A Load of Old Bones

London, early 1950s. Marcia Beasley of St John's Wood is discovered dead in her home, naked and covered with a coal scuttle. Detective Sergeant Greenleaf is tasked with solving the crime and bringing meaning to her gruesome death, and it seems her whole social circle have secrets to hide and grudges to bear. Who, for example, is the limping midnight visitor? Is the bibulous priest as ingenious as he seems? And will Mrs Burkiss ever yield her keys to the broom cupboard?

Gower Street, London, 1882: Sidney Grice, London's most famous personal detective, is expecting a visitor. He drains his fifth pot of morning tea, and glances outside, where a young, plain woman picks her way between the piles of horse-dung towards his front door. Sidney Grice shudders. For heaven's sake - she is wearing brown shoes. The Mangle Street Murders is for those who like their crime original, atmospheric, and very, very funny.

When she's not digging up bones or other ancient objects, Ruth Galloway lectures at the University of North Norfolk. She lives happily alone in a remote place called Saltmarsh overlooking the North Sea and, for company; she has her cats Flint and Sparky, and Radio 4. When a child's bones are found in the marshes near an ancient site that Ruth worked on ten years earlier, Ruth is asked to date them.

Gerald Hennessey - silver-screen star and much-loved heartthrob - never quite makes it to Temple Regis, the quaint Devonshire seaside town on the English Riviera. Murdered on the 4.30 from Paddington, the loss of this great man throws Temple Regis' community into disarray. Not least Miss Judy Dimont, corkscrew-haired reporter for the local rag, The Riviera Express. Investigating Gerald's death, she's quickly called to the scene of a second murder.

When hordes of people descend on the picturesque village of Nasely for the annual celebration of its most famous resident, murder mystery writer Agnes Crabbe, events take a dark turn as the festival opens with a shocking death. Each year the residents are outnumbered by crowds dressed as Crabbe’s lady detective, Millicent Cutter. The weekend is never a mild-mannered affair as fan club rivalries bubble below the surface, but tensions reach new heights when a second Crabbe devotee is found murdered. Though the police are quick to arrive on the scene, the facts are tricky to ascertain as the witnesses, suspects and victim are all dressed as Miss Cutter.

At Timmins & Ross publishing house Samantha Clair knows she can rely on her star author Breda McManus to deliver a manuscript that will sell to the masses and pay her salary. But when Breda's latest endeavour is a complete catastrophe, it turns out to be only the first of Sam's problems. When Sam decides to publish fashion journalist Kit Lovell's tell-all book on the death of Rodrigo Aleman, a designer at the prestigious Vernet fashion house, little does she know the dangerous trouble it will cause.

The first time somebody tried to kill him was an accident. The second time was deliberate. Now Paul Mulchrone finds himself on the run with nobody to turn to except a nurse who has read one-too-many crime novels and a renegade copper with a penchant for violence. Together they must solve one of the most notorious crimes in Irish history. Or else they’ll be history.  

Everything wrong with Craig Pelling's life can be traced back to one moment in 1986. But fate hasn't finished with him yet. When a series of unfortunate events pushes him to breaking point, he's thrown a lifeline - a trip back to 1986, to relive one weekend as his 16-year-old self. Does the key to a better future lie in reverting one decision he made over 30 years ago?

Everyone knows the dead woman under the lighthouse, but no one seems to know why she died. What brought the folk-rock star back to Exham on Sea after so many years? Who wanted her dead? Does the key to her murder lie in the town, or far away across the Atlantic? Libby Forest arrives in Exham to build a new life making cakes and chocolates, and discovers a talent for solving mysteries, helped by Bear, an enormous Carpathian sheepdog, and a cast of local characters.

It's Christmas 1909, and for once Lady Hardcastle - respectable gentlewoman, amateur spy - and her lady's maid, Florence Armstrong, are setting sleuthing aside. They are invited to the festivities up at The Grange, as guests of Sir Hector and Lady Farley-Stroud. But barely have corks been popped and parlour games played when a mysterious crime comes to light.