Showing results for "Novelle" in Amateur Sleuths

After Professor Moriarty survives Reichenbach Falls and Sherlock Holmes dies, Moriarty finds himself caught up in a locked-room mystery Holmes couldn’t solve. This time, it’s up to Moriarty to crack the mystery, perfect for fans of Sherlock Holmes ingenious retellings like the ones by Anthony Horowitz and Laurie R. King.

Chester Newton is a successful racehorse syndicate organiser and his company, Victrix Racing, is having its best year yet. When his prized horse, Potassium, wins the world-famous Epsom Derby, Chester is set to become the next big thing in British horse racing. But one phone call changes everything. Someone hiding behind a voice scrambler and an untraceable phone is demanding he fixes a race – and they’re willing to go after Chester’s family if he fails to comply.

Finding himself in St Moritz during the same weekend as White Turf, when high-class horse racing takes place on the frozen lake, Miles gets talked into helping out with the horses. It is against his better judgement. Seven years before, he left horseracing behind and swore he would never return. When he discovers something suspicious is going on in the races, something that may have a profound impact on his future life, Miles begins to search for answers. But someone is adamant to stop him—and they’ll go to any lengths to do it.

Past midnight, Chyna Shepard, twenty-six, gazes out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend’s family. Instinct proves reliable. A murderous sociopath, Edgler Foreman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside. A self-proclaimed “homicidal adventurer,” Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as they arise, to immerse himself in sensation, to live without fear, remorse, or limits, to live with intensity. Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.

The sight is a particularly horrible shock for George Palmer-Jones, ornithologist and amateur detective, as he was an old friend of the victim Eleanor Masefield. George and his wife, Molly, are staying at Eleanor’s family run hotel, and whilst George believed Eleanor was a beautiful and charming widow, Molly has other ideas. Is Molly a little jealous? Or was Eleanor more a black widow–a ruthless manipulator of all those caught in her far-reaching web? Can Molly prove it in time to prevent another death?

High-powered businesswoman Lana Rubicon has a lot to be proud of: her keen intelligence, impeccable taste, and the L.A. real estate empire she’s built. But when she finds herself trapped 300 miles north of the city, convalescing in a sleepy coastal town with her adult daughter Beth and teenage granddaughter Jack, Lana is stuck counting otters instead of square footage—and hoping that boredom won’t kill her before the cancer does.

Young Tom French was found dead, lying in a marsh on the Norfolk coast, with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck. One of the best birders in England, Tom had put the village of Rushy on the birdwatching map. Everyone liked him. Or did they? George Palmer-Jones, an elderly birdwatcher who decided quietly to look into the brutal crime, discovered mixed feelings aplenty. Still, he remained baffled by a deed that could have been motivated by thwarted love, pure envy, or something else altogether.

Maeve Gardner kills people for a living. A dodgy occupation perhaps, but as ghostwriter for the long-running Simon Hills mysteries, Maeve has planned the perfect murder time and again and she enjoys it. She dreams of writing something under her own name someday rather than babysitting her adopted character Simon, but at least she’s writing. Life on the canals is grand, but when her cheating ex-boyfriend turns up floating face down in the water outside her boat, murdered, and the police arrest her, the plot takes a wayward turn.

After a disastrous accident derails Tempest Raj’s career, and life, she heads back to her childhood home in California to comfort herself with her grandfather’s Indian home-cooked meals. Though she resists, every day brings her closer to the inevitable: working for her father’s company. Secret Staircase Construction specializes in bringing the magic of childhood to all by transforming clients’ homes with sliding bookcases, intricate locks, backyard treehouses, and hidden reading nooks.

Eve Mallow is looking forward to her 15 minutes of fame when Saxford St. Peter is chosen as the location for a new drama series. A devoted people-watcher, Eve is thrilled to learn that TV stars are just as glamorous - and tempestuous - as she’s always imagined. But then someone delivers a bouquet of poisonous flowers to the director Rufus Beaumont, making Eve worry that some of the rivalries she’s noticed are deadly serious. And when Rufus’ body is found in the church where the funeral scene took place, it’s clear that someone’s out for the kill in real life.

In The Red Thumb Mark, the doctor works to clear young Reuben Hornby of stealing a parcel of diamonds from his uncle's safe, despite the apparently damning evidence. Then, in The Eye of Osiris, an amateur Egyptologist abruptly goes missing, leaving behind a strangely vexatious will. In The Mystery of 31 New Inn, Thorndyke's long-time collaborator Dr. Jervis consults his mentor regarding a mystery who may be being slowly poisoned. And in A Silent Witness, someone is making very determined attempts to murder inoffensive newly-qualified Doctor Humphrey Jardine.

It's August 1984, and paperboy Christopher Stewart has gone missing. Hours later, 12-year-old Sammy Cox hurries home from his own paper route, red-faced and out of breath, hiding a terrible secret. Crystal, Sammy's 17-year-old sister, is worried by the disappearance but she also sees an opportunity: the Stewart case has echoes of an earlier unsolved disappearance of another boy, one town over. Crystal senses the makings of an award-winning essay, one that could win her a scholarship - and a ticket out of their small Iowa town.

A routine weekend visit by the Gillibry Bird Observatory Trust is made memorable by the owner’s announcement that he is going to sell the island. A sale would mean the end of the Observatory, which for some of the birders made life worth living. A fire in Charlie Todd’s cottage added to their distress. And when, next morning, after a fierce storm, they found Charlie dead in a bird hide, their pleasant September weekend assumed a dangerous new face.

Newlyweds Jim and Sarah were welcomed home from their honeymoon to the Scottish island of Kinness with a huge celebration and the whole island was present to witness the bitter end. But did Jim’s younger sister Mary fall? Or was she pushed? George Palmer-Jones, retired birdwatcher and amateur detective, suspected the latter, but proving it would be difficult—no one wanted to upset the balance of the island’s ancient relationships.

When Mia Malone's grandmother asks her to take a week away from her restaurant job and come to Magic Springs, Idaho, she's happy to oblige. Like Mia, Grans has witchcraft running through her veins, and life with her is never boring. Plus, the cause is a good one - helping Grans get the local food bank up and running again. But there's an unappetizing surprise in store. While Mia is knee-deep in boxes of donated produce, she encounters the body of Dorian Alexander. Dorian was a warlock, leader of the local coven. He was also her Grans' new beau.

Trapped in a dead-end town, Justin Warren has had his life defined by the suspicious deaths of his grandparents. The unsolved crime happened long before Justin was born, but the ripple effects are still felt after thirty-eight years. Justin always knew he wouldn’t have much of a future. He just never imagined that his life might take him backward.

If Lark and Mikki didn’t have each other, they’d have nothing in this miserable town. So the best friends stick together, working night shift at the highway travel stop, going nowhere fast. Until a stranger drops in, heading for Florida, and Mikki impulsively leaves with him, never to be seen again. Eight years later, Lark is finally getting her life back together for the sake of her young daughter and Mikki’s lovably prickly grandma, who can no longer care for herself. People have almost stopped blaming Lark for Mikki’s disappearance, and she’s engaged to the nicest guy on highway patrol.

East Long Beach. The LAPD is barely keeping up with the high crime rate. Murders go unsolved, OAPs are getting hoodwinked, children are missing. But word has spread: if you've got a case the police can't or won't touch, Isaiah Quintabe will help you out. They call him IQ. He's a loner and a high school dropout, his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination and a fierce intelligence. He charges his clients whatever they can afford. But now he needs a client who can pay.

Investigating the disappearance of a vicar's daughter in London, the popular novelist and amateur detective Roger Sheringham is shocked to discover that the girl is already dead, found hanging from a screw by her own silk stocking. Reports of similar deaths across the capital strengthen his conviction that this is no suicide cult but the work of a homicidal maniac out for vengeance - a desperate situation requiring desperate measures.

When Olivia Shaw’s mother dies, the sophisticated food editor is astonished to learn she’s inherited a centuries-old English estate—and a title to go with it. Raw with grief and reeling from the knowledge that her reserved mother hid something so momentous, Olivia leaves San Francisco and crosses the pond to unravel the mystery of a lifetime. One glance at the breathtaking Rosemere Priory and Olivia understands why the manor, magnificent even in disrepair, was the subject of her mother’s exquisite paintings. What she doesn’t understand is why her mother never mentioned it.