Suspense Amateur Detective

It's the day of the Christchurch Dog Show. The whole town is aquiver with excitement. The ladies of the Charity Shop Detective Agency are hoping to make lots of new furry friends. After a very dramatic Best Biscuit Catcher competition, Fiona, Sue, and Daisy from the Dogs Need Nice Homes charity shop come across a shocking scene. The dog show's vet is performing CPR on a woman. The ladies rush over, but it's too late. Back at the shop, the ladies learn that the poor woman was murdered. Someone injected Sylvia Steadman with something very nasty indeed.

Crescent Place was once a peaceful country green surrounded by five tasteful suburban houses and populated by polite, responsible citizens. But as the city enveloped it, the residents built a gate to keep the world out. With each passing year, the subdivision grew stranger and stranger - until it began to look like a time capsule of the 1890s.

In an elaborate house known as the Cloisters, Maud Wainwright rules supreme. The queen of society in the small town of Beverly, she has a table long enough to seat 100, and she keeps an iron grip on the guest list. Her right-hand woman is Pat Abbott, a local girl who is beautiful, innocent, and kind. Pat has no idea how cutthroat high society can be, but she's about to get a deadly first lesson.

On a seaside vacation, Ellery Queen is ensnared in a trio of strange crimes. Spanish Cape is a dramatic promontory, its rocky cliff stopped with a picturesque hacienda. This isolated spot belongs to millionaire Walter Godfrey and it should be a peaceful family getaway - but one summer evening, Rosa Godfrey argues with her uncle David as he tries to convince her not to run away with one of their guests, the roguish John Marco. Suddenly, a one-eyed gunman appears out of the twilight.

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.

Arnold Landon finds himself drawn into another bitter dispute over land—in which a defenseless old woman pays the ultimate price. To the casual observer, Penbrook Farm might seem like a ramshackle hovel, buried deep in the woods of Northumberland. But to fragile old Sarah Ellis, it’s home. And the developers can have the place over her dead body. Of course, no one ever expected it to come to that.

Zoe’s hard-won peaceful life is shattered when a devious thief targets her most prized possession—a vibrant portrait that’s her last connection to her long-dead brother. It’s a painting that also holds the secrets of a forgotten artist who created recipes for the most breathtaking colors ever seen. When the canvas disappears and murder follows, Zoe must unravel a palette of deadly puzzles. With her quick-witted sidekick Dorian and their eclectic group of friends, Zoe races to catch a killer, evade a secret society, and recover her beloved painting.

Alfie McAlister has retreated from London to the peace and quiet of the country to recover from a personal tragedy. But an accidental death - which may have been no accident - reveals that the heart of England is far from the tranquil backwater he imagined. After arriving in Bunburry, he is co-opted as an amateur detective by Liz and Marge, two elderly ladies who were best friends with Alfie's late Aunt Augusta. And it is not long before their investigations take an even more dramatic turn.

Living in a haunted house is nothing new to Danielle. In fact, she's rather fond of the ghosts who visit Marlow House. But after she brings home the twins, unexplained paranormal activities in the nursery perplex not just her, but the ghosts who frequently visit Marlow House.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni attends a course hosted by the local chamber of commerce entitled “Where Is Your Business Going?”. But rather than feeling energized, he comes back in low spirits, unsure how to grow the already venerable and successful Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. Then an old friend from school approaches him about a new business venture that could be just the ticket. When it turns out he will need to mortgage his property in order to pursue this endeavor, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi wonder what this will mean for his current business - as well as their own.

Snow is a rarity in Maura Donovan's small village in County Cork, Ireland, so she wasn't sure what to expect when a major snowstorm rolled in around Sullivan's pub. But now she's stranded in a bar full of patrons - and a suspected killer in a long-ago murder. Maura's been in Ireland less than a year and hasn't heard about the decades-old unsolved crime that took place nearby, let alone the infamous suspect, Diane Caldwell.

Queen's Bureau of Investigation is now open for business - and in each department of this new enterprise Ellery finds ample opportunity to exercise the brilliant, ingenious, and at times startling talents of his crime-lab mind. For to the bureau come some of the most plaguey cases in Queen's career.

London, 1815. Amateur sleuth Atlas Catesby is about to discover the dark side of the bright lights. His long-awaited night at the opera with Lady Lilliana ends abruptly when a notorious courtesan is shot to death in Covent Garden. The infamous victim was the mistress of the powerful Marquess of Vessey. Atlas believes that the marquess - his former brother in law - is responsible for the long-ago death of Atlas' sister, Phoebe. Atlas seizes the opportunity to potentially avenge his sister's death.

England, 1914. Joanna Blalock's keen mind and incredible insight lead her to become a highly skilled nurse, one of the few professions that allow her to use her finely tuned brain. But when she and her 10-year-old son witness a man fall to his death, apparently by suicide, they are visited by the elderly Dr. John Watson and his charming, handsome son, Dr. John Watson Jr. Impressed by her forensic skills, they invite her to become the third member of their investigative team.

Frolicking with dogs is Melanie Travis's idea of heaven. So when she's invited to be a "puppy wrangler" at a benefit for a local dog rescue, the last thing she expects is to be chasing after a tricky killer.

At the tail end of the long summer of 1940, there is nowhere in the country more charming than Wrightsville. The Depression has abated, and for the first time in years the city is booming. There is hope in Wrightsville, but Ellery Queen has come looking for death. The mystery author is hoping for fodder for a novel, and he senses the corruption that lurks beneath the apple pie façade. He rents a house owned by the town's first family, whose three daughters star in most of the local gossip.

French's department store was famous for the rare merchandise it offered its elite clientele. But no one there could be proud of its latest exclusive window display: the bloodstained corpse of the owner's wife. Ellery Queen and his father, Inspector Richard Queen, soon discover that this palace of commerce is a viper's nest of fear, jealousy, suspicion, and hatred, where love is cheap and the price of honor marked down. But worst of all is the mysterious mocking mastermind who is out to turn the glittering store into a bargain basement of murder.

January 1910. A journalist has been killed in a suspicious blaze. Everything points to a group of suffragettes, but the apparent culprit insists she is innocent. When Lady Hardcastle receives a letter from a suffragette requesting her urgent help, the retired spy turned sleuth knows only she stands between an accused young woman and the gallows. Evidence at the scene makes Lizzie Worrel’s innocence difficult to believe, and with the police treating it as an open-and-shut case of arson, Lady Hardcastle faces a barrage of resistance as she tries to dig out the truth.

A deluge has flooded the high ground near Hanging Falls - but heavy rains aren't the only menace descending on Timber Creek. While on a scouting mission to pinpoint trail damage, officer Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner, Robo, stumble upon a body floating at the edge of a lake. Robo catches human scent, which leads to an enigmatic forest-dweller who quickly becomes suspect number one. With help from veterinarian Cole Walker, Mattie identifies the victim and discovers an odd religious cult whose dress and manners harken back to the 19th century.

August 1911. Emily Hardcastle and her inimitable lady’s maid Florence Armstrong are enjoying a fine summer until Harry, Lady H’s brother, turns up out of the blue with a mystery for them to solve. A routine parachute test at a local aeroplane factory has gone horribly wrong - with pilot Dickie Dupree plummeting to his death. Harry is certain there is more to this ‘tragic accident’ than meets the eye, having discovered that someone at the airfield is leaking top secret intelligence to foreign rivals.