The Salisbury Manuscript


Philip Gooden - 2008
    Tom is an ambitious lawyer, and about to marry Helen Scott - a budding novelist.Felix Slater, a respectable churchman and amateur archaeologist, wants the scandalous manuscript of his late father's memoirs locked away until after his own death.But Slater’s death comes much sooner than expected, and Tom falls under suspicion for his murder. The compromising manuscript has disappeared.To exonerate himself, Tom, accompanied by Helen, must unmask an ingenious, elusive killer, one who will threaten their own lives. The pursuit takes them from the cells of the city gaol to the heights of the cathedral spire and out among the ancient earthworks of Salisbury Plain. The Salisbury Manuscript is the first in a series set in England’s cathedral cities. Full of action, suspense and gothic atmosphere, the novel brings back to life a world of Victorian mystery.

The Word Is Murder


Anthony Horowitz - 2017
    But did she arrange her own murder?One bright spring morning in London, Diana Cowper – the wealthy mother of a famous actor - enters a funeral parlor. She is there to plan her own service.Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home.Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator who’s as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes. He chooses Anthony Horowitz.Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself at the center of a story he cannot control. Hawthorne is brusque, temperamental and annoying but even so his latest case with its many twists and turns proves irresistible. The writer and the detective form an unusual partnership. At the same time, it soon becomes clear that Hawthorne is hiding some dark secrets of his own.New York Times bestselling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty, Anthony Horowitz has yet again brilliantly reinvented the classic crime novel, this time writing a fictional version of himself as the Watson to a modern-day Holmes.A masterful and tricky mystery that springs many surprises, The Word is Murder is Anthony Horowitz at his very best.

Stone Cove Island


Suzanne Myers - 2014
    Seventeen-year-old Eliza Elliot volunteers to clean out the island’s iconic lighthouse and stumbles upon a secret in the wreckage: a handwritten, anonymous confession to a twenty-five-year-old crime.Bess Linsky’s unsolved murder has long haunted the island, and the letter turns the town inside out. Everyone who knew Bess is suddenly a suspect. Soon Eliza finds herself in the throes of an investigation she never wanted. As Stone Cove Island fights to recover from disaster, Eliza plunges the locals back into a nightmare they believed was long buried.

Death of a Cozy Writer


G.M. Malliet - 2008
    At an engagement dinner, he announces his secret marriage to beautiful Violet, once charged with her husband's murder. Within hours, eldest son and hated appointed heir Ruthven is found cleaved to death by a medieval mace. When Detective Chief Inspector St. Just arrives, a deadly calm goes beyond the usual English reserve. Soon Sir Adrian is found slumped over his writing desk – an ornate knife thrust into his heart. Using a Cornish brusqueness and brawn, can St. Just find the killer before another victim falls?

The Broken Ones


Ren Richards - 2020
    but did she kill her?A bestselling true crime writer, Nell tells other people's stories. But there is one story she won't tell. Ten years ago, she was a teenage mother with a four-year-old she found desperately hard to love. Then the little girl disappeared.As Nell begins to interview the subject of her next book, a woman convicted of murdering her twin sister, it becomes clear that someone has uncovered her true identity. And they know that Nell didn't tell the truth about the day her daughter vanished...

Double Jinx


Gretchen Archer - 2016
    Then $3,000,000 goes missing. And a couple dressed as condiments—he’s Mustard, she’s Ketchup—might be behind the spooky shenanigans. What’s a Holiday Host to do? Call in the flying monkeys? July turns to the highest level of casino security and meets a boy named Baylor. Just Baylor. From there, it’s all thrills and chills. Books in the Davis Way Crime Caper Mystery Series: • DOUBLE WHAMMY (#1) • DOUBLE DIP (#2) • DOUBLE STRIKE (#3) • DOUBLE MINT (#4) • DOUBLE KNOT (#5) • DOUBLE UP (#6) March 2017 Part of the Henery Press Mystery Series Collection, if you like one, you'll probably like them all…

eBully


Dave Conifer - 2009
    Just like last year, an internet bully is terrorizing one of his students at Lakeland Middle School. Last time it ended badly when the victim was found with two slashed wrists after an attempted suicide. This year, after a series of nasty computer messages and an indiscreet photograph of Carly Gillette spread through the student body Lukather knows it's happening again. This time he's determined to stop the bully in his tracks before Gillette ends up reaching for a razor blade. Thirteen-year-old Scott Halifax has a juvy rap sheet that could peel wallpaper but he's just what Lukather needs -- a street-smart, tech-savvy kid with no roots. Lukather makes a deal with Halifax: go undercover as a student at Lakeland and nail the bully in return for a ticket out of the County Detention Center and a clean slate. Once he's in at Lakeland Halifax teams up with Tom Seidel, the nerdy kid that everyone loves to hate. It isn't long before Scott, Tom and Carly's best friend Lisa are working together. It takes a lot of hard work, some sly computer sleuthing and a little dumb luck before they expose the bully. And it's the last person that anybody would have suspected. eBully draws on recent headlines about cyber-bullying, including the need to update harassment and stalking laws to reflect new technologies.

A Lesson In Dying


Ann Cleeves - 1990
    Suddenly, the village seems unfamiliar, uncomfortable.The school caretaker and his daughter pursue their own route of investigation, which should have made Inspector Ramsay's job a little easier. But hampered by false leads, powerless to pre-empt the killer's next move, and overshadowed by the evil atmosphere of All Hallow's Eve, Ramsay finds his own reputation is on the line...

The Dream Job


Kiersten Modglin - 2020
    No one in her new life can know who she was. No one from her old life can know where she is now. Drowning in debt, Lark is desperate to land a job. When she finds herself at an interview for a mysterious company offering her an exorbitant salary, she jumps at the chance. But things aren’t quite what they seem...She soon learns of the company’s peculiar hiring process. Locked in a luxury cabin with five strangers who go only by their code names, Lark begins to question exactly what it is she signed up for.The company, riddled with secrets and led by a cryptic boss known only as Mr. X, has strange rules and even stranger challenges for their candidates. After each day’s competition, the candidates gather around the dinner table to eat, drink, and spill their darkest secrets. When Lark sees something she shouldn’t, she begins to ask questions, but soon gets a warning to stop. It’s obvious she’s in danger, but why? What does the company want? How much can she trust the others in the house? Trapped in the remote cabin with no technology allowed, Lark realizes she must take drastic measures to find out the truth. The job of her dreams may cost her life…

Fire at Will's


Cherie O'Boyle - 2014
    It's October in California and the entire canyon is threatened with fiery destruction. Nestled in the oak-studded coastal mountains, the village of Arroyo Loco is rife with quirky residents, endless bickering, and long-simmering animosities. Arson is another matter. Once the fire is quelled, the community learns the sheriff's detectives are spending the weekend at a sensitivity-training workshop in Big Sur. It falls to Estela and an eclectic collection of neighbors to conduct their own investigation and find the arsonist living among them. What begins as speculation over coffee becomes a more urgent and dangerous search when a body is discovered in the charred wreckage, another resident turns up missing, and a shocking secret is revealed. Too often joined by Estela's irrepressible border collies, who regard any fence as a mere suggestion, the residents in Arroyo Loco must negotiate their own frailties and the rules of an officious and dysfunctional homeowners association (aren't they all?) as they try to solve the mysteries before anyone else falls victim.

Travel Can Be Murder Cozy Mysteries: Books 1-3


Jennifer S. Alderson - 2021
    Was it an accident or a murder? For Lana Hansen, the answer will mean freedom or imprisonment for someone close to her…

Pumpkins in Paradise


Kathi Daley - 2013
    When the handsome new deputy closes the case without so much as a “why” or “how,” Tj turns her attention from chili cook-offs and pumpkin carving to complex puzzles, prophetic riddles, and a decades-old secret she seems destined to unravel.

The Classics Reclassified


Richard Armour - 1960
    

A Quiet Place to Kill


N.R. Daws - 2021
    As the Battle of Britain begins, the women of the Air Transport Auxiliary carry out the dangerous task of ferrying warplanes to RAF airbases. But for the ATA detachment sent to the base at Scotney, it’s not only in the skies that they’re a target—it seems a killer is stalking them on the ground…On the day pilot Lizzie Hayes arrives in the quiet village, one of her new comrades is found murdered. One of the few women in Britain with a psychology PhD, Lizzie thinks she can use her skills to help identify the killer among the military staff and local villagers, but DI Jonathan Kember isn’t convinced. When a second pilot is murdered, Lizzie’s profile of the killer comes into sharper focus—attracting anonymous threats against her own life.With Kember’s investigation stalling and events at the airbase becoming ever more sinister, Lizzie’s talents are given a chance. But can she and the still-sceptical Kember work together to find the killer before Lizzie becomes the next victim?

Speak Now: Married to Mystery


Margaret Dumas - 2004
    Not that she kisses many men, a fact her friends deplore. So imagine their surprise when she comes home to San Francisco with her new husband, Jack.Jack Fairfax is the definition of tall, dark, and handsome. But is he the mild-mannered meteorologist he claims to be?Sometime between finding a dead body in her bathtub, tagging along on a ransom drop, and getting rescued by her husband in a hail of bullets, Charley begins to believe there's more to Jack's past than he's willing - or able - to admit.So, here's Charley, used to her money as a cushion, forced to protect her family and friends and rescue her non-profit repertory theatre from artistic and financial ruin. If that means dealing with kidnappings, murders, bitter ex-boyfriends, out-of-control relatives, and vicious former spies - all while staging a play - well, nobody ever said marriage would be easy.