Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Amateur Sleuths

Abbey has barely arrived in the quaint, quiet town of Hideaway Grove before things turn from blissful to bloody—as the new librarian is mowed down by a car. The only witness on the scene isn’t much help, aside from handing Abbey the bag of books dropped by the victim. Even worse, the sheriff’s office seizes Abbey’s car because of a suspicious dent in the right front fender.  

Victoria Thompson is the Edgar Award-nominated author of the Gaslight Mysteries and numerous historical romance novels. Set in 19th-century New York, Murder on Fifth Avenue follows midwife Sarah Brandt and Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy as they investigate the murder of a Knickerbocker club member.

Texas genealogist Lucy Lancaster deals with murders in both the past and present in this captivating first mystery in the Ancestry Detective series.

Siobhán’s brother Eoin’s new family restaurant, The O’Sullivan Six, is so close to opening—but waiting on the necessary permits plus the heat of July in the village of Kilbane in County Cork is driving everyone a bit mad. Macdara Flannery comes to the rescue with a plan—take a holiday by the sea and stuff themselves with fish and chips to support the struggling business of the aptly named Mrs. Chipper. But when they arrive, a crowd is gathered in front of the closed shop.

Moving back into her parents’ house with her teenage daughter had not been Georgia Thackery’s “Plan A”. But when she got a job at the local college, it seemed the sensible thing to do. So she settled in and began reconnecting with old friends. Including Sid. Sid is the Thackery family’s skeleton. He’s lived in the house as long as Georgia can remember, although no one, including Sid, knows exactly where he came from and how he came to be a skeleton. 

While Siobhán studies for her Detective Sargeant exams, her brother, Eoin, prepares for the grand opening of his new restaurant, The O’Sullivan Six, and concocts a plan to enter Kilbane’s Top Garden Contest to boost business. But trouble brews when Eoin hires a mercurial landscape designer known for her killer designs. His new partner’s unflattering reputation and questionable practices nearly eclipse her talents—and plunge the prestigious competition into chaos.

London, 1816: When a notorious young aristocrat is burned alive on a windswept hill popular with neo-Druids, former cavalry officer Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, finds himself plunged into a murder investigation shadowed by tales of ancient human sacrifices and long-buried secrets. The victim, Marcus Toole, was the only son and heir of a prominent nobleman. His closest friend—Sebastian’s own nephew, Bayard—claims to have passed out drunk before the attack and remembers nothing.

The year of 1899 is drawing to a close. Frank and Sarah Malloy are getting ready to celebrate the New Year at Trinity Church when they notice Mr. Pritchard, a relative of their neighbor's behaving oddly and annoying the other revelers. Frank tries to convince Pritchard to return home with them, but the man refuses and Frank loses him in the crowd. The next morning Sarah and Frank are horrified to learn Pritchard was murdered sometime in the night, his body left on Trinity Place, the side street near the church.

Hidden beneath her British reserve, Edwina has a secret: she’s finished her novel and is bravely mailing the manuscript to a publisher. Beryl also has a secret: as thanks for solving a case, the American adventuress has been gifted an airplane. After swooping over the fields and hedgerows of Walmsley Parva, livestock scattering beneath her, she flamboyantly lands the plane on the village green, prompting a startled Edwina to consider a stiff gin fizz. Beryl’s aircraft is not the only disruption of village peace. Miss Dinsdale, a psychic medium, has started holding séances.

Some of the independent shops in this sleepy town are barely hanging on financially—and that includes Sarah's Sweets, Abbey's aunt's bakery. The shop's advantage—aside from the deliciousness of its products—is the fact that it's the only bakery in the area. But it looks like that's about to change. The second wife of a wealthy businessman wants her own bakery—and money is no object. When murder unravels the plans for the competing shop, Aunt Sarah is an immediate suspect.

It's 1811, and the threat of revolution haunts the upper classes of King George III's England. Then a beautiful young woman is found savagely murdered on the altar steps of an ancient church near Westminster Abbey. A dueling pistol found at the scene and the damning testimony of a witness both point to one man - Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, a brilliant young nobleman shattered by his experience in the Napoleonic Wars.

As an experienced journalist, Molly is eager to bring the struggling Britton Bay Bulletin up to speed. But when she pushes Vernon, one of her less welcoming reporters, to dig a little deeper into the story of a prominent local family, the man ends up dead. The fact that he wasn't well-liked makes finding the killer extra complicated. The lists of suspects range from his ex-wife to his own son to Molly's boss, who has a secret of his own. But when Molly's attempts to sleuth out the truth result in her receiving frightening threats, the trouble is just beginning....

Growing up with telepathic abilities, Sookie Stackhouse realized early on there were things she'd rather not know. And now that she's an adult, she also realizes that some things that she knows about, she'd rather not see—like Eric Northman feeding off another woman. A younger one. There's a thing or two she'd like to say about that, but she has to keep quiet—Felipe de Castro, the Vampire King of Louisiana (and Arkansas and Nevada), is in town.

After years of hiding in the Thackery family house, Sid the skeleton is delighted to finally have his moment in the spotlight. He’s starring in a high school production of Hamlet. Well, not so much starring in as being a prop. At least part of him has a part - he’s using his head to play Yorick of “Alas, poor Yorick” fame. Every day, Georgia Thackery’s daughter, Madison, who’s also in the play, brings in his skull, and every night, she takes him home. Until one night when he’s accidentally left at school - and hears the sounds of someone being murdered.

Claire Barclay is enthusiastic about her British Mystery Book Tour business. She enjoys taking her guests, usually from America, to the settings of mystery novels where bodies are long dead. Her neighbor's plea for help to deal with a recently murdered well-known author unsettles her. She leaves the body to the police and takes her guests to Cornwall, including a British tourist who far is too interested in the dead author.

Since childhood, Courtney has loved fairies. After her mother died when Courtney was 10, she lost touch with that feeling of magic. A year ago, at age 29, she rediscovered it when she left her father's landscaping business to spread her wings and start a fairy garden business and teashop in beautiful Carmel, California. At Open Your Imagination, she teaches garden design and sells everything from fairy figurines to tinkling wind chimes. Now she's starting a book club tea.   

The young wife of an aging marquis is found murdered in the arms of the Prince Regent. Around her neck lies a necklace said to have been worn by Druid priestesses - that is, until it was lost at sea with its last owner, Sebastian St. Cyr's mother. Now Sebastian is lured into a dangerous investigation of the marchioness's death - and his mother's uncertain fate.

Still struggling to define the nature of their new marriage, Sebastian and Hero find themselves occasionally working at cross-purposes as their investigation uncovers dark secrets at the heart of the Tennyson family and an enigmatic young French lieutenant who is concealing mysteries of his own.

It's June 1814, and the royal families of Austria, Russia, and the German states have gathered in London at the Prince Regent's invitation to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon and the restoration of monarchical control throughout Europe. But the festive atmosphere is marred one warm summer evening by the brutal murder of a disgraced British nobleman long thought dead. 

It's October 1814. London suddenly finds itself in the grip of a series of heinous murders eerily similar to the Ratcliffe Highway murders of three years before. In 1811, two entire families were viciously murdered in their homes. A suspect - a young seaman named John Williams - was arrested. But before he could be brought to trial, Williams hanged himself in his cell. The murders ceased. But when the lead investigator is killed in the same brutal way three years later and others possibly connected to the original case meet violent ends, the city is paralyzed with terror once more.