Robbery, Murder and Cups of Tea: A Novella


Phil Church - 2013
    When one of his neighbours is brutally murdered, he gets the chance to investigate a real crime. Unfortunately, the hunt for the killer is far from simple, as winter sets in and he struggles to deal with his wife's disinterest, his friend's bungling enthusiasm, a village that will happily implicate anyone and everyone, and a rising body count.

The Thursday Murder Club / The Man Who Died Twice


Richard Osman
    

Old Age Private Eye (Old Age Pensioner Investigations (OAPI) #1)


A.W. Blakely - 2015
    Then he mowed the lawn (again) and knew his life was over. His wife was happy doing her crosswords, but Stanley felt like an old age pensioner with nothing to look forward to apart from sitting in his chair, watching daytime TV, and walking his dog, Roobarb. On a whim, after yet another wet walk with his overweight pooch, he put an advert in the corner shop window: Old Age Pensioner Investigations. No job too big, or small. From murder to missing cats, Detective Stanley can solve it all. He went home, got told off for letting Roobarb get mud on the lino, stared at Custard the cat who stole the only biscuit he was allowed a day (he was putting on weight), and fell asleep in his chair. Then the doorbell rang. He had a case. The old age private eye was in business. Now all he had to do was actually solve a murder. Oh, and get a pad, and a pen, and maybe detectives had cars too, and secretaries, and offices... He wasn't bored any more, that was the main thing. Plus the murder mystery, of course.

Lynchpin: The Best Laid Schemes of Mice and Men


Siddharth Maheshwari - 2021
    A sinister plan, of a shrewd calculating mastermind, has set the wheels of doom in motion. He is now pulling the lynchpins across the country and making it fall into disarray. He is using everyone in his path to achieve his goals. Within thirty days he intends to control the nation’s soul. As chaos grips the country, it’s a race against time for DSP Ranbir Roy of the Intelligence Bureau and Inspector Vikram Aditya Singh to stop him before anarchy dooms the country. The pieces are set, the board is laid out but what happens when your own pawns move against you? What will be the end game?

Dig Two Graves


Kim Powers - 2015
    After a hushed-up scandal over his Olympics win and the death of his wife in a car accident five years ago, Ethan wants nothing more than to forget his past. Skip is not only the light of Ethan's life--she is his life. Then, Skip is kidnapped. A series of bizarre ransom demands start coming in that stretch Ethan's athletic prowess to its limits, and he realizes with growing horror that they are modern versions of the Twelve Labors of Hercules, demanded in tricky, rhyming clues by someone who seems to have followed every step of Ethan's career.

Aoife's Chariot: Mirrored Murder


Katherine Pathak - 2013
    Her brothers have given her the task of deciding what to do with their parents’ farm, which is slowly falling into disrepair. Imogen will not be rushed into passing judgement on the place. When she starts to carry out some research into the history of Kilduggan Farm, she inadvertently sets off a chain of events that ends in tragedy. Suddenly, Imogen and her psychologist husband, Hugh, find themselves faced with a seemingly insoluble puzzle. How can it be possible that an unexplained death in the present day can match, in every detail, an unsolved case from 40 years ago?As the past begins to catch up with Imogen, she realises that she must strive to discover the truth about her family, even if it means that nothing will ever be the same again…This is an intricately plotted novel, cleverly interwoven with subtle clues and the occasional red-herring. It will keep you guessing and the pages turning, right up until its final, shocking conclusion.Aoife's Chariot is the first novel in the Imogen and Hugh Croft Mysteries Series. It is an absorbing family saga, full of mystery and suspense. Husband and wife sleuths Imogen and Hugh Croft are first introduced to readers in this tense genealogical mystery with deathly consequences.

The Candle Room


Daniel K. Gentile - 2016
    His first client was a transient who just learned that he was the sole beneficiary of his estranged brother’s multi-million dollar estate. His brother was brutally murdered and the alleged killer was on trial in what appeared to be an open and shut case. Zach observed the riveting courtroom drama as the case unfolded and in the process, discovered a dark, deadly secret left by the murder victim. He soon learned that he was way over his head in his new practice and that his first case could cost him not only his career but his life.

Destined for Trouble


Claudia Lefeve - 2014
    All she wants to do is unwind, forget about her failed relationship, and work on her tan.But when the owner of the local crab shack is murdered at Jules’s welcome-home party, she is forced to scrap her rest-and-relaxation plans. Now her best friend, Abby Lee, is the prime suspect, and her high school sweetheart, Deputy Chief Justin Harper, is working the case. Even though Jules knows she shouldn’t, she just can’t keep herself from getting involved in the investigation—and entangled with handsome Assistant District Attorney Hartley Crawford. While an old flame threatens to rekindle and a new one sparks, Jules must find a killer and prove her friend’s innocence. But will she put two and two together before trouble catches up with her?Revised edition: This edition of Destined for Trouble includes editorial revisions.

Familiar Magic


Constance Barker - 2020
    She has all the knitting, crocheting and painting items needed for all your crafty projects, as well as a few witchy spells if you're so inclined. While her magic is secret to the mundane, her circle of close friends and family all have their own mysteries.Take Sybil, her fluffy tabby kitten familiar. While Sybil may look young she's much older and has been by Thea's side since she was a wee sprout. She's a sassy kitty who can take care of herself. Thea's half human friends include a detective bear shifter and a best friend fox shifter. Granny rounds out Thea's inner circle. Granny has raised Thea from a small girl when her parents disappeared. A mystery that haunts Thea to this day.When the small town of Ardensville is rocked by a murder of a young woman found in the city park's gazebo, the mundane and the magicals must work separately to find a killer. The victim was just starting her own craft store, which puts a target on Thea. But others, including members of the victim's family and friends, have reasons of their own to wish the victim dead.Can Thea, Sybil and her friends discover the fiend who's taken out one of their own without getting themselves into deep dodo?***Find out in the First Book in the Tabby Kitten Familiar Series***

An Invitation to Murder


A.G. Barnett - 2020
     Actress, icon and darling of the nation, she was the queen of TV crime drama. Then she turned fifty. When replaced on the show by a younger woman, she thinks her days in the limelight are over when an invitation to a murder mystery party from an old friend throws her back into the public eye. This time as a murder suspect. After playing a detective for years, Mary must now become one as she tries to prove her innocence with the help of her puppy-like brother and her surprisingly useful friend and assistant, Dot.

The Professor: Book 2


Alexandria Clarke - 2017
    Her team of unexpected allies harbors its own destructive secrets, leading Nicole on a dangerous mission to the heart of the society. As time and options dwindle, can Nicole make one last stand to save herself and her friends?

Innocence


Karen Novak - 2003
    Her experience has left her haunted by hallucinatory echoes of kids who are not coming back. But when Leslie's own thirteen year-old daughter, Molly, attempts to hire her to find a vanished friend, the echoes start to take their form from Leslie's own troubled childhood. As the search for Molly's friend Lydia gets underway, it becomes apparent that there's much more to the story: a party of eighth graders at Lydia's home got out of hand and has resulted in charges of sexual assault against five thirteen-year-old boys. The once-rural town and now burgeoning suburb of Swifton Woods. Swifton has labored for decades under the stigma of an unsolved series of abductions and rapes of eleven young girls, who came to be known as the Nightingales. An incidental connection between Lydia's party and Swifton's past only fans the public response to an ugly rage. The boys' conviction seems all but inevitable.Molly, however, knows more than she's telling. In trying to honor a solemn promise while negotiating her inherent sense of right and wrong, she finds herself despised by those she most wants to help. At the same time, Leslie's increasing worry for the depth of Molly's involvement begins to weave into her own secret knowledge of the Nightingales' history. In the end, she is left uncertain of every instinct but the one that demands she protect her child. Even if that means she has to betray her own childhood by telling everything.

The Graveyard Position


Robert Barnard - 2005
     Meet the Cantelos of Leeds, England. To call the Cantelos dysfunctional is actually a wild understatement. But is one of them also a killer? Clarissa Cantelo, a skilled clairvoyant, apparently thought so. Believing that her sixteen-year-old nephew, Merlyn Docherty, was in peril, she sent him into hiding in Italy, far away from the rest of her family. She told them he was dead. It was safer that way. Now Clarissa herself has died, and Merlyn, a successful lawyer and civil servant who still lives abroad, has returned to Leeds to claim his inheritance. First, he must prove his identity. Is he really Merlyn or, as some of his long-lost relations say they suspect, is he an imposter? Merlyn doesn't mind confirming his identity, but he'd at least like to move into the house that Aunt Clarissa left him in her will while he gets to know some of his relatives. And the house may hold some clues to the Cantelos' past. What is the dreadful family secret that has upset relations between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, filling even the youngest generation with fear? If Merlyn discovers the truth, buried under decades of deception, his life may once again be in danger. Merlyn must start at the beginning if he is to find the answers. All roads seem to lead back to his grandfather, the formidable Merlyn Cantelo, renowned in the family as an object of both fear and loathing. Though the old man who caused such pain to his family died years ago, his malevolence lives on. Somebody wants young Merlyn gone. With help from police detectives Mike Oddie and Charlie Peace, Merlyn must find that person before the Cantelo curse works its evil again. Wickedly observant and full of his trademark sly twists, The Graveyard Position proves once more that Robert Barnard is in a class of his own.

Buster's Law


Laraine Lebron - 2012
    So do cats, bunnies and every other creature that must temporarily call it home. Running an animal shelter is hell, but Lucy knew that coming in. Dealing with the constant stream of homeless animals, tight budget and tighter Board of Directors, while maintaining a 20 year marriage, is exhausting. But it's all worth it each and every time an animal gets adopted. What Lucy could not foresee is that an unknown enemy would declare war on Mercy. Disturbing notes, nasty pranks and the horrible murder of a beloved co-worker threatens Mercy's very existence. Ferocious in the defense of her employees and the animals they care for, Lucy must identify and stop this enemy, or die trying.

Memories and Matchsticks


N. Gemini Sasson - 2014
    Even murder.Out of work, accident prone, and dateless, Sam McNamee packs up her belongings and her daughter to move to the Florida Keys, where she can pen love stories as S.A. Mack to ease the lingering pain of her husband's death. First, though, she has to help her dad sell his home of forty-plus years. It just might be the hardest job she's ever tackled. He's a hoarder; she's a neat freak.The night she returns to Wilton, Sam plows into a mangy mutt on a rain-slicked country road. Bump, the dog she rescues, has a history that drags Sam and her family into a web of danger, making her father a prime suspect.Feuds and secrets run deep in Humboldt County. Sam can't leave until the mystery of the arsons is solved. Not that she'd want to anymore, since veterinarian Clint Chastain has stolen her heart.In Memories and Matchsticks, N. Gemini Sasson combines comedy and romance as accidental female sleuth Sam McNamee rediscovers love in a sleepy Midwestern town.