Cozy Mysteries

As summer draws to a close, the Spirit, Health, and Heart Conference arrives, just in time for Winifred's sisters to open their store next to the Cozy Corgi Bookshop. To Fred's surprise, chakras turns out to be a beautiful addition to the delightful mountain town. But not everyone is charmed by the crystals, tarot readings, and messages of personal enlightenment. When a famous spiritualist is found dead, Chakras and the entire town are plunged into a conflict that touches the lives of those closest to Fred.

Lady Violet Belmaine ponders that conundrum while traveling from London to rural Scotland at the invitation of an old friend. Escorted by her dashing physician friend, Hugh St. Sevier, Violet prepares to again subject herself to a nuptial celebration—except that the groom fails to appear. Matters become more interesting when Violet discovers that Sebastian MacHeath is laird of the nearest castle and well acquainted with the bride and her family.

The first rule of being a ghost whisperer: Don't tell anyone. Seriously. Don't. Sure, it might sound harmless. A fun party trick, even. I assure you, it's not. How do I know? Well, let's just say that I've had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, and nine times out of 10, it turns into an all-consuming disaster.

Daphne Templeton's sister Piper is getting married - and their mother is getting carried away. She insists on hiring Sylvan Creek's top event planner, Abigail Sinclair, who proposes an Independence Day theme complete with Statue of Liberty-inspired bridesmaid dresses. With all the bickering among the families, Daphne's glad her only duty right now is pet-sitting for Abby's cat, Ms. Peebles. But there are some fireworks coming that aren't part of the ceremony. The Poconos will never be the same....

In the dark, wintry highlands of Lochdubh, Scotland, where the local Calvinist element resists the secular trimmings of Christmas, the spirit of old Saint Nick is about as welcome as a flat tire on a deserted road. Nor is crime taking a holiday, as Constable Hamish Macbeth soon finds himself protecting an unhappy girl, unlocking the secrets of a frightened old woman, and retrieving some stolen holiday goods. Now the lanky lawman must use all his Highland charm and detective skills to make things right.

There's never a good time for a ghost crisis. However, it's particularly inconvenient while I'm trying to tackle my first wedding season. Between 12-hour days, an assistant with a case of butterfingers (not the chocolate kind), and the flood of tourists in town, I'm struggling to keep a grip on my sanity. All I want is three months of peace from the spirit world. But when local ghosts start going missing, I have to do something.

When teenage sisters go missing in the mysterious "Bennington Triangle" of Vermont, an area renowned for its disappearances and strange occurrences over the past 100 years, FBI agent Jack Juarez brings K-9 handler Jamie Flint and her dog Phantom in to assist with the search. When Jack realizes the case shares haunting similarities with the murders of the missing girls' aunts 10 years before, it becomes clear that he and Jamie are dealing with much more than two girls who simply wandered off the beaten path.

Writer Mark Endicott moves to a Dorset village, where he buys the small, almost derelict Corpse Path Cottage. It occurs to him that it would make the ideal setting for a murder. Before long, one of the village’s residents is mysteriously shot dead nearby. Mark’s life begins to unravel even as he helps the police solve the mystery. In the process he uncovers a tale of intrigue, bigamy, and blackmail.

A small town, even one detached from the mainland, has its share of unpleasant residents. When a developer with an unhappy wife, a bullish attitude toward women, and a much-frowned-upon plan is murdered, not many tears are shed. The case naturally falls to Victoria Trumbull, the 92-year-old, sharp-witted sheriff's deputy.

What do steeplechase, playing cards, and daggers have in common? They all play vital roles in the intricately woven plot of Sneaky Pie and her human cohort Rita Mae Brown in this delightful mystery. While Mary "Harry" Haristeen and her cat Mrs. Murphy attend the annual steeplechase at Montpelier, Mrs. Murphy discovers something amiss. During the celebration following the race, one of the jockeys is found dead in the barn, a dagger through his heart and the queen of clubs impaled by the dagger.

The aromas of wild thyme and Highland heather waft through Lochdubh, home to M. C. Beaton's eccentric policeman, Hamish Macbeth. Yet what the irascible constable smells in his latest case is the acrid scent of fear as an entire town is entrapped in something dark and deadly.... Yet as he deftly investigates the summer's high crimes and misdemeanors, he attracts the attention of his superiors. They feel a promotion and transfer will give him a larger playing field than Lochdubh. That's the last thing Macbeth wants.

As Hannah prepares to run a bakery and move out of her mother's house, it'll be a true miracle if she can prevent another yuletide disaster by solving a mystery as dense as a Christmas fruitcake....

Deciding if she wants to go into real estate becomes a life-or-death choice for Aurora "Roe" Teagarden. A naked corpse is discovered at her first house showing. And when a second body is found in another house for sale, it becomes obvious that there is a very cool killer at large in Lawrenceton, one who knows a great deal about real estate-and maybe too much about Roe.

When a shipwreck washes up on a beach across from Marlow House, Frederickport residents wonder what happened to the ship's crew. Danielle discovers the ship brought a stowaway - a spirit with ties to Frederickport that go back to the 1920's when Walt, Marlow House's resident ghost, was still alive.

A romantic weekend at Marlow House Bed and Breakfast turns deadly when Earthbound Spirits founder, Peter Morris, is murdered. Plenty of people had a reason to want the man dead - especially Danielle's current guests. But it isn't Morris' ghost distracting Danielle on this deadly Valentine's Day weekend, it's her late husband, Lucas. She has her hands full with suitors coming from all directions - both living and dead - while she tries to figure out if there's a killer in Marlow House.

Daisy, a widowed mom of two teenagers, is used to feeling protective - so when Iris started dating the wealthy and not-quite-divorced Harvey Fitz, she worried...especially after his bitter ex stormed in and caused a scene at the party Daisy's Tea Garden was catering. Then there was the gossip she overheard about Harvey's grown children being cut out of his will. Daisy didn't want her aunt to wind up with a broken heart - but she never expected Iris to wind up a suspect in Harvey's murder.

There’s a literary niche for all tastes including those who think that either Agatha Christie wasn’t funny enough or that PG Wodehouse didn’t feature anywhere near as many baffling murders as he could have. The Case of the Canterfell Codicil is a classic, cozy, locked-room mystery written in the style of an homage to PG Wodehouse.

The Tale of the Tenpenny Tontine is another mystifying manor-house stumper for Wodehousian bon-vivant and problem-solver Anty Boisjoly, when his clubmate asks him to determine who died first after a duel is fought in a locked room. The untold riches of the Tenpenny Tontine are in the balance, but the stakes only get higher when Anty determines that, duel or not, this was a case of murder.

In the late 1920s in England, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher is recruited to help her cousin Edgar - i.e. the Lord Dalrymple. About to turn 50, Lord Dalrymple decides it is time to find out who would be the heir to the viscountcy. With the help of the family lawyer, who advertises Empire-wide, they have come up with four potential claimants. For his fiftieth birthday, Edgar invites those would-be heirs - with Daisy and the rest of the family - to Fairacres, the family estate.

In December 1923, the formidable Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple has decided that for Christmas the family will all gather at Brockdene in Cornwall at the invitation of Lord Westmoor. Her daughter - Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher - is somewhat less than pleased but yields to the demands of her mother, especially as she'll be there just before the holidays working on another article for Town and Country about the estate itself. But the family gathering quickly goes awry.