English Mystery In England

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?

When an Oxford caretaker is killed by a fall down the library stairs and a professor is attacked, rumors fly that it's the work of a poltergeist who's been causing havoc at the college. The prof is a knitter, and a customer at Lucy Swift's shop, Cardinal Woolsey's. But Lucy thinks a very human killer is shifting the blame onto a ghost who can't defend itself, and she's determined to trap the real killer and get justice for the dead man.

Josephine 'Jo' Fox hasn't set foot in Romsey in over twenty years. As an illegitimate child, her family—headed by her controlling grandfather—found her an embarrassment. Now, she wants to return to what was once her home and uncover the secret of her parentage. Who was her father and why would her mother never talk about him? Jo arrives the day after the Luftwaffe have bombed the town. The local pub has been completely destroyed and rescue teams are searching for the remains of the seven people known to have been in the pub at the time the bomb hit.

London, 1812. At a fashionable address in leafy Mayfair, a far cry from Detective Stephen Lavender’s usual haunts, a man is found dead in his room. He has been brutally stabbed, but the door is locked from the inside, and the weapon is missing. The deceased is David MacAdam, an Essex businessman with expensive tastes. As Lavender and Constable Ned Woods travel between London and Chelmsford seeking to understand MacAdam’s final hours and unearth the grisly truth, they uncover a tangled web of deceit behind his stylish facade.

After the final curtain of Swan Lake, an animated crowd exits the Mariinsky theatre brimming with excitement from the night's performance. But outside, the scene is somber. A ballerina's body lies face down in the snow, blood splattered like rose petals over the costume of the Swan Queen. The crowd is silenced by a single cry - "Nemetseva is dead!" When the dead ballerina's aristocratic lover comes begging for justice, Emily must apply her own set of skills to discover the rising star's murderer.

The Yarn Studio’s Seaside Knitters have their hands full designing new classes for vacationers, as well as testing each other’s originality by creating a single blanket together. Birdie’s teenage granddaughter is also visiting for the season. Meanwhile, the Lazy Lobster and Soup Café’s local fare is gaining newfound attention with the addition of a well-known Boston chef. It’s sure to be another beautiful, busy time in their tight-knit town… Until Birdie spots a huge blaze from her balcony one evening, frighteningly close to knitter Cass’s lobster business.

Not much happens in Biddle Rhyne, a quiet, picturesque village in the southwest of England. Especially if you don't count the meat raffle on a Thursday night and the odd sheep escaping a field. However, that's all set to change when Julia Ford, a normal(ish) twenty-something who works in the local pub, stumbles upon a murder victim. Upsetting, but not the end of the world. Particularly as the victim is Audrey White, the cantankerous owner of a nearby garden center. But when the police discover Julia had argued with the woman in the past, she is accused of the crime.

After the excitement of her recent adventures in Paris, Mrs Hudson goes to stay with her married daughter Eleanor in Bilbourne, a little village in Kent, the Garden of England. It is September, and the hop-harvest is in full swing at the nearby plantation belonging to Thomas Brakefield. But if Mrs Hudson was hoping for some peace and quiet away from the city, she is to be disappointed, soon caught up in dark passions that culminate in a brutal murder. At great risk to herself, Mrs Hudson goes in pursuit of the perpetrator.

Max Darling hasn't been interested in crime since his brush with a seductive young woman put him in danger of losing his freedom. He even refuses to talk to a woman who calls for help and says she is afraid. The caller leaves word she's hidden something in the antebellum house Max and his wife, Annie, are restoring.

In a beautiful Belgravia house, Dowager Countess Georgiana intends to celebrate her son's birthday—delightful festivities are planned. Lord Stokely has a different agenda for the occasion, one concerning governance, politics, and the seizing of power. Burgoyne's Agency has yet a third and very dangerous design for the evening—the toppling of Britain's foremost charismatic personality and most photogenic peer—Stokely. Outside of Belgravia, Britain is in a turbulent state.

Between ornate bridal gown fittings and meetings with Lyndy's distant relatives, Stella finally feels less like an out-of-place American and more like a respected aristocrat. Everything changes as the arrival of an anonymous gift and return of her overbearing father cast a dark shadow over the festivities, conjuring difficult memories and new fears....

What could be better than going to Northern England to visit the places where famous authors such as Bram Stoker, Beatrix Potter, and Catherine Cookson lived and worked? It was something Kat had always wanted to do. Her dream became a reality when her friend, Marion, decided such a trip should be a payback to her friends for helping her discover the truth about her husband. But having the popular pub employee, Sam, murdered the night they arrived at the pub/hotel where Kat and her friends were staying, was not a preferred way to start a vacation.

Still grieving the death of his long-time partner, Chase reunites with his dear friend and fellow Anglophile Billie Mondreau for a seacoast holiday of historic sightseeing. Assigned a pair of guides from the tour company Wanderers, Chase and Billie join seven other like-minded Americans looking forward to an English getaway. All except for Ronald Gretz. The wealthy entrepreneur behind the international Golden Sunset nursing-home chain doesn’t like anything about walking, touring, or England.

Chase has two compelling reasons for returning to England—a group walk along the famed Coast to Coast trail in the picturesque Lake District, and a chance to further his relationship with Mike, the handsome Devonshire coroner he met on his last trip. The walkers, including Chase’s dear friend and fellow Anglophile Billie Mondreau, assemble at a Cumbrian hotel and begin their adventure with the traditional “baptism of the boots” in St. Bee’s Bay. But they’ve barely begun traveling eastward with their genial guide than the group dynamic turns unexpectedly rocky.

A Study in Scarlet was the very first Sherlock Holmes novel. Here, in the most remarkably precise manner, Doyle produced two of the most well-known characters in English fiction. Their individual traits and their relationships, their ambitions and foibles are introduced against the backdrop of an exciting story of revenge and persistence, which starts in Victorian England but moves to the American West, and the environment of the early Mormon communities.

Enthralled with a lavish wedding, the town gossips flourish until the specter of a long-deceased spirit intervenes. Based loosely on a true crime story from the turn of the nineteenth century in New England, this novel uncovers a simple truth of humanity—from the well-off to the working class, everyone falls victim to the transience of joy and the struggles of human nature.

Frannie is delighted when a chance meeting with a handsome man and his son leads to a romance. The fact that the relationship is marred by gruesome tragedies, she dismisses as an unsettling coincidence. But eventually she can no longer ignore the fact that she is the only thing linking these horrible events. Is it a murderous practical joke? Or worse?

Fabian Hightower has been killed in a car crash. At least, that is what a policeman is asking Alex, his mother, to believe. But Alex knows she saw him that morning - at a time when he must have been dead. When the funeral is over Alex tries hard to forget her bizarre experience. But her mind seems to be playing strange tricks on her, turning her grief into horror. When she turns to a medium her worst fears are realised. Fabian has unfinished business and he is determined to come back. But why?

When Manhattan business tycoon, commonly known as the Takeover King, Montgomery Livingstone is pushed off a Widow's Walk and falls to his death, Maeve and Meg are again thrust into a murder investigation as they attempt to help a seemingly innocent young woman accused of the crime. But it turns out there are many secrets to be uncovered, and once again, Maeve, Meg, and their savvy Boston Irish mother must band together to solve the murder. Maeve races against the clock to bring the killer to justice while caring for her patients and pursuing her goal of motherhood.

A murder with no apparent motive, fear and distrust of police, a mix of some questionable characters who want to put a lid on the killing and their connection to the victim - This is the second volume of the New England based mystery series featuring Vermont private investigator Michael Hanlon.