Cadfael's return to his Welsh homeland for a visit proves a rather discomfiting homecoming when an honorable nobleman turns up in a patch of forest with an arrow embedded in his chest. There are questions about the arrow, the man's daughter needs Cadfael's help, and a very odd burial takes place.

This collection of recordings about Brother Cadfael—a Benedictine monk and amateur sleuth in the 12th century—are performed here by the ideal actor. Sir Derek Jacobi, who portrayed Cadfael in several television adaptations, captivates listeners with his renderings of Monk's Hood, Saint Peter's Fair, The Heretic's Apprentice, The Potter's Field, The Summer of the Danes, and Brother Cadfael's Penance.

Helmut Schauffler, a young Nazi working in the small English village of Comerford, sets out to play upon the post-war sensibilities and fears by terrorizing his new neighbors.

Oxford, Spring 1353. When young bookseller Nicholas Elyot discovers the body of student William Farringdon floating in the river Cherwell, it looks like a drowning. Soon, however, Nicholas finds evidence of murder. Who could have wanted to kill this promising student? As Nicholas and his scholar friend Jordain try to unravel what lies behind William's death, they learn that he was innocently caught up in a criminal plot.

Hugh of Singleton, fourth son of a minor knight, has been educated as a clerk, usually a prelude to taking holy orders. However, feeling no certain calling despite a lively faith, he turns to the profession of surgeon, training in Paris and then hanging out his sign in Oxford. A local lord asks him to track the killer of a young woman whose bones have been found in the castle cesspit. She is identified as the impetuous missing daughter of a local blacksmith, and her young man, whom she had provoked very publicly, is in due course arrested and sentenced at the Oxford assizes.

The village of Badger's Drift is the essence of tranquillity. But when resident and well-loved spinster Miss Simpson takes a stroll in the nearby woods, she stumbles across something she was never meant to see, and there's only one way to keep her quiet. Miss Simpson's death is not suspicious, say the villagers. But Miss Lucy Bellringer refuses to rest: her friend has been murdered. She is sure of it.

In the fair autumn of Our Lord's grace 1431, the nuns of England's St. Frideswide's prepare for the simply ceremonies in which the saintly novice Thomasine will take her holy vows. But their quiet lives of beauty and prayer are thrown into chaos by the merciless arrival of Lady Ermentrude Fenner and her retinue of lusty men, sinful women, and baying hounds. The hard-drinking dowager even keeps a pet monkey for her amusement. She demands wine, a feast.... And her niece, the angelic Thomasine.

Matthew Bartholomew, unorthodox but effective physician to Michaelhouse college in medieval Cambridge, is as worried as anyone about the pestilence that is ravaging Europe and seems to be approaching England. But he is distracted by the sudden and inexplicable death of the Master of Michaelhouse - a death the University authorities do not want investigated.

Mma "Precious" Ramotswe sets up a detective agency in Botswana on the edge of the Kalahari Desert, making her the only female detective in the country. At first, cases are hard to come by. But eventually, troubled people come to Precious with a variety of concerns. Potentially philandering husbands, seemingly schizophrenic doctors, and a missing boy who may have been killed by witch doctors all compel Precious to roam about in her tiny van, searching for clues.

The Plantagenet queens of England played a role in some of the most dramatic events in our history. Crusading queens, queens in rebellion against their king, queen seductresses, learned queens, queens in battle, queens who enlivened England with the romantic culture of southern Europe - these determined women often broke through medieval constraints to exercise power and influence, for good and sometimes for ill.

Salisbury, 1226. A young pregnant woman is found tangled in reeds in the river Avon, her identity a mystery. Grieving widow Ela Longespée is determined to succeed her husband as sheriff of Salisbury, and quickly takes charge of the investigation. She soon finds herself in the thick of a neighborhood scandal and a struggle to maintain her authority. With multiple suspects, can she identify the true killer?

Hired to fly four racing buffs to the track, pilot Matt Shore expects it will be the kind of job he likes: quick and easy. That is until he’s forced to make an emergency landing just minutes before the plane explodes. Luckily nobody is hurt, but it isn’t long before Matt realizes that he’s caught up in a rat race among violent criminals, who are dead set on putting anyone who stands in their way on the wrong side of the odds.

When someone makes a present of a fer-de-lance - the dreaded snake - to Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin knows he's close to solving two apparently unrelated murders. As for Wolfe, he's playing snake charmer in a case more deadly than a cobra and whistling a seductive tune he hopes will catch a killer with poison in his heart.

From the authors of the best-selling series "Cherringham". This compilation contains episodes 1-3. "A shot in the dark": Sussex, England, 1929. Mydworth is a sleepy English market town just 50 miles from London. But things are about to liven up there considerably, when young Sir Harry Mortimer returns home from his government posting in Cairo, with his unconventional American wife - Kat Reilly. "A little Night murder": A young poacher is found shot dead in the woods of a grand estate near Mydworth. A sad accident it would seem.

Homicide is always an abomination, but there is something exceptionally disturbing about the victim discovered in a high, lonely place: a corpse with a mouth full of sand, abandoned at a crime scene seemingly devoid of tracks or useful clues. Though it goes against his better judgment, Navajo tribal police lieutenant Joe Leaphorn cannot help but suspect the hand of a supernatural killer.