Letter Mysteries

Heading back to work the day after she returns from her European honeymoon, Delaney Nichols is excited to get back to the Cracked Spine. But as she disembarks the bus and hurries toward the shop, she and another woman collide, sending a stack of books the woman is carrying to the ground. Delaney's hapless victim's name is Mary, and she and Delaney can't help but notice that they bear an uncanny resemblance to one another. According to Mary, they both also look like the long-beheaded Mary Queen of Scots.

Scott's discourses on the psychological, religious, physical, and preternatural explanations for contemporary beliefs in ghosts, witches, warlocks, fairies, elves, diabolism, the occult, and even werewolvesare are essential for acolytes of the dark and macabre. The letters dealing with witch hunts, trials, and torture are morbidly compelling. Scott was neither fully pro-rational modernity nor totally anti-superstitious past.

This is a story from the Murders in the Rue Morgue (The Dupin Stories) collection. Auguste Dupin, investigator extraordinaire, was the remarkable creation of Edgar Allan Poe. Written in the 1840s, Poe presented the acutely observant, shrewd but idiosyncratic character who, with his chronicler, provided the inspiration for the more famous Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Countess by day, secret advice columnist by night, Amelia Amesbury has life happily balanced on a quill's edge . . . until her sister Margaret shows up in London under a blanket of scandal and Amelia is catapulted out of mourning and into the ton's unforgiving Season. However Madge's Season debut is marred by a rather inconvenient death at the dining table as the infamous Mr Radcliffe takes ill and is later confirmed dead by poisoning. With Madge being the last person to have cross words with the soon-to-be baron, the ton's gossip mill—and the police—are looking to pin the murder on her.

Countess Amelia Amesbury has her work cut out. As well as balancing her alter ego—secret advice columnist, Lady Agony—and the blackmailer threatening to reveal her real identity, her sister has also announced she's getting married. It's joyous news, but places all the planning for a high society wedding firmly at Amelia's door. Luckily, her good friend and local vicar Mr. Cross has agreed to the expedited nuptials, so that's one less thing to worry about. Until Cross is found dead at the church. Now in between bridal arrangements, Amelia must follow the clues Mr. Cross left behind.

When genealogist Jefferson Tayte is hired to prove the identity of a black sheep in his client’s family tree, he unwillingly finds himself drawn into a murder investigation with nothing more to go on than a 150-year-old letter and a connection to a legendary ruby that has been missing for generations. As more letters are mysteriously left for him, Tayte becomes immersed in a centuries-old tale of greed, murder and forbidden love that takes his research from the wilds of the Scottish Highlands to the colour and heat of colonial India. A dark secret is buried in Jaipur. But why is it having such deadly repercussions in the present?

The scissors are sharpened and the cardstock stacked for Delta Douglas' latest workshop: a 3D cardmaking event at socialite Lena Laroy's birthday extravaganza. As co-owner of Wanted, the local stationery shop, Delta is ready to wow her guests with her one-of-a-kind crafts. But at this party, paper isn't the only thing bent out of shape. When a threatening present is unwrapped and the guest of honor's sister-in-law is discovered dead by the trees, Delta realizes another killer is loose in her small town.

Extra, extra, read all about it! Countess turned advice columnist Amelia Amesbury finds herself playing the role of sleuth when a night at the theatre turns deadly. Victorian Countess Amelia Amesbury’s secret hobby, writing an advice column for a London penny paper, has gotten her into hot...

When one of her readers asks for advice following a suspected murder, Victorian countess Amelia Amesbury, who secretly pens the popular Lady Agony column, has no choice but to investigate in this first book in a charming new historical mystery series. Amelia Amesbury—widow, mother, and...

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in South America. Jeremy Wheale’s well-ordered life is blasted apart when his brother is murdered. The killer was after a family heirloom – an antique gold tray – which sets Wheale on a trail from Devon to the tropical rainforest of...

Reggie and Nigel Heath are relatively close in age but worlds apart in personality. The older of the two brothers, Reggie is a successful attorney with charisma to spare. Nigel has always struggled to step out of his shadow. When Reggie leases space in an office building on London's Baker Street, he finds that the paperwork comes with an odd stipulation: his firm must receive and respond with a standard reply to letters sent to Sherlock Holmes, who had occupied the same famous address.

Treasure hunters Peter Fallon and Evangeline Carrington are heading for adventure in Washington, D.C., the sleek, modern, power-hungry capital of America...and the crowded, muddy, intrigue-filled nexus of the Civil War. Their prize? A document of incredible historical importance and incalculable value: Abraham Lincoln’s diary. What if Lincoln recorded his innermost thoughts as he moved toward the realization that he must free the slaves? And what if that diary slipped from his fingers in 1862?

One spring evening in 1884, beautiful young courtesan Lola Deslys discovers the lifeless body of a chambermaid hidden in the gardens of the Hôtel Beau Rivage in Cannes. Even more distressing is that Lola knows the girl well. When the inquiry into her murder fails to reveal a single substantial clue, Lola is persuaded by novelist Guy de Maupassant to delve into the case on her own. Eager to exert her independence and defy conventions, Lola agrees. But she needs help in her investigation, and there’s no better partner in her pursuit - however unlikely - than Miss Gabriella Fletcher, a highborn, well-educated, and currently disgraced English governess.

New York Times best-selling author Laura Childs’ cozy Scrapbooking mysteries continue to win fans with each compelling entry. In Skeleton Letters, New Orleans scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand and her friend Ava witness a heinous crime at St. Tristan’s Church that leaves a dear friend dead and an antique crucifix missing. Together, Carmela and Ava search the French Quarter for the crucifix in hopes of finding the killer.

Who exactly is Danziger? He's a writer of letters for illiterate immigrants on Manhattan's Lower East Side - "a steadfast practitioner of concealing and forgetting" for his clients, and perhaps for himself: He hints at a much worldlier past. What and whoever he really is or has been, he has a seemingly boundless knowledge of the city and its denizens. And he knows much more than the mere identity of the floating corpse.

A thrilling World War One spy story from the author of the acclaimed Jack Haldean series .“There’s a spy in England. Frankie’s letter. Read Frankie’s letter... ” The last words said by a dying man to Anthony Brooke in Kiel in Germany during the height of World War One. But who is Frankie? With his cover blown and the German army at his heels, English secret agent Anthony Brooke’s search to discover the truth leads him to an innocent-seeming country house.

The professor was an eccentric old bird, and his daughter was a delicate flower. So how could Harry Stoner suspect the snake pit of hatred and greed he was walking into that winter day when he agreed to find a missing document for Professor Daryl Lovingwell?

Ellery had a simple case. A few days of discreet snooping, some choice advice, and the inimitable sleuth would blithely restore domestic harmony to the millionaire couple Dirk and Martha Lawrence. Then came the scarlet letters. And finally the cryptic clue, scrawled in a murdered man’s blood. A simple case? Unless Ellery did some super-fast sleuthing, he’d have nothing to show but a very scarlet face. The case will drag him all over New York as he hunts for the truth.

Folks in Sugar Creek Gap, Kentucky, are so excited for Bernadette Butler! She's getting married to Mac Tabor, the man of her dreams! Wedding week is nerve-wracking enough, but add to that a murder of a local radio DJ with a nasty reputation, who was found stabbed to death with a letter opener days before Bernadette's wedding, and the DJ who Bernadette hired for the wedding is the number one suspect. Now Bernadette has not only possibly lost a big part of her dream wedding, she'll have to solve a mystery with more layers than the five-tiered wedding cake!

New York, 1891: a rapidly changing city, torn between lamplight and electric light, where the burgeoning steel and railway industries attract a flood of humanity from every corner of the globe, fuelling cutthroat gangs, corruption and vice. A prostitute is found brutally murdered. Immediately fear starts to spread. The victim bears the same hallmarks as Jack the Ripper's recent killing spree in England. Could it be that the Ripper has crossed the Atlantic to fresh killing grounds? Or is this simply a copycat murder?