Mystery England

After a nearly fatal blow to the skull, traumatized private detective Ian Cameron is found dazed and confused on a muddy riverbank in Victorian London. Among his effects: a bloodstained business card bearing the name of a master wizard and a curious pocket watch that doesn’t seem to tell time. To retrieve his lost memories, Ian demands answers from Edwina and Mary Blackwood, sister witches with a murky past. But as their secret is slowly unveiled, a dangerous mystery emerges on the darkened streets of London.

It was a most peculiar murder. A man's body was found in the canal - but the evidence showed that he had drowned in a bathtub. A theater critic known for his savage reviews, the victim had had a full cast of enemies. While Inspector Witherspoon scoured the theater, his housekeeper and unofficial sleuthing partner Mrs. Jeffries uncovered the critic's secret past: a real-life drama more compelling than any stage play.

Now that peace reigns in Europe and Napoleon has been exiled to the island of Elba, Lady Arianna and her husband, the earl of Saybrook, are determined to put government sleuthing aside. But the head of British security has other ideas.... Rumors are rife that Napoleon may be plotting to take back the French throne and plunge the continent into another war. So when Saybrook learns that his Spanish cousin has gone missing on the island under mysterious circumstances, he and Arianna feel they have no choice but to undertake a secret mission to Elba.

Ever since her first ghostly sighting, Abby Kimball has been trying to unravel the mystery of her newly discovered ability. So when she sees the apparition of a Revolutionary War soldier in the middle of the town green - just days before the annual Patriot's Day celebration, no less - she's determined to figure out her connection to the man. The ethereal soldier is not the only mystery in Abby's life.

After Sir Robert's injury from the battle of Waterloo begins troubling him again, his wife Lucy insists they relocate from the village of Kurland St. Mary to Bath, along with her sister Anna, so that Robert can take the waters and recover. At the Roman baths, Robert befriends an elderly and pugnacious businessman, Sir William Benson, ennobled by the Crown for his service to industry. Their acquaintance is short-lived, however, when the man is found drowned in the baths. Robert vows to find his killer, with Lucy's aid.

Early in the morning of Monday, July 8, 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes and his 12-year-old brother, Nattie, set out from their small, yellow-brick terraced house in East London to watch a cricket match at Lord's. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, the boys told their neighbors, and their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool. Over the next 10 days, Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning their parents' valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. But as the sun beat down on the Coombes house, a strange smell began to emanate.

Charlie Rutland, a womanizing journalist, is found brutally murdered. He worked for a muck-raking gossip magazine and therefore had many enemies. Detective Crow is assigned to Yorkshire where he must eliminate a long list of suspects. And where does the German businessman Conrad Gunther fit in? Mysterious lights at Lockyer Tarn, a homeless man hiding out on the Yorkshire Dales, a stolen Volvo, and a former Gestapo officer are all seemingly linked in some manner. And then the British spy services get involved....

Stiles Island is a wealthy and exclusive enclave separated by a bridge from the Massachusetts coast town of Paradise. James Macklin sees Stiles Island as the ultimate investment opportunity: all he needs to do is invade the island, blow the bridge, and loot the island. To realize his investment, Macklin, along with his devoted girlfriend, Faye, assembles a crew of fellow ex-cons - all experts in their fields - including Wilson Cromartie, a fearsome Apache. James Macklin is a bad man - a very bad man. And Wilson Cromartie, known as Crow, is even worse. As Macklin plans his crime, Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone has his hands full. He faces romantic entanglements in triplicate: his ex-wife Jenn, is in the Paradise jail for assault, he's begun a new relationship with a Stiles Island realtor named Marcy Campbell, and he's still sorting out his feelings for attorney Abby Taylor. When Macklin's attack on Stiles Island is set in motion, both Marcy and Abby are put in jeopardy. As the casualties mount, it's up to Jesse to keep both women from harm.

Although Father Tom Christmas serves his little church in enchanting Thornford Regis with a glad and faithful heart, he never expects to find himself skydiving to raise money for it. Nor, safely back on the ground, to see two of the other divers leap from the plane, then tangle in a midair punch-up and begin falling to the earth.

Steeped in a history of award-winning Yorkshire ale, the town of Markham boasts not one but two breweries. Richard Foster runs one; his sister, Emily, along with her partner, Janice, runs the other. And not without some resentment. The unwelcome return of the town’s former bad boy, Brendan Scholes, threatens to ignite the sibling rivalry further. Scholes claims to have found the long-lost secret recipe to the beer that made Richard and Emily’s father famous, and he wants money.

Thorgrim Night Wolf, now somewhere on the south coast of Engla-land, may be closer to his goal of returning home than he has been since reaching Ireland years before, but he is still very, very far away. His son Harald, however, has ambitions beyond just getting home. Given command of one of the ships in the fleet, Harald sees a chance to put his courage on display, unleashing consequences that will lead Thorgrim into a fight against the powerful armies of Wessex, a fight he does not want.

The evidence was all there: a dead body, two dessert plates, and a gun. Could it be that Mr. Ashbury was sharing his cake with his killer? The old bloke had enemies galore - even his own daughter disliked him. Mr. Ashbury's son-in-law doesn't want Inspector Witherspoon asking questions. Of course this doesn't stop Mrs. Jeffries and her staff from snooping around.

Left unfinished after Dickens died in 1870, The Mystery of Edwin Drood centers on Edwin Drood's uncle, John Jasper, and his love for Rosa Bud, Edwin's fiancee. Set in the dark, fictional cathedral city of Cloisterham, the novel is awash with guilt, disguise and mystery. It contains some fine writing, and just before his death, Dickens left an indication of where the plot was going, which is included.

In London 1946, the Right Sort Marriage Bureau is just beginning to take off, and the proprietors, Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, are in need of a bigger office and a secretary to handle the growing demand. Unfortunately, they don’t yet have the necessary means. So when a woman arrives - a cousin of Gwen’s - with an interesting and quite remunerative proposition, they two of them are all ears. The cousin, one Lady Matheson, works for the queen in “some capacity” and is in need of some discreet investigation.

Hannah Cameron was not well-liked, but who stabbed her in the back? To almost everyone, the answer was clear: she was killed by a burglar. This case is given to Inspector Nivens, so Mrs. Jeffries and the rest of the household must tiptoe around this case to find the real killer.

Mazelina of Wexcombe has always dreamed of traveling with her father to lands beyond the confining walls of their castle. But his sudden death deprives her of the future she imagined. Abandoned by her eldest brother, Mazy is soon forced to seek help from her beloved brother Sir John at the great estate of Strachleigh. Her visit leads to a friendship with the dashing and noble Sir Berenger of Dericott. He has notions of rescuing a damsel in distress. But Mazy is brave enough to defend herself—and has proven that her skills in archery and knife throwing rival that of a knight’s.

Adopted as a child into a privileged family, Philippa Palfrey fantasizes that she is the daughter of an aristocrat and a parlor maid. The terrifying truth about her parents and a long-ago murder is only the first in a series of shocking betrayals. Philippa quickly learns that those who delve into the secrets of the past must be on guard when long-buried horrors begin to stir.

Mary Fawcett refines the healing recipes she’s inherited from generations of women before her—an uncanny and moral calling to empathize with the sick. When witchfinder Matthew Hopkins arrives in her small village, stoking the fires of hate, he sees not healing but the devil at work. Mary’s benevolent skills have now cast her and her young brother under suspicion of witchery. Soon, the husband of one of Mary’s patients is found murdered, his body carved with strange symbols.

Roger Thorncroft spent most of his days on the cliffs with his easel and paints, until the day he was found sprawled in the grass. Who and why would someone have killed such a gentle, quiet man? Then again, who really knew the artist and his secrets? And who are the mysterious strangers seen in Sitting Marsh? The members of the Housewives League are convinced they are German spies. Lady Elizabeth has her work cut out to catch a killer and restore harmony in the village.

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.