Society Mystery

This is a boxed set from the Rutledge Historical Society Cozy Mystery series. It includes the first four books: Message for Murder, Death over Divorce, Kousins Kan't Kill, and Rogues to Riches.

When the quaint English town of York hosts a Jane Austen Society conference, bookseller Erin Coleridge is glad to get out of Kirkbymoorside for a while—until featured speaker Barry Wolf suddenly perishes from what appears to be a heart attack. Erin is suspicious, since Barry had no history of heart disease. But who did him in? Was it the decedent's assistant, Stephen, who was observed chatting to Barry's young wife Luca earlier that night? Might it have been Barry's ex-wife Judith, who was seen arguing with her erstwhile betrothed at the bar?

Carpenter Whitney Whitaker and her cousin Buck are no strangers to murder. After all, they’ve encountered corpses on their properties before. But this is the first time they’d decided to take a chance on a property where two suspicious deaths have already occurred. Most buildings on the former boarding school property will be repurposed for an upscale retirement community, but the developer has no use for the headmaster’s house given its violent history. The headmaster and his wife were killed there decades earlier, their deaths remaining unsolved to this day.

Olive Belgrave needs a job. Despite her aristocratic upbringing, she’s penniless. Determined to support herself, she jumps at an unconventional job—looking into the background of her cousin’s fiancé, Alfred. Alfred burst into the world of London’s high society, but his answers to questions about his past are decidedly vague. Before Olive can gather more than the basics, a murder occurs at a posh party. Suddenly, every Bright Young Person in attendance is a suspect, and Olive must race to find the culprit because a sly murderer is determined to make sure Olive’s first case is her last.

After her father and older sister both die suddenly, Dolores is left with the family's inheritance, and a large house she's sure is haunted. Teaming up with her occult-obsessed neighbour, Ada, and the mysterious spiritual medium, Violet, the three girls plan to dispel the bad spirits from Dolores' home. But when Dolores uncovers a clue that suggests her sister Edith's death wasn't due to natural causes, what starts as an investigation into ghostly apparitions develops into the unravelling of something far more sinister.

It’s October, 1923, and Olive Belgrave has a new case. Her client, Lady Agnes doesn’t believe in curses, and she hires Olive to prove her Egyptologist uncle wasn’t the victim of a malevolent mummy. Olive investigates and discovers the truth is much worse—it’s murder. Can Olive debunk the curse and reveal the true culprit before the supposed curse claims another victim?

Olive Belgrave is delighted with her new flat at South Regent Mansions where she’s made several friends, including the modern career woman, Minerva, who draws a popular cartoon about a flapper for a London newspaper. But then Minerva comes to Olive for help after catching a glimpse of a disturbing sight—a dead body. At least, that’s what Minerva thought she saw, but there’s not a dead body anywhere in the posh building, and the residents are continuing with their lives as they normally do. Is Minerva seeing things? Is she barmy? Or is there a more sinister explanation?

November, 1923. Olive’s school chum, Gigi, invites Olive to London because Gigi’s dotty grandmother fears for her life—or so she’s said to Gigi. However Olive is surprised to find that the dowager is far from muddled. The sharp and imperious matriarch refuses to admit to her worries and sends Olive on her way. Without a client or case, Olive is swept into the glittering lifestyle of the “fast set,” and their decadent excess. But then among the cocktails and champagne, a murderer strikes during a frivolous party game, and Olive realizes the dowager’s fears were well-founded.

Thirty-year-old Black woman Sidney Taylor is a talented early American history professor, working in fast-paced Washington DC, with her eyes on promotion. She's also currently persona non grata. Who knew that making an inconvenient historical discovery would see her stuck at her desk, shuffling paper? So when she receives an anonymous and very cryptic invitation to visit historic small-town Robbinsville, North Carolina and hunt for a missing archaeological treasure—with a million-dollar payout at stake—it's one she can't refuse.

Sandman Slim has reached the far edge of Tenebrae: the desolate home of the lost dead. Alone and with no clue how to get back home, he collides with a caravan of the damned, led by the ruthless Magistrate. Slim didn't land in Tenebrae by chance. When he tried to open Heaven, he sent a tsunami across the universe, and now the afterlife is falling apart. The angels know Slim is close by, and they have put a tempting bounty on his head.

रात के अंधेरे में सहायता तलाशता वो आगंतुक सुनील के फ्लैट में जैसे आसमान से टपका था । सुनील नहीं जानता था कि वो एक अजनबी की सहायता करने के चक्कर में एक ऐसी बड़ी और संगठित संस्था से दुश्मनी मोल ले चुका था जिसके अस्तित्व तक को कोई स्वीकार करने को तैयार नहीं था । संस्था के सदस्य राजनगर के सभ्य समाज के अभिन्न अंग थे और वे सब अब सुनील की जान के पीछे हाथ धो कर पड़े थे !

The Monday Mystery Society attracts ten diverse individuals, all attractive in their unique ways - and all of them single. Five stories of love in a small town.

For twenty years, Greta Davenport has lived with the guilt of surviving the accident that killed her parents. She’s tested the limits of her own mortality ever since, but little gives her the dopamine rush she craves. Not until the night she almost drunkenly crashes her car into a tree, and a peculiar blank card slides under her front door—an invitation to the Found Object Society. What she discovers there is beyond comprehension: an opulent, subterranean playground filled with aisles of objects from different eras and regions of the world.

Ellie works as an accountant at her father’s successful investment company in New York City. She enjoys all the comforts her privileged lifestyle affords—a two-bedroom apartment overlooking Central Park, a generous trust fund, and a devastatingly attractive if often absent husband who works long hours for her father as well. Yet the introverted young woman who wants for nothing feels aimless and untethered. Ellie lost her mother at a young age and still has nightmares about her death. She sometimes sleepwalks at night and finds herself stumbling through the days.

The Illuminati dominates any discussion of secret societies. Search the web, spark up a conversation, or search through a library shelf, and soon enough you will encounter their name. They have become an ancient order and a modern sensation at the same time. At once a ubiquitous herald of the new world order and the people who market pop albums, trying to discern the truth about the organization can get lost amid the hail of noise that inevitably follows any mention of their name.

As the residents of Miracle Springs, North Carolina, select their costumes, plan parties, and get excited for a night of tricks or treats, Nora joins in on the festivities by hosting medium memoirist Lara Luz at the bookstore. Charismatic and compelling, Lara mesmerizes the audience with her life story. Struck by a bolt of lightning as a child, she was pronounced dead only to be resurrected with the ability to connect with those on the other side.

Seventeen-year-old Everly Hart became a "griever" the day she witnessed a tragic death. Imbued with a second sight, she can now see what others cannot—supernatural creatures called grimms. Then she receives an invitation from the Grimm Society to attend Gravemark, an exclusive school where grievers are trained to track and reap grimms. Everly thought navigating high school and dating was tough, but now her school assignments can kill her.

It was only supposed to be a game. In a boring suburb, three lonely men seeking distractions from their monotonous routines get together in an abandoned house to play a macabre game of show-and-tell. Nothing is off-limits in their little circle - anything, no matter how depraved, is welcome...so long as it's frightening. But when one member brings what sounds like an audio recording of an actual murder to a meeting, featuring the tortured screams and pleas of an anonymous woman, the jaded club members find themselves truly rattled.

It's 1953, just days from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and Penny Black can't wait to go on her summer holiday to Scotland to visit her Uncle Frank. But when Wishyouwas plops into the fireplace in a cloud of soot and chaos, with a summons from the Royal Postmistress herself, all Penny's plans suddenly go up in smoke. The intrepid pair are soon on the trail of a mysterious traitor and a potentially deadly plot to halt the coronation. Their investigation will take them across London's busy streets, high up in the air and deeper into danger than they've ever been before.

Set in turn of the century London, The Friday Society follows the stories of three very intelligent and talented young women, all of whom are assistants to powerful men: Cora, lab assistant; Michiko, Japanese fight assistant; and Nellie, magician's assistant. The three young women's lives become inexorably intertwined after a chance meeting at a ball that ends with the discovery of a murdered mystery man. It's up to these three, in their own charming but bold way, to solve the murder....