Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Amateur Sleuths

May Day should mark the start of spring. But this year, it means murder... Fortunately antique store owner and amateur detective Bella Winter is on the case! Everyone in Hope Eaton climbs the hill to Sweet Agnes’ Spring on May Day, to greet the dawn and leave tokens among the flowers. Antique store owner Bella Winter grumbles about the early start, but she has to admit that watching the sun rise over the flower-strewn grove is worth it.

After a brutal breakup and a dramatic workplace walkout, Lana Lee figures that helping wait tables at her family's restaurant is her best option for putting her life back together. Even if that means having to put up with her mother, who is dead set on finding her a husband. Lana’s love life soon becomes yesterday’s news once the restaurant’s property manager, Mr. Feng, turns up dead - after a delivery of shrimp dumplings from Ho-Lee. But how could this have happened when everyone on staff knew about Mr. Feng’s severe, life-threatening shellfish allergy?

Young Tom French was found dead, lying in a marsh on the Norfolk coast, with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck. One of the best birders in England, Tom had put the village of Rushy on the birdwatching map. Everyone liked him. Or did they? George Palmer-Jones, an elderly birdwatcher who decided quietly to look into the brutal crime, discovered mixed feelings aplenty. Still, he remained baffled by a deed that could have been motivated by thwarted love, pure envy, or something else altogether.

In the sleepy village of Cookingdean, Dr Nell Ward is busy working in the grounds of a local manor house. Whilst inspecting an old tunnel, she did not expect to overhear a murder. As the only person with any clues as to what happened, Nell soon finds herself in the middle of the investigation. Desperate to clear her name Nell, along with her colleague Adam, set out solving the murder using their skills as ecologists to uncover details no one else would notice. But it soon becomes clear that playing Agatha Christie is much harder than it might, at first appear.

Alchemist Zoe Faust is no stranger to magical mayhem, but when her boyfriend's new tea shop is vandalized and his special tea blends stolen, she plunges into a baffling mystery to save him. The clues lead Zoe and her gargoyle sidekick Dorian to an eerie mansion high in the Portland hills, filled with creeping carnivorous plants and enigmatic topiary monsters. When they stumble across a corpse in the conservatory that appears to have been killed by sinister shrubbery, an estranged member of the family is implicated in the murder.

London, 1923. Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh is the first woman to hold the position at University College of London. When she attends a dinner party for the school, she expects to engage in conversations about the university's large expedition to the Amazon. What she doesn’t expect is for Mrs. Henry, one of the professors’ wives, to drop to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin. Dr. Maxwell, Saffron’s mentor, is the main suspect, and evidence quickly mounts.

What begins as a routine journey on the luxurious Orient Express soon unfurls into Agatha Christie's most famous murder mystery. This all-star production features lead performances from Tom Conti ( The Dark Knight Rises, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence) as Hercule Poirot, Sophie Okonedo ( After Earth, Hotel Rwanda and Ace Ventura) and Eddie Marsan ( Sherlock Holmes, V for Vendetta and Hancock) plus a full supporting cast.

A 1920s Easter Murder Mystery in the depths of rural Yorkshire A scoundrel lies dying, he makes his confession; his sins were despicable, and he wants to atone for his wasted life. He bequeaths an invaluable gift to Monks Hood Abbey, an ancient monastery set in a lonely corner of the Yorkshire moors. But sin throws a long shadow and corruption crawls in its shade.

When torrential summer rains uncover a bizarrely tattooed body on a Lake District hillside, old wives' tales also come swirling to the surface. For centuries Lakelanders have whispered that Fletcher Christian staged the massacre on Pitcairn so that he could return home. And there he told his story to an old friend and schoolmate, William Wordsworth, who turned it into a long narrative poem.

The murder of women priests in the shrine town of Walsingham sucks Dr. Ruth Galloway into an unholy investigation. Ruth's friend, Cathbad, is housesitting in Walsingham, a Norfolk village famous as a centre for pilgrimages to the Virgin Mary. One night, Cathbad sees a strange vision in the graveyard beside the cottage: a young woman dressed in blue.

My name is Nora Black, and I'm 51 years young. At least that's what I tell myself, when I'm not having hot flashes; my knees don't hurt; and I can find my reading glasses. I'm also the proud owner of a salon called Scents & Scentsability in the small resort town of Garden Cove, where I make a cozy living selling handmade bath and beauty products. All in all, my life is pretty good. Except for one little glitch.

Erin Coleridge's used bookstore in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, England, is a meeting place for the villagers and, in particular, for the local Jane Austen Society. At the Society's monthly meeting, matters come to a head between the old guard and its young turks. After the meeting breaks for tea, persuasion gives way to murder with extreme prejudice when president Sylvia Pemberthy falls dead to the floor. Poisoned? Presumably, but by whom? And was Sylvia the only target?

Onetime adventurer and now amateur sleuth Lady Eleanor Swift is attending the annual royal regatta with her new pal Tipsy Fitzroy. Tipsy has Eleanor trussed up like a debutante in a new dress, determined to turn her into a proper society lady. Even Eleanor’s favorite companion, Gladstone the bulldog, has a new outfit for the occasion. But the sparkling prize-giving ceremony is interrupted when the devilishly handsome host gulps his glass of champagne on stage and collapses to the floor. The victim is none other than the king’s cousin, Lord Xander Taylor-Howard.

January 1910. A journalist has been killed in a suspicious blaze. Everything points to a group of suffragettes, but the apparent culprit insists she is innocent. When Lady Hardcastle receives a letter from a suffragette requesting her urgent help, the retired spy turned sleuth knows only she stands between an accused young woman and the gallows. Evidence at the scene makes Lizzie Worrel’s innocence difficult to believe, and with the police treating it as an open-and-shut case of arson, Lady Hardcastle faces a barrage of resistance as she tries to dig out the truth.

When amateur sleuth Augusta Peel receives a mysterious letter about a missing young woman, she can’t resist helping with the search. But the case takes a turn when an art student is found dead in a Bloomsbury square. Could the murder have something to do with Augusta’s investigation? The more questions she asks, the fewer answers she receives. Someone’s hiding something.

Every Thursday, three retired school teachers have their ‘coffee o’clock’ sessions at the Thirsk Garden Centre café. But one fateful week, as they are catching up with a slice of cake, they bump into their ex-colleague, Topsy. By the next Thursday, Topsy’s dead. The last thing Liz, Thelma and Pat imagined was that they would become involved in a murder. But they know there’s more to Topsy’s death than meets the eye—and it’s down to them to prove it.

Sawyers Bend has a way of hiding its secrets. But this one won’t stay buried forever. Avery Sawyer runs a successful brewery in Sawyers Bend, but the shadow of her father’s unsolved murder looms over everything. Prentice Sawyer made enemies easily, and a year after his death, no one has been brought to justice. The killer has made it clear—he’s not finished with the Sawyer family. Avery is tired of looking over her shoulder. She’s determined to find the killer and set her family free from their father’s past.

Susan has always taken comfort in the peaceful rhythm of life on the Isle of Wight. But when her daughter Zoe invites her to a Halloween ghost walk at a remote castle, Susan has a sense of foreboding she can’t quite shake. It’s meant to be a bit of fun for the group of old school friends, the thrill of an overnight stay behind the castle’s ancient gates. But when one of them is found dead, the weekend away takes a sinister turn. With the castle locked down and the group trapped inside, it soon becomes clear the killer would have been amongst them.

Nursing a broken heart, Robbie Jordan is trading in her life on the West Coast for the rolling hills of Southern Indiana. After paying a visit to her Aunt Adele, she fell in love with the tiny town of South Lick. And when she spots a "for sale" sign on a rundown country store, she decides to snap it up and put her skills as a cook and a carpenter to use. Everyone in town shows up for the grand reopening of Pans 'n Pancakes, but when the mayor's disagreeable assistant is found dead, Robbie realizes that not all press is good press.

Georgie, or Lady Georgiana Rannoch, is busy planning her upcoming nuptials to Darcy O'Mara. Unfortunately, what has started as a simple wedding has become quite a royal headache and grand affair, thanks to a guest list that includes the queen and the appointment of princesses as Georgie's bridesmaids. “If only Darcy and I had eloped!” she thinks, as she attempts to organize her wedding and find a place for her and her husband-to-be to live. Just as she despairs of ever finding a home, her godfather offers his fully staffed country estate. But something sinister is afoot....