Showing results for "VE Day" in Amateur Sleuth

October, 1900. University College, London. When the spread-eagled body of one of her students is discovered in her rented room shortly after attending one of her lectures, Dr. Margaret Murray is disinclined to accept the official verdict of suicide and is determined to find out how and why the girl really died.

A rainy July weekend in Westham means the beaches are empty and business is dead at Mac's Bikes, but couldn't be livelier inside the Rusty Anchor Pub. But come Monday morning, one patron is not so lively when the chef opens up and finds a body behind the bar. It's last call for Bruce Byrne, an elderly high school teacher who's been around so long it seems like he taught everybody.

Everyone loves a festival, though Mac has a few concerns about the Spring equinox event organized by the new Chamber of Commerce director, Wagner Lavoie. After all, March weather is unpredictable. Still, there's plenty to enjoy, between flower-shaped candies at Salty Taffy's, spring rolls at the Rusty Anchor, and a parade of decorated bicycles. But the festivities soon take a stormy turn . . . Mac glimpses conflict between Wagner and other locals during the festival, but it's a shock when he's found dead in the Book Nook, pinned beneath a toppled bookshelf.

With a cheating boyfriend, a thankless career in waitressing, and her BA in English going to waste, Mira James jumps at the chance for a fresh start in rural Battle Lake, Minnesota. Right away she lands a job as a librarian, snags another as an on-call reporter for the weekly newspaper, and is swept off her feet by Jeff Wilson, a handsome archaeologist unearthing the town’s storied history. Moving here might be the best decision Mira’s ever made. Until she finds Jeff’s body between the library’s reference stacks.

Summer is busy season for Mackenzie "Mac" Almeida's bicycle shop, nestled in the quaint, seaside hamlet of Westham, Massachusetts. She's expecting an influx of tourists at Mac's Bikes; instead she discovers the body of Jake Lacey. Mac can't imagine anyone stabbing the down-on-his-luck handyman. However, the authorities seem to think Mac is a strong suspect after she was spotted arguing with Jake just hours before his death. Mac knows she didn't do it, but she does recognize the weapon - her brother Derrick's fishing knife.

Just in time for Halloween, a new costume shop has opened on Main Street in Westham, Massachusetts. Cape Costumers is a cut above the usual seasonal pop-up stores with their flimsy mass-produced outfits and cheap plastic masks, mostly due to co-owner Shelly, a former Broadway costume designer. But when Shelly discovers her elderly boyfriend Enzo—a Broadway star who retired to Westham—dead of unnatural causes, Halloween suddenly gets a lot scarier.

When your mother is an astrologist and your dad is a minister, you learn to keep an open mind. Which is just what Mac loves to do - exercise her mind by puzzling out fictional clues in the mystery novels she reads and discusses with her Cozy Capers Book Group. But now Mac's friend Gin has found herself in a sticky situation. After wealthy genealogist Beverly Ruchart is found dead outside Gin's taffy shop, the candy maker becomes a person of interest.

'Tis the day after Christmas, following a wicked-busy time of year for Mac's bike shop. It's just as well her Cozy Capers Book Group's new pick is a nerve-soothing coloring book mystery, especially when she has last-minute wedding planning to do. But all pre-wedding jitters fade into the background when Mac and her fiancé, Tim, begin a cottage renovation project and open up a wall to find a skeleton dressed in an old-fashioned bridal gown. As Mac delves into the decades-old mystery, she discovers a story of star-crossed lovers and feuding families worthy of the bard himself.

From clam chowdahs to oysters on the half-shell, Tulia Peters' Lobstah Shack offers locals and tourists in Westham, Massachusetts, some of Cape Cod's most amazing cuisine. But when the body of Annette DiCicero is discovered in the kitchen's walk-in freezer - with a custom-made claw-handled lobster pick lodged in her neck - spoiled appetites are the least of Tulia's worries.

January 1910. A journalist has been killed in a suspicious blaze. Everything points to a group of suffragettes, but the apparent culprit insists she is innocent. When Lady Hardcastle receives a letter from a suffragette requesting her urgent help, the retired spy turned sleuth knows only she stands between an accused young woman and the gallows. Evidence at the scene makes Lizzie Worrel’s innocence difficult to believe, and with the police treating it as an open-and-shut case of arson, Lady Hardcastle faces a barrage of resistance as she tries to dig out the truth.

A homecoming will shake this small town to its very foundations. The taut new mystery from the bestselling author of The Inheritance, perfect for readers of Sally Hepworth and Liane Moriarty. Desperate people do desperate things... Sixteen years ago, teenage Maddie Marshall's body was found on a...

When Salem B&B owner Charlene Morris investigates the case of a missing woman over a haunted Halloween weekend, she may find herself playing host to a whole new ghost in the newest paranormal cozy mystery from Traci Wilton!

Years ago, Beth Lathrop and her sister Kate suffered what they thought would be the worst tragedy of their lives the night both the famous painting Moonlight and their mother were taken. The detective assigned to the case, Conor Reid, swore to protect the sisters from then on. Beth moved on, throwing herself fully into the art world, running the family gallery, and raising a beautiful daughter with her husband Pete. Kate, instead, retreated into herself and took to the skies as a pilot, always on the run.

After attending a family wedding in Chicago, young widow Bella Jordan is returning to the guesthouse she runs in Lily Dale—the quirky upstate New York lakeside village famous for its spiritual mediums—when she catches a glimpse of the impossible at the airport: her late husband Sam. A former science teacher, Bella is grounded in facts and logic. She doesn't believe in ghosts. But even when she's back home with the competing distractions of her quirky guests, small son Max, resident pet cats and a very unexpected litter of puppies, Bella can't find a good explanation for what she's seen.

There’s a big wedding coming up, and Lucy’s promised her friend she’ll help arrange the lavish event in a newly built gazebo. Too bad the groom, internet millionaire Ron Davitz, is getting on the nerves of the locals, especially after their boats were displaced to make room for his yacht. When Ron’s body is found floating in the harbor, Lucy isn’t convinced it was an accident. From the picturesque waterfront to tony Smith Heights Road, Tinker's Cove is awash with suspects.

It's 1943, the war is raging, and sleuthing scribe Ellery Queen wants to do his bit. After a tortuous cross-country drive, he takes a job writing scripts for a Hollywood propaganda house - twelve hours a day of hack work that quickly turns his mind to jelly. After a few weeks, he is so worn down that he can type nothing but gibberish, and he decides to drive home. The trouble starts as soon as he reaches the desert.

Two of her four kids may be out of the nest, but Lucy Stone knows only too well that mothering is a lifetime commitment. At least that commitment means she gets to kick back and enjoy a fancy Mother's Day brunch - that is, before the festivities are interrupted by a nasty scene between two moms feuding over the popularity of their teenage daughters. Even after witnessing that scene though, Lucy never expects to see actual blood spilled.

Tinker’s Cove, Maine, has a long history of Thanksgiving festivities, from visits with TomTom Turkey to the annual Warriors high school football game and Lucy Stone’s impressive pumpkin pie. But this year, someone has added murder to the menu, and Lucy intends to discover who left Metinnicut Indian activist Curt Nolan dead - with an ancient war club next to his head. The list of suspects isn’t exactly brief. Nolan had a habit of disagreeing with just about everybody he met.

Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer's block, Hannah has the feeling that she's doing something wrong. When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in 30 days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjöður; a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters - for inspiration.

An off-duty police officer is shot and ex-nun Chris Bennett and her police-detective boyfriend find this motiveless murder puzzling. Praying for a break, Chris pursues a killer along strange paths: a pilgrimage that takes her from a suburban convent to a Brooklyn fruit market, and deep into the sacrosanct world of the NYPD - and ultimately back to the deadly place where it all began.