephanie Johnson and DS Andy Carter expected during their much-needed canal holiday was a murder. When retired folk musician Annie Shipton is found stabbed through the neck at the helm of her barge, the couple can’t help investigating the seemingly impossible crime. Nobody else boarded Annie’s boat—so how was she killed from behind?

In the summer of 1923, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple makes what should be an uneventful research trip to the Museum of Natural History quite an eventful day - with her nephew, Derek, and her soon-to-be stepdaughter, Belinda, in tow. But as she interviews the various curators for her article on the museums of London, she soon discovers that the Museum of Natural History is a hothouse of professional rivalry and jealousy.

When English tearoom owner, Gemma Rose, finds herself on an unexpected trip to Scotland, she is delighted by the chance to stay in a beautiful Scottish castle—complete with mounted stag heads, cosy fireplaces, and misty mountain views. She’s looking forward to a relaxing weekend in the Highlands, sampling traditional Scottish baking, trying her hand at fly fishing, and learning to enjoy a “wee dram” of whisky.

On a cold night in February, the popular Lighterman's ball festivities are cut short when a guest of honor, Stephen Bremmer, goes into spasms and abruptly collapses. Once again Inspector Witherspoon returns to the Wrexley Hotel to investigate a murder. The victim was considered a boorish snob who felt entitled to anything and anyone he wanted. Yet despite his Oxford education, he was barely literate, lazy, and prone to make stupid mistakes - his last mistake turned out to be crossing a killer.

As Greenwich, Connecticut, slows down during a bitterly cold February, Melanie and her spunky Aunt Peg head to the city that never sleeps for the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden. Aunt Peg can't wait to demonstrate her judging chops on national TV, even after being hounded by frustrating mishaps - all seemingly orchestrated by Victor Durbin, an ousted Paugussett Poodle Club member with a bone to pick. But the bright lights of the show ring grow dim when Victor is found murdered, and she's the one topping the suspect list.

Fall 1889: Lady Rotherton has arrived from London intent on chaperoning her niece Prudence through a New York social season to find a suitable husband. It's certainly not her niece's devilishly handsome partner in Hunter and MacKenzie Investigative Law. Aunt Gillian's eye for eligible suitors is surpassed only by her ability to discern genuine gems from nearly flawless fakes. At the Assembly Ball at Delmonico's, she effortlessly determines that the stones in the spectacular diamond waterfall necklace adorning the neck of the wife of banker William De Vries are fake.

Thanks to Aunt Peg and her enthusiastic dog show pals, Melanie's aptly named Bite Club reading group has book lovers all over town burying their noses in thrilling murder mysteries. But another pet project surfaces when Melanie reluctantly agrees to train a Bulldog puppy for elusive member Evan Major. Between the unusual bruise on his face and a bizarre run-in with an unknown dog show attendee, introverted Evan's penchant for trouble sends him to an early grave - while landing Melanie in the hot seat for homicide.

In the second in the series, Kate Brannigan investigates the bizarre case of the missing conservatories, unearthing an unscrupulous lawyer (later found hanging from his balcony in flimsy women's apparel); a supersalesman with an overstuffed bank account; and a brother-sister pair who are double-crossing everyone. And this real estate fiddling ties in with a separate scam involving Kate's best buds - and murder of the most unexpected order.

Hoteliers Maxime and Catherine Le Bon have spent their life savings restoring the hotel, which lies in an archipelago of sun-soaked islands off the coast of Marseille. To celebrate the grand opening, a group of privileged guests joins Verlaque and Bonnet: Marine's free-spirited best friend; an aging film star, his much-younger wife, and her son; a pair of affable American tourists; and a querelous Parisian couple. But the murder of one of the guests casts a shadow over everyone's vacation, and things go from bad to worse when a violent storm cuts off all communication with the mainland.

Charlie and Diesel, along with Charlie's fiancee, Helen Louise Brady, are heading to Asheville, North Carolina, to spend a week at a boutique hotel and participate in a gathering of a mystery reader's club composed of patrons of the Athena Public Library. The always spry Ducote sisters, friends of the hotel's owners, are helping underwrite the expenses, and they've insisted that Charlie, Helen, and Diesel join them. When an intrusive, uninvited guest turns up dead, only one mystery club member with a connection to the deceased appears to have a motive to kill.