English Detective Mysteries

Feeling jilted and cross, Agatha follows a fortune-teller's advice and rents a cottage in the pretty village of Fryfam, where she hopes good fortune and true love will come chasing after her. Unfortunately, her romantic notions are soon dispelled by the strange goings-on in the village. What are those strange lights in Agatha's back garden? Who is stealing paintings and pottery? And who murdered the local squire? Agatha's nose for trouble leads her into a maelstrom of jealousy, blackmail, and dangerous liaisons....

When reclusive artist Gabriel Quinn is gunned down outside a gallery on Oxford High Street, Detective Inspector Bridget Hart investigates the world of contemporary art, where paintings can change hands for millions in the auction room. Bridget is convinced that the last words spoken by the artist - a mysterious code of eight digits and a letter - are key to unraveling the mystery of his death.

Bossy, impulsive, yet hopelessly romantic, Agatha is dreading the upcoming marriage of her ex-husband, James Lacey. Although she has set her sights on a handsome and beguiling new Frenchman, she can't quite stop obsessing about James. Her best intentions to move on with her life are put on hold when James's young bride is shot to death just minutes before saying "I do" and Agatha is named the prime suspect.

When Sheriff Jenna Alton and her deputy, David Kane, hear reports of a plane crashing into the mountains that surround Black Rock Falls, their hearts shatter. Their friend’s blonde-haired teenage daughter, Julie, was on that flight. They won’t sleep until they bring Julie home to her distraught family. A blizzard closing in, Jenna pushes on with the search until, just beyond the snow-capped trees, she finds the plane. She falls to her knees at the sight of the lifeless bodies, still buckled into their seats. But one passenger is missing: Julie has vanished.

After years of bullying and cajoling others as a high-flying public relations boss, Agatha Raisin’s early retirement to the picture-postcard village of Carsley in the Cotswolds is a dream come true. And how better to begin making herself a local leading light than by entering the village quiche-making competition? Unburdened by old-fashioned ideas of fair play, the ruthless Agatha decides to ensure she wins by buying her entry from a London delicatessen.

When Detective Inspector Bridget Hart returns to her old Oxford college for a reunion dinner, she's hoping for a fun weekend catching up with old friends. But the reunion takes a macabre turn when body parts are served up at the college feast, and one of her friends is found murdered. With Bridget's arch rival Inspector Baxter leading the murder inquiry, and herself a potential suspect, Bridget is forbidden from taking part in the investigation. But that doesn't stop her from carrying out her own private inquiries. Bridget soon realizes that the murderer is someone known to her.

Suffering from bald patches thanks to a hair conditioner spiked with depilatory cream - supplied by the murderess in her last investigation - Agatha escapes to the coastal resort of Wyckhadden to allow her crowning glory to recover in privacy. A local witch provides her with hair tonic and Agatha’s lost locks begin to grow - but then the witch is found bludgeoned to death. The elderly residents at Agatha’s faded hotel seem innocuous enough, if a little odd. But, as she enquires into the murder she turns up an alarming number of secrets....

Almost bigamy and absolute murder - Agatha Raisin's life is never dull.... The morning of Agatha's longed-for marriage to James Lacey dawns bright and clear. But her luck runs out in the church when Jimmy, the husband she had believed long dead, turns up large as life and twice as ugly. Agatha has a go at strangling him. It's all too much for James, who breaks off the engagement. So when Jimmy is found murdered the next day, Agatha and James are both suspects. And they'll have to work together in order to clear their names....

The Department of Sensitive Crimes takes on three extremely strange cases. First, the detectives investigate how and why a local business owner was stabbed...in the back of the knee. Next, a young woman's imaginary boyfriend goes missing. And, in the final investigation, Varg must determine whether nocturnal visitations at a local spa have a supernatural element.

Sidelined by his war injuries in 1916, Captain Hastings travels to his friend’s estate at Styles Court to recover from his wounds. As the summer heats up, a tragic murder occurs, and Hastings calls upon the services of his old acquaintance Hercule Poirot. With seemingly unrelated clues - a scrap of a burned will, a false beard, and an empty packet of bromide - the brilliant detective launches his first investigation on English soil and forges an enduring friendship.

Se7en meets The Silence of the Lambs in this dark and twisting novel from the author Jeffery Deaver called "a talented writer with a delightfully devious mind". For over five years, the Four Monkey Killer has terrorized the residents of Chicago. When his body is found, the police quickly realize he was on his way to deliver one final message, one that proves he has taken another victim, who may still be alive.

Can the feisty Agatha Raisin cut it as a private investigator? She soon learns that running her own detective agency in the Cotswolds is not quite like starring in a Raymond Chandler movie. But then in walks wealthy divorcée Catherine Laggat-Brown, and presents Agatha with her first real case. Death threats, blackmail, and worse quickly follow, and once again Agatha is off scouring the countryside for clues and showing friends and enemies alike what Raisin Investigations can do!

The local ladies all deem Mr. John a wizard, so when Agatha Raisin finds a few grey hairs on her head - and the rinse she tries at home turns her hair purple - she makes a beeline for the handsome Evesham hairdresser. And as well as sorting out her hair it soon becomes clear the charming man also has designs on her heart - but their budding romance is cut short when Mr. John is fatally poisoned in his salon. Once again Agatha finds herself embroiled in a murder case. Was it one of Mr. John’s many lady clients, all of whom divulged to him their darkest secrets?

Recently married to James Lacey, Agatha quickly finds out that it’s not all "happy ever after" - before long the newlyweds are living in separate cottages and accusing each other of infidelity. After a fight down the local pub James vanishes completely, leaving a bloodstain as the only clue to his fate. Naturally, Agatha is Prime Suspect. Determined to clear her name and find her husband, Agatha begins her investigation - and promptly finds a murdered mistress....

When a marriage proposal appears imminent for the beautiful - if rebellious - Lady Rose Summer, her father wants to know if her suitor's intentions are honorable. He calls on Captain Harry Cathcart, the impoverished younger son of a baron, to do some intelligence work on the would-be fiance, Sir Geoffrey Blandon.

When Agatha Raisin left behind her public-relations business in London, she fulfilled her dream of settling in the cozy British Cotswolds, where she began a successful private detective agency. Unfortunately the village she lives in is about to get a little less cozy. Lord Bellington, a wealthy land developer, wants to turn the community garden into a housing estate. When Agatha and her friend, Sir Charles Fraith, attempt to convince Lord Bellington to abandon his plans, he scoffs.

A young American au pair, Charlotte Clancy, vanishes without a trace in Mexico City. The case is left cold, but its legacy will be devastating. A decade later, Los Angeles is shaken by a spate of violent murders. Psychologist Nikki Roberts is the common link between the victims, her patients at the heart of this treacherous web. When someone makes an attempt on Nikki’s life, it’s clear she is a marked woman. Nikki makes a living out of reading people, drawing out their secrets, but the key to this shocking pattern eludes her.

Get three absolutely gripping crime thrillers set on the UK's atmospheric north Norfolk coast from number one best-selling British author J M Dalgliesh in this great value collection.

Agatha Raisin has never been one for forced holiday cheer, but her friendly little village of Carsely has always prided itself on its traditional Christmas festivities. But this year the bells will not be ringing out, as Mr. John Sunday, an officer with the Cotswold Health and Safety Board, has chosen Christmas as the time to crack down on safety hazards. But Mr. Sunday is soon found face down in the petunias, very much dead.

Now engaged to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe must contend with the hostility of her fianci's unscrupulous maid, who quickly begins plotting the disintegration of the arrangement. Then an American woman asks for help to learn the truth behind her son's disappearance in Africa, and Mma Ramotswe has all the troubles she can handle.