Showing results for "life" in Amateur Sleuths

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran-and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.

Lady Emily Hardcastle is an eccentric widow with a secret past. Florence Armstrong, her maid and confidante, is an expert in martial arts. The year is 1908 and they've just moved from London to the country, hoping for a quiet life. But it is not long before Lady Hardcastle is forced out of her self-imposed retirement. There's a dead body in the woods, and the police are on the wrong scent. Lady Hardcastle makes some enquiries of her own, and it seems she knows a surprising amount about crime investigation...

Nick Buckley was an unusual name for a pretty young woman. But then she had led an unusual life. First, on a treacherous Cornish hillside, the brakes on her car failed. Then, on a coastal path, a falling boulder missed her by inches. Later, an oil painting fell and almost crushed her in bed. Upon discovering a bullet-hole in Nick's sun hat, Hercule Poirot decides the girl needs his protection. At the same time, he begins to unravel the mystery of a murder that hasn't been committed. Yet.

As winter begins to bite at Sunset Hall, Agnes Sharp is grudgingly pleased to discover that one of her fellow OAP housemates has won a luxury holiday to a secluded Cornish hotel called the Eden. The incredible menu, spa treatments and an unexpected boa constrictor aside, Agnes and her geriatric companions will soon discover that the hotel is a long way from paradise. They have barely checked in when Agnes sees a disturbing incident on the clifftop: could she have witnessed a murder? A storm cuts the hotel off from the outside world and the body count starts to rise.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Do Not Disturb by Claire Douglas, read by Hannah Daniel. Could your dream home be your worst nightmare? After what happened in London, Kirsty needs a fresh start with her family. And running a guesthouse in the Welsh mountains sounds idyllic. But then their first guest arrives. Selena is the last person Kirsty wants to see. It's 17 years since she tore everything apart. Why has she chosen now to walk back into Kirsty's life?

Aunt Lavender is gearing up for the quest of a lifetime, while I’m settling into life in my newly renovated home and dreaming of long summer days spent on the lake. However, with the appearance of two old rivals in Winterspell and a harrowing premonition, our dreams fall into jeopardy. Selene has to prove herself right (naturally…), and before I know it, I’m chasing her furry behind smack dab into the middle of a cutthroat world of scheming adventure-seekers, who will do anything for their next big thrill. Let’s just hope she has an escape plan.

Declutterer Ellen Curtis has been working to bring order into the life of Cedric Waites, a recluse in his eighties who hasn't left his house or let anyone inside it since his wife died. On one of her regular visits, Ellen finds the old man dead. Sad but, given his age, perhaps not unexpected. Until the police raise the suspicion that Cedric might have been poisoned! The cause seems be something he ate, and as Ellen cleared away the old man's food containers, she is under suspicion. As is Dodge, who works for Ellen and has unhelpfully done a runner.

Gilley's whirlwind romance with creative director Stuart Jacobs began in Paris, where Stuart was sourcing fabric for the world-renowned Texas Rose Festival, which he is heading up for the first time. The festival is nothing short of spectacular, bringing in half a million people (and their wallets) to see the artistic displays, and exquisite gowns and jewels worn by the Rose Queen and her court. Stuart and his crew seem to have it all under control. But the night Cat arrives in Texas, someone is shot in cold blood, and a member of Stuart's staff is named the prime suspect!

Revered artist Kim Lord is about to unveil her most shocking show yet: Still Lives, a series of self-portraits in which she impersonates the female victims of America's most famous homicides, from Nicole Brown Simpson to the Black Dahlia. As celebrities and rich patrons pour into LA's Rocque Museum for the opening night, the attendees wait eagerly for Kim's arrival. All except Maggie Richter, museum editor and ex-girlfriend of Greg Shaw Ferguson, Kim's new boyfriend. But Kim never shows up to her party, and the crowd's impatience slowly turns to unease.

It's an invitation Steph can't refuse when she's handpicked to compete at the prestigious National Trust property Coleton Fishacre. With the country's top garden designers as rivals and a stunning historic estate for inspiration, it feels like a dream come true. But things quickly turn thorny when the youngest competitor falls mysteriously ill and Steph suspects foul play. Her fears are confirmed when a scream echoes through the gardens, leading her to the horrific sight of a dead body at the foot of the cliff.

Upon the death of her father, Mary Bennet’s life is thrown into turmoil. With no fortune or marriage prospects, she must rely on the kindness of her relatives. When a mysterious late-night visit by an unknown relative - a Lady Trafford from Castle Durrington - leads to an extended stay and the chance for an education, Mary gratefully accepts the opportunity. But even as she arrives at the castle, she’s faced with one mystery after another.

When Olivia Shaw’s mother dies, the sophisticated food editor is astonished to learn she’s inherited a centuries-old English estate—and a title to go with it. Raw with grief and reeling from the knowledge that her reserved mother hid something so momentous, Olivia leaves San Francisco and crosses the pond to unravel the mystery of a lifetime. One glance at the breathtaking Rosemere Priory and Olivia understands why the manor, magnificent even in disrepair, was the subject of her mother’s exquisite paintings. What she doesn’t understand is why her mother never mentioned it.

Like most families, they had their secrets...and they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark and bitter combat over one of those secrets. England in the '50s was not kind to women who erred, so they had to use every means necessary to keep the truth hidden behind closed doors - even murder.

Ada Baker, a medium, shares her home with three bored ghosts. Spending their days roaming around Ada’s house offers little amusement for the trio, and so the three of them convince Ada to help them investigate the mysterious death of local beauty Mary Watts, who is found naked and strangled in her bathtub. This begins a series of exciting adventures for Ada, as she draws on her unique skills to help solve this heinous crime.

With Gilley heartbroken over the collapse of his marriage, Cat has the perfect remedy—a three-week-long getaway to Italy. But before the duo can pack their bags and sip prosecco on the sunny riviera, they first must help a troubled client carve out a fresh start of her own. Wealthy Scarlet Rubi desperately seeks a greater purpose and immediate distance from her toxic descendants. The urgency of the situation isn't quite so clear until Scarlet takes healthy steps toward progress, only to turn up dead.

Laos, 1981: When an unofficial mailman drops off a strange bilingual diary, Dr. Siri is intrigued. Half is in Lao, but the other half is in Japanese, which no one Siri knows can read; it appears to have been written during the Second World War. Most mysterious of all, it comes with a note stapled to it: Dr. Siri, we need your help most urgently. But who is “we”, and why have they left no return address?

Wild rumors are swirling in the Hamptons over Twelve Angry Men, a ruthlessly revealing one-woman show written and performed by Yelena Galanis. The well-known socialite dated her way through some of the East End's most eligible bachelors, and now she's sparing few details while spilling their humiliating secrets to scandalized crowds. It's a mean-spirited spectacle that urges Cat to make a beeline for the theater exit during the first act - only to later discover that Yelena was found stabbed to death during intermission that same evening.

It was a simple favor. Check in on a friend. When Earl Jackson sends Will on a trip to remote Montana things go south quickly when Will discovers the bizarre purpose behind an isolated ranch. Caught in the middle between UFO believers and sinister forces, Will is propelled down a path that leads to cold and deadly depths while Andy finds her future in law enforcement threatened by an out-of-control political movement. Will Stewart encounters new adversaries and uncovers old mysteries in a gripping tale of hoaxes, murder, and questions that span the universe in Nine Lives Lost.

Stormy the cat, rescued by journalist Quinn Armstrong, is not what he seems. Young mother Christy Jamieson just learned her husband, Frank, embezzled his trust fund, sold their Vancouver mansion, and ran off with a socialite. Worse, Frank's trustees are telling Christy to let them handle it. Desperate to find Frank and fend off his enemies, Christy asks Quinn for help. His price: the dirt on Frank. But the closer Christy and Quinn get to the dangerous truth, the more convinced they become that only the one who knows where Frank is at is Stormy the cat.

Wade and Thelma Owens run a halfway house on the small island of Cape Refuge that caters to wayward souls just out of prison. So when Wade and Thelma turn up brutally murdered, the town goes into shock, concerned that one of the Hanover House residents is a murderer who could strike again. Shattered by her parents’ deaths, Morgan Cleary struggles to keep Hanover House running while her husband, Jonathan, has been arrested for the murder. As the killer runs free, a lethal race against time ensues, with far more than the halfway house at stake.