The Ellie Haskell Mysteries

Ellie Simons stands to inherit her Uncle Merlin's huge English country house. But on three utterly bizarre conditions. One: she must lose sixty-three pounds (rude!). Two: she must marry the fake fiance she's been passing off as her true love all weekend. And three: she must catch whoever killed Uncle Merlin in the first place.

The men of Chitterton Fells are dropping like flies. And the membership of the Widows Club is growing bigger every day. Newlywed Ellie Haskell (nee Simons, thank you very much) is settling nicely into married bliss in the charming village of Chitterton Fells.

Ellie Simons's delightful mother-in-law comes to visit for a simply lovely weekend of crocheted doilies, thinly-veiled insults, and passive-aggressive "suggestions." It's enough to make anyone wish their mother-in-law was dead. But it turns out the ladies of Chitterton Fells should be more careful what they wish for. Only last night Ellie and her friends raised their gin and tonics to toast an end to mothers-in-law the world over. The next day, Pamela Pomeroy's own MIL is found dead.

Chitterton Fells is all of a flutter. Along with every female member of the village Library League, Ellie Haskell has developed a veritable obsession with novels of the romance variety. The steamier, the better. But tragedy strikes when Miss Bunch the librarian is found dead between the non-fiction stacks. Then the local milkman collapses in broad daylight.

Ellie Haskell aspires to live a perfectly normal life with her husband and children in their lovely old house. But bizarre events and outlandish characters keep landing on her doorstep in Chitterton Fells, the charming little village by the sea. Just when Ellie means to escape her hectic life by taking a vacation in France, her long-lost father shows up with the ashes of his lady love in his suitcase. Ellie becomes suspicious as Daddy recounts the details of his storybook romance with Harriet, the platinum-blonde ideal of English womanhood....