Showing titles in Amateur Sleuths

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...

Deborah is a successful crime writer whose life is upended by her sister Gail's suicide. She receives an unexpected inheritance – taking her back to South Africa, where she confronts long-buried family secrets, political corruption, and the complexities of memory and forgiveness. Moving between London and a country still negotiating the legacy of apartheid, this is a gripping and psychologically rich story about memory, inheritance and the moral weight carried from one generation to the next.

Republished for the first time in nearly 95 years, a classic winter country house mystery by the founder of the Detection Club, with a twist that even Agatha Christie couldn’t solve! Stephen Munro, a demobbed army officer, reconciles himself to taking a job as a footman to make ends meet...

Thirteen years ago, crime reporter Natalie Sloane’s parents were murdered while chasing a story no one wanted told. The police called it a robbery gone wrong. Natalie never believed them. Now a crime reporter herself, Natalie is trying to move forward after surviving a nightmare of her own. She’s finishing a book about the serial killer who held her captive, determined to turn her trauma into something useful. Something controlled. Then a teenager is found dead. The location is too familiar. The details are too close to the night her parents died.

As Jane Marple sat basking in the Caribbean sunshine she felt mildly discontented with life. True, the warmth eased her rheumatism, but here in paradise nothing ever happened. Eventually, her interest was aroused by an old soldier's yarn about a strange coincidence. Infuriatingly, just as he was about to show her an astonishing photograph, the Major's attention wandered. He never did finish the story.

Set in the cold-blooded world of high-tech espionage, Total Control was David Baldacci's enthralling second novel. It became a New York Times bestseller, cementing Baldacci as a worldwide bestselling author of non-stop action fiction. With an exclusive new introduction from the author. 'Baldacci...

One minute, silly Heather Badcock had been gabbling on at her movie idol, the glamorous Marina Gregg. The next, Heather suffered a massive seizure. But for whom was the deadly poison really intended? Marina's frozen expression suggested she had witnessed something horrific. But, while others searched for material evidence, Jane Marple conducted a very different investigation—into human nature. 

Ambrose Chitterwick is in the lounge of the Piccadilly Palace Hotel, away from his overbearing aunt, to enjoy some afternoon refreshments when he witnesses a murder. It looks like suicide but he saw something being put into the lady’s coffee cup. He is Scotland Yard’s chief witness but he also conducts an investigation of his own. Despite his diffidence and self-deprecation, his sleuthing is not to be sniffed at. There are plenty of twists and turns in this journey to enjoy, especially with master narrator David Timson in the driving seat.

If you like twisting, turning mysteries set in villages you’ll never want to leave (despite the dead bodies), get ready to fall in love with Jayne O’Shea. She called off her engagement, quit the job she loved, and escaped to the Northwoods. Now she's in a quirky village full of witches and her dog just found a dead body in the backyard. Will life ever be normal again?

Charles finds himself uncharacteristically employed in a film, having landed the part of Szabec, a middle management vampire in The Wreathing. His co-star is swimwear model turned actress Jodie Ricks and before long, Jodie is using Charles as a confidant. Poor Jodie is in terrible trouble - not...

This collection of short stories from the undisputed Queen of Crime, perfectly illustrating the incredible breadth of the author’s talent; from sinister murder mysteries to light-hearted romances. All great crime writers have their favourite creations. Similarly, every great sleuth has his, or...

The coroner’s daughter is back when a ferocious snowstorm buries Freeport, Michigan—and with it, a deadly secret. When the frozen body of high school senior Ethan Quon is found wedged deep in a snowbank, medical examiner Dr. Emily Hartford is called in to determine how—and why—he died...

The delightfully clever mystery in which Queen Elizabeth II secretly solves a murder at Buckingham Palace, expertly narrated by Samantha Bond (Golden Eye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day, Downton Abbey, The Queen and I, The Queen, Home Fires) Queen Elizabeth II is having a royal nightmare...

'Clever, pacey, compulsive' Sunday Mirror ******** One family. One night. Ten years of lies. It's June 2008 and twenty-one-year-old Adam Lattimer vanishes, presumed dead. The strain of his disappearance breaks his already fragile family. Ten years later, with his mother deceased and siblings...

A dark, twisty psychological thriller about the unyielding bond between two sisters and a secret that will break them. 'There's only been one time that Rose couldn't stop me from doing the wrong thing and that was a mistake that will haunt me for the rest of my life.' Fern Castle works in her...

With a healthy disregard for rules, he attracts trouble like a magnet. He has a newly assigned apprentice - the unfortunate Detective Constable Barnard - the Chief Constable’s nephew. Fresh to the provinces, just up from London in an embarrassingly flash suit, he’s ripe for Frost’s satire.

The next instalment in the Village Detectives Cozy Mystery Series from Fiona WalkerWe regret to announce the tragic death of Phoebe Fredericks… When crime novelist Phoebe opens the post and receives an invitation to her own funeral, she’s horrified. Not least because the date of her death is...

Bryce Peabody is ready to give a scandalous talk at the annual literary festival in the pretty English town of Mold-on-Wold. Scathing in his reviews and unseemly in his affairs, Bryce is known to have many enemies. So when he's discovered dead in his hotel room, festival attendees are desperate to know what happened. Could one of the numerous writers he has insulted have taken revenge? Or perhaps one of his scorned lovers? Soon, author Francis Meadowes is drawn into a role he knows only from his own fiction—that of amateur detective.

Sins of the father... A chilling message on a note delivered to the Prince of Wales. A prank, a cruel joke, or a threat against the royal family? With only that note for a clue, Brodie and Mikaela are asked to find who is behind that message. But there is little to go on, only that note and the...

For the women in London, the "chance of a lifetime" may prove to be their last. Hidden among the romantic rendezvous and secret messages in The Times of London's Personal Column, a peculiar ad offers one young woman the opportunity of escape: travel, adventure, and a new life—no questions...