New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith, winner of the first-ever Saga Award for Wit, has entertained millions with his beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency mysteries. Now this phenomenally popular author introduces a fresh series, brimming with the charm and humor his stable of dedicated fans can't get enough of.

In London’s Pimlico neighborhood lies a tenement described in architectural guides as “a building of no interest whatsoever.” But the residents of Corduroy Mansions—including a literary agent, a wine merchant, a thoroughly unpleasant member of Parliament, and a vegetarian dog—are a rather fascinating lot.

It is 1938 and the final days of the British Empire. In a bungalow high up in the green hills above the plains of Ceylon, under a vast blue sky, live the Ferguson family: Bella, a precocious eight-year-old; her father Henry—owner of Pitlochry, a tea plantation—and her mother Virginia. The story centres around the Pavilion in the Clouds, set in the idyllic grounds carved out of the wilderness. But all is not as serene as it seems. Bella is suspicious of her governess, Miss White’s intentions.

It is said that a picture may be worth a thousand words, but an old photograph can inspire many more. In this beguiling book, Alexander McCall Smith casts his eye over five chanced-upon photographs from the era of black-and-white photography and imagines the stories behind them. Who were those people, what were their stories, why are they smiling, what made them sad?

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.

When writer Paul Stewart heads to the idyllic Italian town of Montalcino to finish his already late book, it seems like the perfect escape from stressful city life. Upon landing, however, things quickly take a turn for the worse when he discovers his hired car is nowhere to be found. With no record of any reservation and no other cars available, it looks like Paul is stuck at the airport. That is, until an enterprising stranger offers him an unexpected alternative.

In the words of Alexander McCall Smith: "You feel the rocking of the train, you hear the sound of its wheels on the rails; you are in the world rather than suspended somewhere above it. And sometimes there are conversations to be had, which is what the overarching story in this collection is all about. It is a simple device: people brought together entertain one another with tales of what happened to them on trains. It takes place on a journey I frequently make myself and know well, the journey between Edinburgh and London. It is best read on a train, preferably that one."

Val Eliot, a young woman working on an English farm during the war, meets Mike, a US Air Force pilot stationed nearby. When Val rescues a Border Collie named Peter Woodhouse, who is being mistreated by his owner, she realizes the dog would actually be safer with Mike. And so Peter Woodhouse finds a new home on the air force base, and Val finds herself falling in love.

From the original Greek financial crisis (when the profligate Gods of Olympus were punished by Odin and the other Norse Gods for their unchecked spending) to a handy unintended benefit of cosmetic surgery; from Pope Ron (the first Australian pope, who wants nothing more than to live quietly) to a rather droll cat named Stanley to Good President Wenceslas (benevolent leader of a snowy land) - these stories are by turns funny, poignant, and deliciously wicked, each one a gift begging to be unwrapped and enjoyed again and again.

In 1939, Lavender flees London to escape the German bombs and her shattered marriage. Settling in a small town, she pulls together a makeshift orchestra to help cope with the times.

England, 1925. After years shut away from the world, former detective Lord Edgington of Cranley Hall plans a grand ball to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday. But when someone starts bumping off members of his scheming family, the old man enlists his teenage grandson to help find the killer, before one of them is next.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it’s a tragic hunting accident and nothing more, but Gamache smells something foul in these remote woods, and is soon certain that Jane Neal died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter.

In "Murder at the Mousetrap," the first Bunburry book, fudge-making and quaffing real ale in the local pub are matched by an undercurrent of passion, jealousy, hatred and murder - laced with a welcome dose of humour. Alfie McAlister has retreated from London to the peace and quiet of the country to recover from a personal tragedy. But an accidental death - which may have been no accident - reveals that the heart of England is far from the tranquil backwater he imagined.

Cherringham - a quiet town in the Cotswolds. Nothing ever happens there, or so it seems - until one morning a woman's body is found in the river. A terrible accident, according to the police. But is this true? Sarah believes there must be more to it. In Jack, a former NYPD homicide detective, she finds a partner who is willing to start investigating with her. They soon find out that things are not as clear as the police want them to be ... This first - of many cases brings Sarah and Jack together in an unlikely partnership.

At age 26 Agatha Raisin has already come a long way. She has clawed her way up since leaving the Birmingham slum where she was born. She's lost her Birmingham accent, run away from her drunken husband, and found a job at a public relations office as a secretary. Then her boss asks Agatha to go to the home of Sir Bryce Teller to tell him that he is soon to be arrested for the murder of his wife and that the agency no longer wants to represent him.

New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith, winner of the first-ever Saga Award for Wit, has entertained millions with his beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency mysteries. Now this phenomenally popular author introduces a fresh series, brimming with the charm and humor his stable of dedicated fans can't get enough of.

When Charlotte Rainsford, a retired schoolteacher, is accosted by a petty thief on a London street, the consequences ripple across the lives of acquaintances and strangers alike. A marriage unravels after an illicit love affair is revealed through an errant cell phone message; a posh yet financially strapped interior designer meets a business partner who might prove too good to be true.

Damian Baxter is hugely wealthy and dying. He lives alone in a big house in Surrey, England, looked after by a chauffeur, butler, cook and housemaid. He has but one concern--his fortune in excess of 500 million and who should inherit it on his death.

When the Templeton family from England takes up residence in a stately home in country Australia, they set the locals talking – and with good reason. From the outside, the seven Templetons seem so bohemian, peculiar even. No one is more intrigued by the family than their neighbours, single mother Nina Donovan and her young son Tom. Before long, the two families' lives become entwined in unexpected ways.

Now a major motion picture. After an early career amongst the political elite of Cold War Russia, Alexander Ivanov has lived in America for 40 years and has managed to bury the tragic memories surrounding his charismatic late wife, Katya - or so he believes. For into his life come two women - one who will start to open up the heart he has protected for so long; another who is determined to uncover the truth about what really happened to Katya all those years ago.

Max Tudor has adapted well to his post as vicar of St. Edwold's in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. The quiet village seems the perfect home for Max, who has fled a harrowing past as an MI5 agent. But this new-found serenity is quickly shattered when the highly vocal and unpopular president of the Women's Institute turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. The death looks like an accident, but Max's training as a former agent kicks in, and before long he suspects foul play.

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery - or at least that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

One September morning in 2008, an investment banker approaching forty, his career in collapse and his marriage unraveling, receives a surprise visitor at his West London townhouse. In the disheveled figure of a South Asian male carrying a backpack the banker recognizes a long-lost friend, a mathematics prodigy who disappeared years earlier under mysterious circumstances. The friend has resurfaced to make a confession of unsettling power.

It all began with a correspondence between two quite different women: 28-year-old Sara from Haninge, Sweden, and 65-year-old Amy from the small town of Broken Wheel, Iowa. After years of exchanging books, letters and thoughts on the meaning of literature and life, Sara, mousy, disheveled, who has never been anywhere in her life--has really lived only for her work in a beloved bookshop, which has just closed its doors for the last time--bravely decides to accept her unknown friend's invitation to visit. But when she arrives, she finds her house empty, the funeral guests just heading home. . .

Veteran con artist Roy spots an obvious easy mark when he meets Betty, a wealthy widow, online. In no time at all, he's moved into Betty's lovely cottage and is preparing to accompany her on a romantic trip to Europe. Betty's grandson disapproves of their blossoming relationship, but Roy is sure this scheme will be a success. He knows what he's doing. As this remarkable feat of storytelling weaves together Roy's and Betty's futures, it also unwinds their pasts.

Matthew is a normal 11-year-old boy living with his parents and little sister in Surrey. He's too old and sensible to have an imaginary friend really. Yet when Matthew's parents keep finding him talking and arguing with a strange presence whom Matthew calls Chocky, that's what they believe it must be…at first. But Chocky is oddly sinister, and keeps asking Matthew all sorts of complicated questions about the world and making him behave in unusual and erratic ways. Then Matthew suddenly does something heroic, well beyond his capabilities; the media become interested and the interest in Matthew widens.

A heart-warming story about family secrets and one woman’s escape to dreamy Sandy Cove on the stunning west coast of Ireland. The picturesque beach of Wild Rose Bay is the last place Lydia Butler thought she’d be. But having just lost everything, the run-down cottage she inherited from her Great Aunt Nellie is the only place she can take her daughter, Sunny. Hidden away in a tiny Irish village, she can protect Sunny from the gossip in Dublin, and the real reason they have nowhere else to live....

A week's holiday in a luxurious hotel is just what Scotland Yard's Superintendent Duncan Kincaid needs. But his vacation ends dramatically with the discovery of a dead body in the whirlpool bath. Despite a suspicious lack of cooperation from the local constabulary, Kincaid's keen sense of duty won't allow him to ignore the heinous crime, impelling him to send for his enthusiastic young assistant, Sergeant Gemma James. But the stakes are raised significantly when a second murder occurs....

Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal. Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor.

Emmie Wilcox was only six when her sister, Roxy, was thrown out of their New York City apartment. Their stern father's military style left no room for rebellion, and Roxy was continually defiant and rebellious. Emmie is obedient, respectful. Two sisters, total opposites - yet Emmie is secretly obsessed with the mystery and imposed silence surrounding Roxy. She wants excitement, and being a good girl all the time is harder than it seems. Finally, Emmie goes behind her father's back to track down and spy on the sister she can't help but be fascinated with.