Book picks similar to
Snapped in Cornwall by Janie Bolitho
mystery
crime
fiction
janie-bolitho
Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder
T.A. Willberg - 2020
A name, a time, a place.Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder plunges readers into the heart of London, to the secret tunnels that exist far beneath the city streets. There, a mysterious group of detectives recruited for Miss Brickett’s Investigations & Inquiries use their cunning and gadgets to solve crimes that have stumped Scotland Yard.Late one night in April 1958, a filing assistant for Miss Brickett’s named Michelle White receives a letter warning her that a heinous act is about to occur. She goes to investigate but finds the room empty. At the stroke of midnight, she is murdered by a killer she can’t see—her death the only sign she wasn’t alone. It becomes chillingly clear that the person responsible must also work for Miss Brickett’s, making everyone a suspect.Almost unwillingly, Marion Lane, a first-year Inquirer-in-training, finds herself being drawn ever deeper into the investigation. When her friend and mentor is framed for the crime, to clear his name she must sort through the hidden alliances at Miss Brickett’s and secrets dating back to WWII. Masterful, clever and deliciously suspenseful, Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder is a fresh take on the Agatha Christie—style locked-room mystery with an exciting new heroine detective at the helm.
The Man in the Queue
Josephine Tey - 1929
London’s favorite musical comedy of the past two years was finishing its run at the end of the week. Suddenly, the line began to move, forming a wedge before the open doors as hopeful theatergoers nudged their way forward. But one man, his head sunk down upon his chest, slowly sank to his knees and then, still more slowly, keeled over on his face. Thinking he had fainted, a spectator moved to help, but recoiled in horror from what lay before him: the man in the queue had a small silver dagger neatly plunged into his back. With the wit and guile that have made Inspector Grant a favorite of mystery fans, the inspector sets about discovering just how a murder occurred among so many witnesses, none of whom saw a thing.
Maisie Dobbs
Jacqueline Winspear - 2003
Fearing dismissal, Maisie is shocked when she discovers that her thirst for education is to be supported by Lady Rowan and a family friend, Dr. Maurice Blanche. But The Great War intervenes in Maisie’s plans, and soon after commencement of her studies at Girton College, Cambridge, Maisie enlists for nursing service overseas.Years later, in 1929, having apprenticed to the renowned Maurice Blanche, a man revered for his work with Scotland Yard, Maisie sets up her own business. Her first assignment, a seemingly tedious inquiry involving a case of suspected infidelity, takes her not only on the trail of a killer, but back to the war she had tried so hard to forget.
Deadhead and Buried
H.Y. Hanna - 2019
Hanna! City girl Poppy desperately wants to pay off her debts, quit her dead-end job, find her father… oh, and keep a plant alive. But she knows these are just hopeless dreams—until the day the letter arrives. Suddenly, Poppy is on a train heading deep into the English countryside, to collect a mysterious inheritance. And the last thing she expects to receive is a cottage garden nursery—complete with romantic climbing roses, fragrant herbs, a ginger cat with attitude… and a dead body. Now she must solve the mystery or risk losing her new home and the chance for a fresh start. But who would want to murder a gardener in a sleepy little village? Could the reclusive inventor have something to do with the killing? What about the brooding crime author next door? And why is her long-lost cousin so desperate for her to sell the cottage? Poppy might not know her pansies from her petunias but that doesn’t stop her digging for clues. The only problem is, she could be digging her own grave too… This book follows British English spelling and usage. Clean read: no graphic violence, sex, or strong language. Genre: cat cozy mystery series / gardening cozy mystery / women amateur sleuth / British detective mystery THE ENGLISH COTTAGE GARDEN MYSTERIES Deadhead and Buried (Book 1) Silent Bud Deadly (Book 2) ~ more coming soon!
A Case of Blackmail in Belgravia
Clara Benson - 2016
Now it turns out that numerous people with secrets to hide had every reason to wish him dead. But which of them murdered him? For Freddy Pilkington-Soames, newspaper reporter and man-about-town, the question hits a little too close to home, thanks to an unfortunate drunken encounter with Ticky's corpse which he'd much rather the police didn't find out about—and thanks also to his exasperating mother Cynthia's seeming determination to get herself arrested by tampering with the evidence. But a pretty girl with big blue eyes is demanding his help in solving the mystery, so what can he do but agree? Now all he has to do is hide the wrong clues, find the right ones, and unmask the murderer before the police discover what's really been going on. That ought to be easy enough. If only people didn't keep getting killed...
Aunt Bessie Assumes
Diana Xarissa - 2014
For most of those years, she's been in the habit of taking a brisk morning walk along the beach. Dead men have never been part of the scenery before.Aunt Bessie assumes that the dead man died of natural causes, then the police find the knife in his chest.Try as she might, Bessie just can't find anything to like about the young widow that she provides tea and sympathy to in the immediate aftermath of finding the body. There isn't much to like about the rest of the victim's family either.Aunt Bessie assumes that the police will have the case wrapped up in no time at all, then she finds a second body.Can Bessie and her friends find the killer before she ends up as the next victim?
Case Histories
Kate Atkinson - 2004
Case one: A little girl goes missing in the night. Case two: A beautiful young office worker falls victim to a maniac's apparently random attack. Case three: A new mother finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making - with a very needy baby and a very demanding husband - until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape.Thirty years after the first incident, as private investigator Jackson Brodie begins investigating all three cases, startling connections and discoveries emerge . . .
The Crime at Black Dudley
Margery Allingham - 1929
As they playfully recreate the ritual of the Black Dudley Dagger, someone dies. Pathologist George Abbershaw suspects foul play, and when a vital item is mislaid, a gang of crooks hold the guests hostage. Will they escape the house – what did happen to the Colonel – and just who is the mysterious Mr Campion? Neither the story nor Albert Campion is quite as vapid and slow as you might expect....apa in US as THE BLACK DUDLEY MURDER, 1929
The Innocence of Father Brown
G.K. Chesterton - 1911
"How in Tartarus," cried Flambeau, "did you ever hear of the spiked bracelet?" -- "Oh, one's little flock, you know!" said Father Brown, arching his eyebrows rather blankly. "When I was a curate in Hartlepool, there were three of them with spiked bracelets." Not long after he published Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton moved from London to Beaconsfield, and met Father O'Connor. O'Connor had a shrewd insight to the darker side of man's nature and a mild appearance to go with it--and together those came together to become Chesterton's unassuming Father Brown. Chesterton loved the character, and the magazines he wrote for loved the stories. The Innocence of Father Brown was the first collection of them, and it's a great lot of fun.
Deadly Gamble
Connie Shelton - 1995
Stacy's Rolex watch is missing and she begs Charlie to help locate it before her husband finds out. Things are complicated by the fact that Stacy had been seeing another man, Gary Detweiller, and he's the one she suspects of having stolen the watch. With a little detective work, Charlie and her sidekick dog, Rusty, retrieve the missing watch and all should be well. But three days later, Detweiller is murdered. All eyes turn to Stacy as the prime suspect. Once again, Stacy begs Charlie's help in proving her innocence. As she begins to ask questions, Charlie learns that Detweiller's life was not as simple as first perceived and that any number of people had grievances against him. And before she can pinpoint the killer, her own life is in danger as well. Includes new foreword from the author upon the 20th anniversary of first publication of this ongoing series' first title.
Picture Miss Seeton
Heron Carvic - 1968
It sounded so—so aggressive. But she must be exact. “Actually I was a little angry—at his rudeness, you know—so I poked him in the back...”
When Miss Seeton walks out after a performance of Carmen and witnesses a real-life stabbing, all she can recall is a shadowy figure. But how could she have guessed that her latest artistic endeavor is a picture-perfect portrait of the killer? Her sketch puts her in a perilous position, for back at her recently inherited cottage in Plummergen village, she’s fated to be a sitting duck . . . for murder most foul! Meet Miss Emily D. Seeton: retired art teacher Miss Seeton steps in where Scotland Yard stumbles. Armed with only her sketch pad and umbrella, she is every inch an eccentric English spinster and the most lovable and unlikely master of detection.
The Body on the Beach
Simon Brett - 2000
But Jude doesn't seem so bad when Carole discovers another addition to the neighborhood-a dead body on the beach bearing two wounds on its neck.
The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes
Leonard Goldberg - 2017
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 ten-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.Caught up in a Holmesian mystery that spans from hidden treasure to the Second Afghan War of 1878-1880, Joanna and her companions must devise an ingenious plan to catch a murderer in the act while dodging familiar culprits, Scotland Yard, and members of the British aristocracy. Unbeknownst to her, Joanna harbors a mystery of her own. The product of a one-time assignation between the now dead Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler, the only woman to ever outwit the famous detective, Joanna has unwittingly inherited her parents’ deductive genius.
The Night She Died
Dorothy Simpson - 1980
D. James manner” (Kirkus Reviews). Luke Thanet is a British police inspector with a soft heart, bad back, and bloodhound’s nose for murder. When a young woman is found stabbed through the heart with a kitchen knife, Thanet and his partner, the brusque young Mike Lineham, rush to the scene. Julie Holmes lies dead in her front hall, wrapped in her overcoat, her handbag missing. The perpetrator could have been a burglar, a jealous husband, or a spurned lover. But Detective Inspector Thanet never leaps to conclusions, and always takes his time; it seems the key to finding this killer lurks twenty years in the past. When Julie was a child, she witnessed a murder—a traumatic event so scarring she repressed it entirely. Thanet believes that before she died, Julie’s memory came back—and so did the killer . . . The first in the series featuring Inspector Thanet, a “most likable policeman,” The Night She Died is a compelling procedural from an acclaimed CWA Silver Dagger winner (Yorkshire Post). The Night She Died is the 1st book in the Inspector Thanet Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Her Royal Spyness
Rhys Bowen - 2007
She's gate-crashed a wedding... She's making money by secretly cleaning houses... And she's been asked to spy for Her Majesty the Queen.Everything seems to be going swimmingly until she finds a body in her bathtub... and someone is definitely trying to kill her.Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins