Library Mysteries

It’s a sunny morning in Abbeymead as Flora cycles through the village and knocks on the door of the local library, planning to deliver a gift to librarian Maud Frobisher to mark her retirement. But Flora is shocked when she finds Maud slumped in the corner, and even more startled when she recognizes the man holding the murder weapon–an enormous hardback book. Flora’s known Lowell Gracey since her college days, but what is he doing working for Maud and now the main suspect in her murder?

After the untimely death of her husband, Rain Wilmot has returned to her family's waterfront log cabin in Lofty Pines, Wisconsin. The cabin is peaceful compared to Rain's corporate job and comes with an informal library that Rain's mother, Willow, used to run. But as Rain prepares for the reopening of the library, all hopes for a peaceful life are shattered: she discovers the body of Thornton Hughes, a real-estate buyer, on the premises.

Regency widow Lily Adler has finally settled into her new London life when her semi-estranged father arrives unexpectedly, intending to stay with her while he recovers from an illness. Hounded by his disapproval, Lily is drawn into spending time with Lady Wyatt, the new wife of an old family friend. Lily barely knows the woman, but she and her husband, Sir Charles, seem as happy as any newly married couple...until the morning Lily arrives to find the house in an uproar and Sir Charles dead.

Charming, devilishly handsome, and talented, Vincent teases the crowd with a reading from his forthcoming novel. Set in a village bearing strange similarities to Berrywick, with characters the audience start to recognize, Vincent hints of dark secrets to be revealed, to gasps of outrage from the room. The meeting ends in uproar, and, just hours later, Vincent’s dead body is discovered behind the bookshelves....

Hannah Tigone, bestselling Australian crime author, is crafting a new novel that begins in the Boston Public Library: four strangers; Winifred, Cain, Marigold and Whit are sitting at the same table when a bloodcurdling scream breaks the silence. A woman has been murdered. They are all suspects, and, as it turns out, each character has their own secrets and motivations—and one of them is a murderer.

Francie Vespertine has lived all her life in a supernatural town full of powerful witches, but her own magic is lackluster at best. The only place she fits in is the Magical Archives. Head librarian (and bookworm extraordinaire) might be a boring job . . . if it wasn't for the ghosts of fictional characters haunting the shelves.

It's seven in the morning. The Bantrys wake to find the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing evening dress and heavy make-up, which is now smeared across her cheeks. But who is she? How did she get there? And what is the connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry?

A road trip with Gabe and her friends leads Sylvia to discover more about her mother’s veiled past yet throws up several questions, too. The stack of unopened letters addressed to her family will hopefully provide answers. As she delves into the contents, a startling revelation emerges: the letters allude to a clandestine union between two magician families, hinting at the elusive identity of Sylvia’s father. Full of hope, she embarks on a quest to find the author of the letters.

Hayley Burke has landed a dream job. She is the new curator of Lady Georgiana Fowling's First Edition library. The library is kept at Middlebank House, a lovely Georgian home in Bath, England. Hayley lives on the premises and works with the finicky Glynis Woolgar, Lady Fowling's former secretary. Mrs. Woolgar does not like Hayley's ideas to modernize The First Edition Society and bring in fresh blood. And she is not even aware of the fact that Hayley does not know the first thing about the Golden Age of Mysteries.

When it's your job to save the day—where do you start? Librarian spy Irene has standards to maintain, especially while on probation. And absconding from a mission via a besieged building doesn't look good. But when her escape route home goes up in flames, what's a spy to do? However, it seems gates back to the Library are malfunctioning across dozens of worlds. Worse still, her nemesis Alberich is responsible—and he plans to annihilate the Library itself.

This volume includes: Benny Uncovers a Mystery, The Haunted Cabin Mystery, and The Deserted Library Mystery. In The Haunted Cabin Mystery, the Aldens are going with grandfather to visit his friend, old Cap Lambert, a retired riverboat pilot who lives in a cabin in the woods. To get there, the Boxcar Children take a wonderful trip down the Mississippi in a paddlewheel boat. But when they arrive at Cap Lambert’s cabin, they find some mysterious things are going on. Spooky phone calls, eerie flickering lights, strange dark figures. Is the cabin haunted?

In winter, the Haunted Library is a refuge for homeless townspeople. When a group purchases a vacant house to establish a daytime haven for the homeless, Carrie offers the library as a meeting place for the Haven House committee, but quickly learns that it may be used for illegal activities. As the new Sunshine Delegate, Carrie heads to the hospital to visit her colleague, Dorothy, who had fallen outside the local supermarket. She tells Carrie that her husband tried to kill her - and that he murdered her Aunt Evelyn, the library's resident ghost, six years earlier.

John Rebus stands accused: on trial for a crime that could put him behind bars for the rest of his life. Although it's not the first time the legendary detective has taken the law into his own hands, it might be the last. What drove a good man to cross the line? Or have times changed, and the rules with them? Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke faces Edinburgh's most explosive case in years, as a corrupt cop goes missing after claiming to harbour secrets that could sink the city's police force.

Jenny Weston and her mother, Dora, have been receiving strange midnight visits. The town of Bear Falls, Michigan, has its own elusive and highly secretive poet, Emily Sutton, who has lived her life cloistered away with her sister in a house at the edge of Pewee Swamp. But now, Emily has started leaving scraps of poetry in Dora's little free library, and Dora makes it her mission to befriend the sheltered woman.

A family secret catapults Rory into a magical library - and a new life she never knew she wanted. Bookshop assistant Aurora "Rory" Hawthorn thinks reality will never be as interesting as fiction. Content to spend her time escaping into a good book to escape her micromanaging boss, the very last thing she expects is to be cornered by a group of terrifying strangers hunting down a journal that belonged to her late father.

Known for enchanting architectural features like sliding bookshelves and secret passageways, Secret Staircase Construction is finally getting the recognition it deserves, and is now taking on a dream project: transforming a home into a public library that celebrates history's greatest fictional detectives. Though the work is far from done, Gray House Library’s new owner is eager to host a murder mystery dinner and literary themed escape room. But when a rehearsal ends with an actor murdered and the body vanishes, Tempest Raj is witness to a seemingly impossible crime.

Carrie Singleton has more than her fair share on her plate: her job at the Clover Ridge Library, preparing for her wedding to Dylan Avery, and hoping that the local art gallery doesn’t steal away one of her part-time employees. Her fiancé, Dylan, accompanies her to the beautiful home of Victor Zalinka—art collector and successful businessman—to select paintings for an art show at the library. While Carrie muses that Victor's home would be the perfect wedding venue, Dylan spots a forgery among the paintings in Victor's collection. Then Martha Mallory is found murdered in her art gallery.

Responding to an urgent plea from a troubled family friend, the Earl of Wrexford journeys to Oxford only to find the reclusive university librarian has been murdered and a rare manuscript has gone missing. The only clue is that someone overheard an argument in which Wrexford's name was mentioned. At the same time, Charlotte—working under her pen name, A. J. Quill—must determine whether a laboratory fire was arson and if it's connected to the race between competing consortiums to build a new type of ship.

Here for the first time are three never-before-published mysteries by Edmund Crispin, Ngaio Marsh and Leo Bruce. Together with a newly unearthed short story by Ethel Lina White that inspired Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, and a complete short novel by Christianna Brand, this diverse mix of tales by some of the world’s most popular classic crime writers contains something for everyone.

Clover Ridge librarian Carrie Singleton is thrilled to attend her best friend Angela's wedding, but Angela's family can be a bit...much. Angela’s wealthy cousin Donna hosts an extravagant bridal shower at her resplendent home, but the celebrations turn to gossip as the guests notice Donna's surgeon husband, Aiden, spending a bit too much time with Donna’s cousin Roxy. At the wedding reception, the sweet occasion turns darkly bitter when Aiden topples into the chocolate fountain - dead.