Cozy Mystery Thrillers

When coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi awakens on a bench in Washington Square Park, she has no idea she’s been missing for the past week, or that her friends and family have been frantic with worry. Now that she’s back, everyone is overjoyed, including a handsome NYPD detective who claims to be her fiancé. But to Mike Quinn’s crushing distress, Clare doesn’t remember him, or much of anything about the last decade of her life.

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.

England, 1919. Verity Kent's grief over the loss of her husband pierces anew when she receives a cryptic letter suggesting her beloved Sidney may have committed treason before his untimely death. Determined to dull her pain with revelry, Verity's first impulse is to dismiss the derogatory claim. But the mystery sender knows too much - including the fact that during the war Verity worked for the Secret Service, something not even Sidney knew.

Brighton Longfield is kinda bad at life. She's divorced, childless, and she just got fired...again. With dwindling savings and few prospects, she packs her possessions into a U-Haul and sets out for the little town of Coventry, where she inherited a dilapidated old house from her Great Aunt "Mad" Maude Tuttlesmith. Coventry is supposed to be a stop in the road for Brighton. The plan is to fix up the house, sell it, and then figure out what to do with her life. You know what they say about the best-laid plans.

Molly Appleby is a young writer for Collector's Weekly, and when the attractive reporter isn't covering auctions and antique shows all over the South, she's trying to get her new relationship with a coworker off the ground. When her latest assignment takes her to North Carolina pottery country to cover an exclusive kiln opening, she's certain that the show promises surprising offerings and rare finds. What she doesn't expect to find is a dead body.

When historian Jaya Jones receives a mysterious package containing a jewel-encrusted artifact, she discovers the secrets of a lost Indian treasure may be hidden in a Scottish legend. But she's not the only one on the trail. Helping her decipher the cryptic clues are her magician best friend, a devastatingly handsome art historian with something to hide, and a charming archaeologist running for his life. When a member of the dig's crew is murdered, Jaya must figure out which of the scholars vying for her affections might be the love of her life - and which one is a killer.

In England in the late 1920s, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, on a convalescent trip to the countryside, goes to visit three old school friends in the area. Daisy and her husband Alec - Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher, of Scotland Yard - go for a Sunday lunch with Daisy’s friends, where one of the women mentions a wine cellar below their house, which remains curiously locked, no key to be found. Alec offers to pick the lock, but when he opens the door, what greets them is not a cache of wine but the stench of a long-dead body.

Claire Barclay finds a home in England after 25 years of travelling. She has money, a tour guide business, and ambitions. She is shocked by the murder in her quiet village, but is not going to give up on the haven she has finally found. With the help of her sister, the barracuda barrister, her new dog, new friends, and the unexpected stimulus of a new man in her life, she deals with suspicion, confusion, and threats.

Seasoned obituary writer Eve Mallow has a new assignment: to tell the life story of famed musician Bernard Fitzpatrick. A chance to spend a few days in the sweet little village of Saxford St. Peter, walking the country lanes with her beloved dachshund, Gus, and meeting new people sounds like a dream. But it turns out that Bernard’s life was much less interesting than his death. On the day she arrives, news breaks that the charismatic cellist was the victim of a grisly murder. Could this quaint English village be hiding a dark secret?

Most folks associate the city of Salem, Massachusetts, with witches, but for Lee Barrett it's home. This October she's returned to her hometown - where her beloved Aunt Ibby still lives - to interview for a job as a reporter at WICH-TV. But the only opening is for a call-in psychic to host the late-night horror movies. It seems the previous host, Ariel Constellation, never saw her own murder coming.

Fairy tale fever has descended on New York City. Broadway fans are flocking to Red Riding Hood: The Musical; museums are exhibiting art inspired by the Brothers Grimm; and Clare Cosi gives her coffee truck a "Jack and the Beanstalk" makeover for a Central Park festival. Clare's coffee hunter ex-husband contributes a bag of African beans with alleged magical properties, and his octogenarian mother entertains customers with readings of the grinds. But Clare remains skeptical.

Jessica is invited to join other crime writers at an interactive murder mystery weekend in a historic mansion turned resort. A theatrical troupe presents a play for the paying guests, but a young actor's death during the actual performance isn't part of the script. The local sheriff has never investigated a murder before and enlists Jessica's help and expertise. As she begins to put the pieces together in her folksy fashion, Jessica recognizes that this could well be her last performance.

After Lindsey Bakeswell catches her celebrity chef fiance sizzling in the arms of another woman, Lindsey leaves big city Wall Street for small town Beacon Harbor, Michigan, to pursue her own passion as a pastry baker - and gets mixed up in someone's sweet taste of revenge.

Sussex, 1955: When bookshop owner Flora Steele goes for a walk along the pier she isn’t expecting to spot a young woman’s body in the stormy waters below. And she’s shocked to discover the victim is someone she knows.... Convinced the death was not an accident, Flora persuades attractive local crime writer Jack Carrington to help her find out what really happened to poor Polly Dakers, a popular young woman with a complicated love life, who’d been at the heart of village life in Abbeymead.

It’s been an enjoyable and murder-free time for Judith, Suzie and Becks since the events of last year. The most exciting thing on the horizon is the upcoming wedding of Marlow grandee, Sir Peter Bailey, to his nurse, Jenny Page. Sir Peter is having a party at his grand mansion on the river Thames the day before the wedding, and Judith and Co. are looking forward to a bit of free champagne. But during the soiree, there’s a crash from inside the house, and when the Marlow Murder Club rush to investigate, they are shocked to find the groom-to-be crushed to death in his study.

Pet sitter Daphne Templeton has a soft spot for every stray and misfit who wanders into the quaint, lakeside village of Sylvan Creek. But even Daphne doesn't like arrogant, womanizing Steve Beamus, the controversial owner of Blue Ribbon K-9 Academy. When Steve turns up dead during a dog agility trial, Daphne can think of a long list of people with motives for homicide, and so can the police. Unfortunately, at the top of the list is Daphne's sister, Piper - Steve's latest wronged girlfriend.

Chester Henry and his adult granddaughter Clare lovingly repair old typewriters and restore old books. Who ever thought their quaint store would hold the key to some modern-day trouble? When a stranger to town demands they turn over an antique Underwood typewriter they're repairing for a customer, Clare fears she may need to be rescued. A call to the police scares the man off, but later Clare finds his dead body in the back alley. What about a dusty old typewriter could possibly be worth killing for?

April 1928: Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher is visited in London by her young cousins. On the list of must-see sites is the Crystal Palace. Discovering that her children's nanny, Nanny Gilpin, has never seen the Palace, Daisy decides to make a day of it - bringing her cousins, her three-year-old twins, her step-daughter Belinda, the nurserymaid, and Nanny Gilpin. Yet this ordinary outing goes wrong when Mrs. Gilpin goes off to the ladies room and fails to return. When Daisy goes to look for her, she doesn't find her nanny but instead the body of another woman dressed in a nanny's uniform.

Addie Greyborne loved working with rare books at the Boston Public Library - she even got to play detective, tracking down clues about mysterious old volumes. But she didn't expect her sleuthing skills to come in so handy in a little seaside town....

Blossom Valley, West Virginia, is home to Smythe Orchards, Winnie and her Granny's beloved 25-acre farm and family business. But any way you slice it, it's struggling. That's why they're trying to drum up business with the "First Annual Christmas at the Orchard", a good old-fashioned holiday festival with enough delicious draw to satisfy apple-picking locals and cider-loving tourists alike - until the whole endeavor takes a sour turn when the body of Nadine Cooper, Granny's long-time, grudge-holding nemesis, is found lodged in the apple press.