Home Mystery

Thanks to the efforts of Miss Penelope Lumley, their plucky governess, Alexander, Beowulf, and Cassiopeia are much more like children than wolf pups now. They are accustomed to wearing clothes. They hardly ever howl at the moon. And for the most part, they resist the urge to chase squirrels up trees.

At this stately home, now open for public tours, visitors revel in the lush atmosphere created by its three hundred rooms, its exceptional display of fine china, its chilling dungeon with historic suits of armor on display, evoking the spirits of knights from a forgotten age. Young Michael's sister, a visitor to the mansion with their mum, presses her for an explanation of "what's a chastity belt?" while Michael fools around with one of the suits of armor....

While investigating the hit-and-run death of a young boy, Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite makes a startling discovery: the suspect is an active-duty serviceman at a local naval base. After a key piece of case evidence goes missing, he is cleared of charges in a military court. But Tracy knows she can't turn her back on this kind of injustice.

The Aldens visit an old Kansas inn that’s full of secrets! Nobody knows why a famous photographer visited the inn just to take a single picture. And what about the other legendary guest - a heroic young stranger who’d come west on an “orphan train”? A long-lost riddle just might solve all these mysteries!

>Driving deep into the woods to her husband's cottage with her best friend in tow, Jake knows she has a challenging week ahead of her. Aside from saying good-bye to paved roads and indoor plumbing, Jake bet her husband that she could finish building the cottage porch in only a few days. But as they set to work, they soon realize that they're not alone. Recently escaped from prison and having fled into the woods, Dewey Hooper recognizes Jake the instant he sees her. Her testimony got him sent away for murder years ago and here he can finally exact his revenge.

For ex-Wall Streeter Jacobia Jake Tiptree and her teenage son, Sam, September promises tranquil days winter-proofing their rambling handyman's special of a home in Eastport, Maine. But there's nothing idyllic about this Down East autumn. For starters, the return of truly vicious native son Reuben Tate stirs up the town. And when somebody slits Reuben's throat and hangs his corpse on the cemetery gate, the police trace a bloodied scalpel to surgeon Victor Tiptree - Jake's former husband.

Army retiree Tessa Treslow is as excited as the other residents of New Oslo, Idaho, when the cast and crew of the TV show Picks with Ricks comes to town! Tessa and her Aunt Edna put their car restoration business on hold to let the celebrity antique hunters pick through their old garage, hoping the trash contains a treasure that will help fund their new business. But it turns out that the pickers come with TV cameras, likeable stars, a stressed-out producer—and a murderer!

Jason Brazel is an out-of-work journalist who lives in Penrith with his family and mother-in-law, Amita. She knows everyone and everything that’s going on in this corner of the Lakes. So when it’s discovered that Madeline Forbisher, one of Amita’s fellow regulars at the bingo club has died, found by the postman outside her crumbling country home close to Ullswater Lake, she senses immediately this is no accident. The trouble is, no one else seems to take her suspicions seriously. That is, until she enlists the help of her friends at the Penrith Bingo Club.

Peter Robinson is the critically acclaimed New York Times and London Sunday Times best-selling author of the Inspector Alan Banks series, as well as a winner of the 2001 Anthony and 2001 Ellis Awards. Close to Home traverses the difficult landscapes of a painful past, and an uncertain future for Inspector Banks. Two 15-year-old boys are lost, and the circumstances of their disappearances seem oddly parallel save one detail. The first boy disappeared and was presumed dead 35 years ago.

Nine-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he's alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake, in a boat whose motor just died. A sudden noise distracts him - and all goes dark. Darren Mathews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness; after the events of his previous investigation, his marriage is in a precarious state of rebuilding, and his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother, who's never exactly had his best interests at heart. Now she holds the key to his freedom, and she's not above a little maternal blackmail to press her advantage.

At the age of ten, Liza Barton shot her mother in their New Jersey home while trying to protect her from her violent stepfather. Despite her stepfather's claim that the shooting was a deliberate act, the Juvenile Court ruled the death an accident. Trying to erase every trace of Liza's past, her adoptive parents changed Liza's name to Celia. At the age of 28, she married a 60 year-old widower, and they had a son. Before their marriage, Celia confided the secret of her earlier life.

After stealing some priceless Russian jewels from the Stockholm Auction House, Martha and her gang flee to the small village of Hemmavid to lie low. But what they find is a village in crisis, so they decide they want to help revive the place. But to do so, the village needs money. In steps the League of Pensioners to arrange events to attract paying tourists. Which all turns out to be a rather delicate – and dramatic – balancing act when you are wanted by the police.

The last thing Nick Morrow expected to receive was an invitation from his father to return home. When he left rural Nebraska behind, he believed he was leaving everything there, including his abusive father, Carlyle, and the farm that loomed so large in memory, forever. But neither Nick nor his brother Joshua, disowned for marrying Emilia, a woman of Asian descent, can ignore such summons from their father, who hopes for a deathbed reconciliation. Predictably, Joshua and Carlyle quickly warm to each other while Nick and Emilia are left to their own devices.

At a party in Manhattan, Maggie Holloway - one of the fashion world's most successful photographers - is thrilled to be reunited with her beloved stepmother. A widow now, Nuala Moore is equally delighted to see her long-lost stepdaughter and invites Maggie to spend a few weeks at her home in Newport, Rhode Island. But when Maggie arrives, she finds Nuala murdered, apparently by a burglar. Heartbroken, Maggie is stunned to learn she had inherited Nuala's stunning Victorian home...and horrified when she begins to suspect that Nuala's death was not random, but part of a diabolical plot conceived by a twisted mind.

Archie Goodwin’s aunt Edna is about to lure him away from his work at Nero Wolfe’s New York brownstone. After a phone call, he heads off to Ohio, where the president of Farmer’s State Bank and Trust, an elderly widower, has died in an apparent suicide. But Archie’s aunt has expressed nagging suspicions - which only grow stronger when someone takes a shot at a local reporter who wrote about the case.

Alison is lucky, and she knows it. She has the life she always craved, including a happy home with Jeff and their brilliant, vivacious teenage daughter, Katherine - the absolute centre of Alison's world. Then a knock at the door ends life as they know it. Fifteen years ago someone else took Alison's baby from the hospital. And now Alison is facing the unthinkable. Her daughter belongs to someone else. What would you do if you discovered your beloved child is not yours?

As an epic nor'easter bears down on the idyllic island town of Eastport, Maine, Jacobia Tiptree hurries to prepare her antique house for the big blow, while the town battles to evacuate tourists and save the beloved 200-year-old Seaman's Church steeple, threatened by the storm. But when a local teen beauty-pageant winner from a troubled family is found murdered in the steeple's bell tower and Jake's son Sam's visiting childhood friend comes under scrutiny as a suspect, the resulting storm of gossip and suspicion rivals anything the Atlantic could brew up.

Clayton Hollow does the best snowboarding tricks! But someone's playing a trick on him by stealing his snowboard. Can the Aldens help him?

Carly had thought they’d always live there. The beautiful Cornish cliffside house they’d taken on as a wreck, that Mark had obsessively redesigned and renovated - a project that had made him famous. It was where they’d raised their children, where they’d sat cozily on the sofa, watching storms raging over the sea below. It was where they’d promised to keep each other’s secrets. Until now. Because Mark has fallen in love. With someone he definitely shouldn’t have. Someone who isn’t Carly. And suddenly their family home doesn’t feel like so much of a safe haven.

It was the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold. In 1985, at a heated auction by Christie’s of London, a 1787 bottle of Château Lafite Bordeaux - one of a cache of bottles unearthed in a bricked-up Paris cellar and supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson - went for $156,000 to a member of the Forbes family. The discoverer of the bottle was pop-band manager turned wine collector Hardy Rodenstock, who had a knack for finding extremely old and exquisite wines. But rumors about the bottle soon arose.