Showing results by publisher "Zaffre" in Cosy

The morning after a dinner party at Windsor Castle, 89-year-old Queen Elizabeth is shocked to discover that one of her guests has been found murdered in his room, with a rope around his neck. When the police begin to suspect her loyal servants, Her Majesty knows they are looking in the wrong place. For the queen has been living an extraordinary double life ever since her coronation. Away from the public eye, she has a brilliant knack for solving crimes.

It's 1961 and the Queen is planning her state visit to Italy aboard Britannia. But before she goes, an unreliable witness claims to have seen a brutal murder from the royal train. Did it really happen, and could the victim be a missing friend of Princess Margaret's new husband, Tony Armstrong Jones?

1957 - A young woman is found dead in a mews house a mile from Buckingham Palace, wearing only silk underwear and a a diamond tiara. An older man is discovered nearby, garrotted and pierced through the eye with a long, sharp implement. According to the police, a high society card game was going on downstairs that night. One of the players surely committed the murders, but each of them can give the others an alibi.

Queen Elizabeth II is having a royal nightmare. A referendum divides the nation, a tumultuous election grips the United States - and the body of a staff member is found dead beside Buckingham Palace swimming pool. Is it a tragic accident, as the police think? Or is something more sinister going on? As Her Majesty looks for answers, her trusted assistant, Rozie, is on the trail of a treasured painting that once hung outside the queen's bedroom.

Twelve years ago, eight friends ran an exclusive group at university: The Masquerade Murder Society. The mysteries they solved may have been grisly, but they were always fictional - until their final Christmas Masquerade, when one of the group disappeared, never to be seen again. Twelve years later, the remaining members of the group receive an invitation to a reunion masquerade, to be held in a beautiful and remote hunting lodge in Scotland. When they arrive they are each assigned a new identity themed around the Twelve Days of Christmas.

For Alice and her partner Joe, moving to the sleepy Cotswold village of Penton is a chance to embrace country life and prepare for the birth of their unexpected first child. He can take up woodwork; maybe she'll learn to make jam. But the rural idyll they'd hoped for doesn't quite pan out when a dead body is discovered at their local antenatal class and they find themselves suspects in a murder investigation.

It is 1951, and at number six Sycamore Street fifteen-year-old Edie Green is lonely. Living alone with her eccentric mother - who conducts seances for the local Ludthorpe community - she is desperate for something to shake her from her dull, isolated life. When the popular, pretty Lucy Theddle befriends Edie, she thinks all her troubles are over. But Lucy has a secret, one Edie is not certain she should keep. Then Lucy goes missing.

After Q (aka Major Boothroyd) is unexpectedly ousted from his role with British Intelligence developing technologies for MI6's OO agents, he finds himself back in his sleepy hometown of Wickstone-on-Water. His childhood friend, renowned quantum computer scientist Peter Napier, has died in mysterious circumstances, leaving behind a cryptic note. The police seem disinterested, but Q feels compelled to investigate and soon discovers that Napier's ground-breaking work may have attracted sinister forces . . .

It's Christmas Eve at the Emporium, a bespoke gift shop hidden in the depths of London's winding streets, where a select few shoppers are browsing its handcrafted delights. But when they go to leave, they find the doors are locked and it isn't long before they realise this is no innocent mix-up. The shoppers have been trapped here by someone who knows their darkest secrets, who will stop at nothing until they have all been unwrapped - and there is a gruesome gift waiting in Santa's grotto.

In the quaint town of Hoslewit, the biggest names in crime writing have congregated to celebrate all things bookish and murderous. With a programme packed with seminars and signings, egos and alcohol, it's sure to be a thrilling weekend. Author Jane Hepburn is determined this is going to be her year. She's not quite reached the heady heights of best-sellerdom yet, but is convinced that if she can just make the right connections at the festival, it could be the start of a whole new chapter for her and her books. Then her literary agent is killed, and Jane's plans are derailed.