British Mysteries

A missing child. A half-baked ransom demand. Can a community cop sift through the clues and rescue the tot before teatime? Sergeant Keya Varma’s culinary dreams come true as she joyfully opens her own café. And attending her sister’s wedding is the cherry on the cake. But her excitement sinks like a souffle when a customer’s little boy disappears. Shaken as well as stirred into action, the part-time police officer joins the search, but she’s shattered when even a ransom payment doesn’t bring the rug rat back home. For Keya, justice is served with a side of scones, but can she ...

A murder on stage. Her father a prime suspect. Can an amateur sleuth step into the limelight and find the killer before the final curtain falls? Dotty Sayers and her cat, Earl Grey, are anxious about visiting her parents in Edinburgh, Scotland. When Dotty and her father accept a stranger’s VIP tickets to a Fringe Festival play, they discover more than the best seats in the house. On stage for the first act, Dotty hears a shot in the dark and presumes it’s part of the script. So she’s shocked when a spotlight illuminates a controversial politician’s dead body. Befriended by a local ...

STAND-ALONE, #18 IN THE SERIES. MEET MAVERICK DETECTIVE DI SKELGILL... "A COMPELLING BRITISH CRIME MYSTERY." A BLIND EYE TURNED, AN INJUSTICE DONE. High in lonely Swinesdale, notorious burglars Jake and Boris Baddun perish in a burnt-out stolen Mercedes. Known associate Dale Spooner leaves his biological signature and the predatory DI Alec Smart moves in for the kill. Spooner is convicted, and now languishes in jail. A rumour reaches Skelgill: Spooner is innocent and can prove it – a cast-iron alibi, a video on a hidden mobile phone. But Spooner will not talk. At stake is the safety of ...

The mystical Britain sites list the Welsh village of Llangynog as a “thin place,” a place where the lines between worlds can be crossed, at least by those whose minds are open to such things. Bronwyn Bagley is one of those people, although she wants desperately not to be. Aware that she is different from others, she longs for a normal life, a life with a career and – someday – a relationship with someone who won’t see her as an oddity. Thus, she waits and hopes, while guarding her secrets closely. Detective Chief Inspector Will Cooper has suffered an unwilling transfer to the ...

When the luxurious overnight passenger train from Calais to the Riviera, known as the Blue Train, arrives in Nice, a guard goes into the compartment of American heiress, Ruth Kettering and attempts to wake her. Unfortunately, she will never wake up, as she is dead, having been killed by a heavy blow to her head, disfiguring her almost beyond recognition. What is more, her precious ruby, known as the 'Heart of Fire', is missing. The prime suspect is Ruth’s estranged husband, but detective Hercule Poirot, who also just happens to be a passenger on the train, is not convinced.

A Riviera crime novel the way you want it to be! The newly married Kit Aston and Mary are back in their latest crime caper that takes you from a stag weekend in Scotland to the set of Alfred Hitchcock’s latest film and onto the gaming tables of Monte Carlo. When Kit and Mary join Agatha in Monte Carlo, they are shocked to discover that Prince Albert I has asked her to investigate unusual gambling activities in the casino. This becomes a murder investigation when Kit’s Uncle Alastair is accused of being a killer. The finger of blame points towards the mysterious Bluebeard Club. Can Kit ...

He’s already murdered eight women. Now, he’s coming for me. We find her on a grey November day on Dartmoor, England. I’m excavating a Bronze-Age cairn, expecting to find a burial urn and maybe some bronze tools if I’m really lucky. And then I see her fingers poking through the soil as if she’s trying to claw her way out of her grave. I’m an osteoarchaeologist, used to dealing with bones, and I know immediately she’s been in the ground for months rather than thousands of years. Then I find a message in the grave that’s clearly meant for me. It turns out the girl is the eighth...

A spooky spectacle turns deadly when a singer’s voice is silenced forever. Does an amateur sleuth have the ghost of a chance to unmask the killer before the jack-o'-lantern’s candle is snuffed out?Emerging antiques expert, Dotty Sayers, is excited about traveling to Ireland for a prestigious auction. Alongside her friend, Sergeant Keya Varma, Dotty revels in Dublin’s iconic sights and finds herself spellbound by haunting melodies at the Bram Stoker Festival. But a Halloween parade turns tragic when a musician’s last melody leads to his final breath. With the police operating a ...

SPARROWHAWK –The Accidental Death of a Dead Man. It was reported as a straightforward road accident. Perhaps it was but the crash scene gave rise to more questions than answers. For Sparrowhawk, this might well be seen as an accidental death; but it couldn’t possibly be the accidental death … of an already dead man … could it? Then there was Merrick Nethercutt. Maybe he was just a frustrated writer and novelist, hungry for literary success … or perhaps a narcissistic psychopath prepared to commit murder in order to claim a place at the table of world prize winning authors. ...

A THRILLING STORY OF MURDER AND BETRAYAL FILLED WITH THE SCANDAL, WIT AND INTRIGUE CHARACTERISTIC OF AUSTEN’S CLASSIC NOVELS Fitzwilliam Darcy is devastated. The joy of his recent wedding has been cut short by the news of the sudden death of his father’s beloved cousin, Samuel Darcy. Elizabeth and Darcy travel to Dorset, a popular Regency resort area, to pay their respects to the well-traveled and eccentric Samuel. But this is no summer holiday. Danger bubbles beneath Dorset’s peaceful surface as strange and foreboding events begin to occur. Several of Samuel’s ancient treasures go ...

This four-book series of short murder mysteries, follows the adventures and lives of four detectives. Set in in the mid-1970s a small Norfolk seaside town provides the setting. Each book provides a complete story and each story focuses on the detection of at least one crime. Great for readers who like a short story with a satisfactory conclusion. The characters in this four-book series also provide a thread which links the books together.

NEW FOR 2022 – STAND-ALONE, #19 IN THE SERIES. MEET MAVERICK BRITISH DETECTIVE DI SKELGILL... "A COMPELLING BRITISH CRIME MYSTERY." EVIL LIES UNDETECTED. When shepherd Jud Hope finds an American passport in a fox’s earth, a connection is made to an unidentified fatality – an elderly female walker who fell to her death in a treacherous rocky gill near Ambleside. Meanwhile, a spate of ‘nighthawker’ incidents sees ancient monuments desecrated under cover of darkness. The spotlight falls upon Derek Shaw, a museum curator exploring Cumbria’s Roman heritage. Onto this stage emerges a ...

Claire Barclay is enthusiastic about her British Mystery Book Tour business. She enjoys taking her guests, usually from America, to the settings of mystery novels where bodies are long dead. Her neighbor's plea for help to deal with a recently murdered well-known author unsettles her. She leaves the body to the police and takes her guests to Cornwall, including a British tourist who far is too interested in the dead author.

A vicious storm. A celebrity murder. And a killer at sea. The Sea Angel is a party boat. But the final cruise of the summer proves to be the last dance for film superstar Kasia Simon. DC Holly Towns snags an extra paid shift on board the Sea Angel, and can hardly believe her luck. A plainclothes gig providing security seems like a holiday. But the night turns deadly, when she finds a body on a lower deck, beautiful and glamorous except for the gunshot wound to the temple. With the rest of the CIU team called to a terrifying sniper incident, Holly is on her own to get the investigation ...

A rare orchid is flowering on the magical Garden Isles but when Fran arrives to see it on her latest travel writing adventure she’s horrified to find the plant has been attacked and the exotic bloom is lying chopped on the floor of the glasshouse. Soon Fran is teaming up with tour guide Harry again for a spot of sleuthing and they’re hot on the trail. Who destroyed the special bloom and why? One thing is for sure, there’s a long list of suspects and they need to work fast to catch the vandal before they catch the next ferry off the island and escape to freedom…

Snowbound with a killer? A romantic weekend turns deadly when DC Holly Towns and Danny Cavallo check into the Elora Inn. Holly has just finished two weeks on shift and Danny is celebrating the launch of his private security firm. A getaway at the Elora Inn, a short drive east of Port Alma, sounds perfect. With a blizzard raging outside as they arrive, the inn is a cozy haven… until the body of Professor Clive Langston is found early on the first morning. Drifts of snow surround the inn. No one can enter. No one can escape. The killer is among them. The Internet is sketchy, backup is ...

A peaceful spring afternoon turns into DC Holly Towns’ worst nightmare, once the sun goes down. A blast of gunfire tears through the glass walls of a turret that rises from one end of Quinn’s Landing. It spins Holly’s world upside down and sends the Criminal Investigations Unit on a single-minded pursuit of the shooter. Holly and former detective, Danny Cavallo, are meeting with Geraldine Quinn at the elegant lakeside home that has been in her family for generations. The older woman claims she’s become nervous on her own and wants Cavallo to install a high-tech security system, with...

A joyful Christmas festival turns deadly when a corpse ends up as the chilling centrepiece. Can an amateur sleuth unwrap the tinsel-tangled mystery before the merry cheer melts away? Talented antiques enthusiast, Dotty Sayers, is thrilled to be organising a Christmas display at a Yorkshire country house. She enjoys decking the halls, but the season is far from jolly when the chief guide is found dead, her body as cold as ice. When cops dismiss the death, Dotty turns to her prickly American colleague, only to learn he has his own secrets to solve. But when he disappears, this amateur ...

Fire in the sky, a catastrophic explosion nearby, and a massive investigation follow a devastating plane crash at Port Alma’s Sky Field airport. Detective Constable Holly Towns is working on the fringes of the high-profile case, trying to find out who turned an old gravel pit into a meth lab, but she keeps getting drawn closer to the crash site and its secrets. Meanwhile, people connected with the lab are being murdered and the CIU officers are worried that a shakeup in the local drug trade will lead to more violence. And there’s one more problem. Holly is being accused of using ...

NEW FOR 2023 – STAND-ALONE, #21 IN THE SERIES. MEET MAVERICK BRITISH DETECTIVE DI SKELGILL... "A COMPELLING BRITISH CRIME MYSTERY." SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, SPEAK NO EVIL ... A reality documentary crew is on the hunt for a victim. An unsolved murder from the 1970s that could leave the authorities red-faced. Celebrity criminologist Professor Simeon Freud plans to bask in the glory. Posing as a researcher, DS Jones joins the production team, but Skelgill must work in the shadows. His instincts rebel – not least that his protégé is prey to a narcissist on the one hand and a killer on ...