Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B&B in the fictional Val de Follet in the Loire Valley. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really that’s the way he likes it. One day, however, one of his older guests disappears, leaving behind a bloody handprint on the wallpaper. Another guest, the exotic Valérie, persuades a reluctant Richard to join her in investigating the disappearance. Richard remains a dazed passenger in the case until things become really serious and someone murders Ava Gardner, one of his beloved hen...and you don’t mess with a fellow’s hens!

Murder is a dish best served ice cold... In the idyllic, small town of Dewstow, Margery and Clementine are eagerly awaiting retirement from their work on the front-line serving meals to the students at Summerview secondary school. Their peaceful life is shattered when their kitchen manager is found dead in the school’s walk-in freezer. The police are adamant that it’s an open-and-shut case of accidental death. But Margery and Clementine are convinced that something more sinister is afoot and take it upon themselves to investigate.

Penrith, in the heart of the Lake District, is not the kind of place you can easily vanish. Certainly not when the members of the Penrith Bingo Club are trying to track you down. But even stalwart sleuth, Amita Khatri, and her son in law, Jason, are foxed this time when a local woman tells them her husband, a mild-mannered academic has gone missing.

Still spinning from the hustle and bustle of city life, Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker is glad to be back in the Cornish village she calls home. Having quit the Met Police in search of something less dangerous, the change of pace means she can finally start her dream catering company and raise her daughter, Daisy, somewhere safer. But there’s nothing quite like having your first job back at home be catering an ex-boyfriend’s wedding to remind you of just how small your village is.

The people of Penrith are delighted when local businessman Hal Mulberry succeeds in his childhood dream of buying the world famous painting, Buttermere at Dawn. And he’s determined not to keep it to himself, but to bring it back to the Lake District where it belongs and put it on show. Hal has a plan to turn Penrith Village Hall into a cultural hotspot – with the painting at its heart. But not everyone is pleased.

It’s 1924, and Blix Windway has made a career out of her wanderlust, giving lectures to ladies’ groups about everything from the flora of the American desert to the beauty of the Swiss Alps, but she needs new material for her talks. She strikes what seems to be an ideal agreement with an eccentric older lady. Blix will be her travel companion during a journey to Egypt, helping to smooth the way through customs and coordinate sightseeing tours.

Jason Brazel is an out-of-work journalist who lives in Penrith with his family and mother-in-law, Amita. She knows everyone and everything that’s going on in this corner of the Lakes. So when it’s discovered that Madeline Forbisher, one of Amita’s fellow regulars at the bingo club has died, found by the postman outside her crumbling country home close to Ullswater Lake, she senses immediately this is no accident. The trouble is, no one else seems to take her suspicions seriously. That is, until she enlists the help of her friends at the Penrith Bingo Club.

Retired teachers Pat, Liz and Thelma are happiest whiling away their hours over coffee, cake and chat at the Thirsk Garden Centre café. But when their good friend tells them about unsettling experience she had in a sinister-feeling charity shop, they simply can’t resist investigating. Because the entire shop has vanished into thin air. Before long, our trio of unlikely sleuths find themselves embroiled in a race against the clock to get to the bottom of this mystery – but who has a secret to hide and how far will they go to keep it concealed?

As the year comes to a close, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson must set out through snow laden London to investigate the theft of a priceless clock and the receipt of seven macabre Christmas cards. Will they solve the murderous mystery before they too receive the unwanted 'compliments of the season'? Written by esteemed writer, Anthony Horowitz, and originally published in the Daily Mail, this short story is a festive treat for all fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective, Sherlock Holmes.

There’s a literary niche for all tastes including those who think that either Agatha Christie wasn’t funny enough or that PG Wodehouse didn’t feature anywhere near as many baffling murders as he could have. The Case of the Canterfell Codicil is a classic, cozy, locked-room mystery written in the style of an homage to PG Wodehouse.

Former stand-up comic Juno Mulligan has been suffering a serious sense-of-humour failure. Not only has she lost the love of her life, but she’s having to relocate to the (admittedly idyllic) village of Inkbury to watch out for her elderly mother, who she’s genuinely worried might be marrying a wife-killer. She hopes that her old friend, disgraced-journalist-turned-novelist Phoebe Fredericks can help her crack the case of whether her mother’s perma-tanned, iceberg-smiled, three-times-a-widower fiancé is hiding a murderous past.

Judith Potts is 77 years old and blissfully happy. She lives on her own in a faded mansion just outside Marlow, there’s no man in her life to tell her what to do or how much whisky to drink, and to keep herself busy she sets crosswords for The Times newspaper. One evening, while out swimming in the Thames, Judith witnesses a brutal murder. The local police don’t believe her story, so she decides to investigate for herself and is soon joined in her quest by Suzie, a salt-of-the-earth dog-walker, and Becks, the prim and proper wife of the local vicar.

Majestic mountain views, whisky by the fire and… a murder to solve? Join Ally McKinley at her cosy little guesthouse in the Scottish Highlands as she tackles her first puzzling case!For recently retired Ally McKinley, the tiny village of Locharran is the perfect place to open the guesthouse of her dreams in a lovingly restored old Scottish malthouse. Before long she is making friends with the locals, including Hamish Sinclair, the earl who owns the nearby castle. But things take an unexpected turn when her first paying guest is found sprawled across her cobblestoned courtyard.

After more than a year of laying low, Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie are called back into action. They have enjoyed their time off, but the lack of excitement is starting to chafe: a professional killer can only take so many watercolor classes and yoga sessions without itching to strangle someone...literally. When they receive a call from the head of the elite assassin organization known as the Museum, they are ready tackle the greatest challenge of their careers.

When an English expat is brutally murdered, his charred corpse left on a Loire Valley hillside, the police turn to juge d’instruction Matthieu Lombard to find the perpetrator. Instead, Lombard discovers a wealth of secrets, grudges, and feuds in the idyllic town of Saint-Genèse-sur-Loire. He begins to suspect that the remaining members of the Comité des Fêtes know more about the death than they are letting on.