Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Cosy

Hettie and Tilly set out to investigate an old crime and a spate of new murders. Why is Mavis Spitforce dressed as a pumpkin? Can Irence Peggledrip really talk to cats from the spirit world? Did Milky Myers murder his family on Halloween; longer ago now than anyone can remember? These are the questions that the tabby duo must answer before the latest case for The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency can be solved.

Hettie Bagshot and her sidekick, Tilly Jenkins, run the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency from the back room of the Butters' High Street bakery. They are asked by the organisers of the prestigious local literary festival to act as security. But when the body of one of the most popular authors is found in a secluded part of the festival grounds, Hettie and Tilly must turn their attention to investigating the death of Downton Tabby....

Hettie and Tilly are invited to host a Christmas Eve murder mystery aboard the Santa Claws Express. No sooner has the train left the station at Mogbury-on-the-Tilt than our two feline detectives are caught up in a murderous family feud between the Shuttles and the Stokers. Is the ghost of Hornby Stoker haunting the line? Are there enough sausage rolls in the Biscuit Jar Buffet? Who will hit the buffers at Hissingford Holt? And will Hettie and Tilly's Christmas be derailed?

The August bank holiday is approaching, and after two extremely high-profile murder cases, Constable Twitten is eagerly anticipating a quiet spell at work. But then they find the bodies - and the milk bottles. Three seemingly unconnected victims - a hard-working AA patrolman, a would-be beauty queen, a catty BBC radio personality - have all been killed with the same highly unusual murder weapon.

Fit a sotter! The Major Investigations Team is on the island and Sergeant Wilson is a woman on a mission. She must solve the murder of the lighthouse keeper before the MIT eat all the good police biscuits. The DCI might have ordered her to do door-to-door enquiries, but she was la-la-la-not-listening at the time. Convinced that the answer lies in Beacon Brodie's mysterious past, she has instead conscripted the best of the Losers Club minions to discover the truth.

“Ask anyone on Atbara Avenue how well they know their neighbors, and they'll answer ‘well'. After all, they see each other across the vast distance afforded by close proximity, and that is probably for the best...”. For the best, because Atbara Avenue is a street where, all too often, murder feels like the solution.

Abby enters the Maybridge Flower Show, never dreaming for one moment that she'll win the gold. Or an invitation to appear on telly, alongside gardening legend Daisy Dashwood! Some people say Daisy's a tiresome diva. But starry-eyed Abby can't wait for the cameras to start rolling. Until . . . Daisy staggers out on stage. Only to collapse at Abby's feet. Her demise might seem like a tragic accident—resulting from a cocktail of booze and hay-fever medicine. But Abby's not so sure.

At 28, Violet's father is beginning to worry she will never find a husband. But every suitor he presents, Violet finds a new and inventive means of rebuffing. Because Violet does not want to marry. She wants to work, and make her own way in the world. But more than anything, she wants to find her mother Lily, who disappeared from Hastings Pier 10 years earlier. Finding the missing is no job for a lady, but when Violet hires a seaside detective to help, she sets off a chain of events that will put more than just her reputation at risk.

The town is gripped by a big freeze, and blizzard after blizzard has engulfed the feline community, leaving shops and businesses snowbound. Hettie Bagshot and her sidekick, Tilly Jenkins, have found sanctuary by their fireside but soon they are bucketed into a terrifying nightmare, called to investigate the disappearance of the town's kittens as - one by one - they are taken in the snow. Who are the strange cats living in Wither-Fork Woods?

It's a week before Christmas, and Hettie and Tilly set out on a very dangerous case for The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency. Lady Eloise Crabstock-Singe has summoned them to Crabstock Manor, hoping they can solve the mystery of Christmas Paws: a servant cat that haunts the manor, intent on killing off all the Crabstocks. Through blizzard and storm, stranded on the notorious Bodkin Moor, will Hettie and Tilly save the day and get home in time for Christmas dinner?

When the celebrated crime writer Agatha Crispy engages Hettie and Tilly in the search for a stolen manuscript, our feline detective duo is plunged into a world of Dickensian thieves and murderers. Does the ghost of Jake the Nipper prowl the London Streets of Kitzrovia? Will Madame Two Paws’s exhibition wax or wane? And will the secrets in the crypt of the church of St Mavis and Cucumber finally be revealed? Join Hettie and Tilly as they attempt to unravel yet another darkly humorous case for The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency.

When a mysterious puppet show arrives in Bishop's Lacey, death is not far behind... a grisly murder during a performance of Jack and the Beanstalk in the village hall reaches back to an earlier crime that has cast a shadow over the village for years. Flavia's investigations test her powers of deduction to the limit - and provide a shocking insight into the darker corners of the adult world.

Lambert Ramkin aka Imperium Dart, techno trickster and ambient music wizard of the 1990s, has gone walkabout, disappearing from his rather palatial home in Kent. This isn't the first time he's pulled a vanishing act, but he's never been gone so long before and his wife — wives, actually; it's complicated — are worried and hire the Vinyl Detective to find the old rascal. They theorize that wherever the missing man is, he won't be able to resist turning up at a record fair somewhere in search of 12-inch white label acid house singles, which he collects compulsively.

“You frighten me,” the Gypsy said. “Never have I seen my crystal ball so filled with darkness.” For Flavia de Luce, the old gypsy's words open up old wounds and new possibilities. Is she a faker, or is there some truth to her powers? And when the village is rocked by another ghastly murder, how will a growing fascination with gypsy lore help Flavia to solve it?

Venice, 1954. Rosy Gilchrist thinks luck may be on her side. Her boss at the British Museum has chosen her to travel to Venice to track down a rare edition of Horace's Odes for their collection. Things soon take a drastic downward spiral. A wealthy recluse offers a million-pound reward for anyone who can find the treasure. Soon Rosy finds herself in a race against time as her rivals will do anything for money. Even murder.

It's the end of the summer season in the harbour town of Estepona. The holiday makers are heading home, leaving the British expats to reclaim their little corner of paradise. Among them is art restorer Astrid Swift's estranged father. She's sailed into town to reunite with him but has instead been tasked with catching an internet troll who's been threatening his wife online. Soon Astrid is entwined in the lives of these expats, from the boozy local heckler to the socially awkward beachcomber. And then she discovers a body in the bunker of the golf course.

The Vinyl Detective goes Scandi noir in his sixth adventure. Disfigured corpse. Check. Grotesque snowman. Check. Headless animals. Check. But in fact the killer is taking their cue not from Scandi noir fiction but another popular Scandinavian export—death metal.

Semi-retired god of rock guitar and local poseur Erik Make Loud has got himself a new girlfriend. Helene Hilditch - formerly known as Howlin' Hellbitch - of all-girl punk outfit Blue Tits is a mean guitarist, and someone is trying to kill her. With a rare pressing of their first album to find, the Vinyl Detecive and Nevada are soon called into to help, but this time the question is, who isn't a suspect?

Plans for a town pantomime are thrown in the air after one of the actors is murdered. The victim is local gossip, nosy parker and aspiring manipulator Ivor Gladwin. Reviled by many and ignored by more, the list of people who could have wanted rid of him seems to grow by the minute. Despite having overstepped the mark in past cases, because of her familiarity with the individuals involved, ex police officer Fabia Havard is actually tasked by her boyfriend, and serving DCI, to look into the matter on the side.

For Frances Wynn, widow to the late earl of Harleigh, life has a cosmopolitan flavour of late. No sooner has she sent her mother and daughter off on a shopping trip to Paris than she and her fiancé, George Hazleton, are socializing with visiting members of the Russian royal family. Yet amid this whirlwind, scandal also comes calling when Inspector Delaney turns up outside Frances' house with a young French woman with a shocking claim: she is Mrs. George Hazelton.