Suspense Detective

In her best-selling Amelia Peabody mysteries, author Elizabeth Peters has created an award-winning mixture of vivid archeological detail, finely-tuned suspense, and witty romance. This, the 12th Amelia Peabody mystery, opens in 1914. As the tides of war rise, Egypt is threatened by attacks. Espionage abounds, pulling in several members of the Peabody Emerson household even as they embark on a new archeological season.

A drop, in spook parlance, is the passing on of secret information. It's also what happens just before you hit the ground. Old spooks carry the memory of tradecraft in their bones, and when Solomon Dortmund sees an envelope being passed from one pair of hands to another in a Marylebone cafe, he knows he's witnessed more than an innocent encounter. But in relaying his suspicions to John Bachelor, who babysits retired spies like Solly for MI5, he sets in motion a train of events that will alter lives.

Often compared to both Ruth Rendell and P.D. James, Deborah Crombie is internationally acclaimed for her deftly written mysteries that combine suspense, with lyrical prose. Sharply etched characters further enrich this story of tangled relationships and dark secrets. Twelve years after their divorce, Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid receives a phone call from his ex-wife Victoria asking for his help.

Agatha Raisin, retired PR supremo, has been spurned at the alter by the man of her dreams - her attractive neighbor James Lacey. So temporarily deserting the sleepy Cotswold village of Carsely, she pursues her fleeing fiancé to north Cyprus where, instead of enjoying a romantic honeymoon, they witness the killing of an obnoxious tourist in a disco. Can the duo forget their differences and resume their strangely successful sleuthing partnership?

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?

High school wasn’t a grand time for everyone, but when a group of friends decide to meet up at a B and B ahead of their 10-year reunion, old grudges resurface, and one of them ends up dead. Now the owners, a kindly older couple, are on the hook for the accidental death due to anaphylaxis, but they insist no mistakes were made on their part. Fortune is asked to look into the situation before the inept local sheriff railroads the couple or simply allows gossip to run them out of business, which will cost them their home. Swamp Team 3 heads to Voodoo Island to find a way to clear the couple.

An explosion outside a community dance sends Mattie Cobb and Cole Walker reeling into the night, where they discover a burning van and beside it the body of outfitter Nate Fletcher. But the explosion didn’t kill Nate - it was two gunshots to the heart.

Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she has albinism. She's a terrific athlete but can't go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in. And then she discovers something amazing - she is a "free agent" with latent mystical power.

It is the autumn of 1880, and Dr. John Watson has just returned from Afghanistan. Badly injured and desperate to forget a nightmarish expedition that left him doubting his sanity, Watson is close to destitution when he meets the extraordinary Sherlock Holmes, who is investigating a series of deaths in the Shadwell district of London. Several bodies have been found, the victims appearing to have starved to death over the course of several weeks, and yet they were reported alive and well mere days before.

Being shunned by society gives Charlotte Holmes the time and freedom to put her extraordinary powers of deduction to good use. As "Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective", aided by the capable Mrs. Watson, she has had great success helping with all manner of inquiries, but she is not prepared for the new client who arrives at her Upper Baker Street office. Lady Ingram, wife of Charlotte's dear friend and benefactor, wants Sherlock Holmes to find her first love, who failed to show up at their annual rendezvous.

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....

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....

A safari expedition in Zambia is the disguise Emily employs in order to locate a professional assassin among her fellow explorers. Along the way, she meets an extraordinary man named Cyrus.

A missing salami leads Mrs. Pollifax to a shocking discovery: a woman is hiding in her house. Even more unsettling is the revelation that ever since the young woman had a chance encounter with the heir to the throne of Ubangiba, she has been followed by deadly hit men. What do these men want?

When Priscilla Halburton-Smythe brings her London playwright fiancé home to Lochdubh, everybody in town is delighted...except for love-smitten Constable Hamish Macbeth. Yet his affairs of the heart will have to wait. Vile, boorish Captain Bartlett, one of the guests at Priscilla's engagement party, has just been found murdered—shot while on a grouse hunt.

Lochdubh constable Hamish Macbeth's life is going to pot. He has - horrors! - been promoted, his new boss is a dunce, and a self-proclaimed traveler named Sean and his girlfriend have parked their rusty eyesore of a van in the middle of the village. Hamish smells trouble, and he's right, as usual. The doctor's drugs go missing. Money vanishes. Neighbors suddenly become unneighborly. The tension only explodes after the itinerant Sean is found brutally beaten to death in his camper.

Detective Inspector John Rebus is not a man easily intimidated, so when political heavyweights start to lean on the dour, moralistic Edinburgh detective to stop an investigation, Rebus doggedly digs in and follows the case as it moves from embezzlement to murder and finally to conspiracy at the highest level of government.

This first installment of a cozy mystery series transports listeners back to the bygone era of 1923 Britain, where unflappable flapper and fledgling journalist Daisy Dalrymple daringly embarks on her first writing assignment, and promptly stumbles across a corpse.

Rebekah Daniels is just your ordinary spunky nine-year-old girl living in the small town of Curtis Bay...except she is determined not to be ordinary at all! Her small town is filled with mysteries and Rebekah is sure that she, along with her best friend, Mouse, will be able to solve every last one of them.

Frances Wynn, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, enjoys more freedom as a widow than she did as a wife. After an obligatory year spent mourning her philandering husband, Reggie, she puts aside her drab black gowns, leaving the countryside and her money-grubbing in-laws behind. With her young daughter in tow, Frances rents a home in Belgravia and prepares to welcome her sister, Lily, arriving from New York - for her first London season.