Cozy Crime Fiction

Marion Sharpe and her mother seem an unlikely duo to be found on the wrong side of the law. Quiet and ordinary, they have led a peaceful and unremarkable life at their country home, The Franchise. Unremarkable that is, until the police turn up with a demure young woman on their doorstep.Not only does Betty Kane accuse them of kidnap and abuse, she can back up her claim with a detailed description of the attic room in which she was kept, right down to the crack in its round window.

Police Officer Jemima Cotton expected Little Cote to be a quieter pace of life. But, unlike London, everyone knows everyone, and beyond the cake sales and coffee mornings, tea parties and village fetes, the neighbours aren't all the best of friends. When Jemima is unpacking her mugs and teabags in her new home on Foxglove Close, she's called to attend her first murder investigation. She's excited, until she discovers it's only a few doors down from her. And she hasn't even met her new neighbours yet.

THE GUEST ROOM - COZY MYSTERY SERIES - SHORT READ Much to her disgust, everyone at the vicarage is helping the housekeeper, Mrs. Gladys David, prepare the mansion for two events tomorrow: a wedding, and an impromptu visit from the Bishop who will stay in the guest room. She hates it when people have to be called in to help her for she feels it makes her look incompetent. Regardless, she's frantic to make everything perfect, and Father Eli has offered to help. Lots to do and no time to spare with all the preparations. As Mrs. David enters the guest room after a year of having no visitors, ...

Ned Delahanty works at a rundown Wyoming convenience store. Nothing much happens there, just the way he likes it. Most customers pump their gas and drive off without ever stepping inside. When a massive blizzard blows across the plains, that all changes. Several groups of customers seek shelter at Ned’s store. Among those searching for safety are a band of crooks with the cops hot on their trail. Ned soon finds himself locked in a cunning battle of wits with his dangerous guests.

Graves of the Forgotten A Maggie and Bentley Mystery Where Old Lies Lead to New Danger In the quiet mountain town of Pine Ridge, secrets don’t stay buried forever. When K-9 handler Maggie Shaw and her therapy dog Bentley stumble upon a disturbed patch of earth at a controversial construction site, they uncover more than just signs of trespassing; they uncover bones. As Detective Noah Rodriguez launches an official investigation, the two long-time allies find themselves drawn into a decades-old mystery that threatens to unravel the town’s carefully guarded history. With Bentley’s ...

Murder comes well-seasoned in this charming mystery featuring a smart and spunky new amateur sleuth, small-town Georgia spice shop owner Piper Prescott. Piper Prescott, a transplanted Yankee living in the South, has got her sass back. She might be down, but don’t count her out. “Change of life?” she asks. Bring it on. Recently divorced, Piper decides to pursue a dream she’s secretly harbored: owning her own business, Spice it Up!, a spice shop in her adopted hometown, Brandywine Creek, Georgia.

Melissa couldn’t be happier that summer has arrived. She’s delighted to have her mother back by her side, and she is extending her beloved Hawthorn Cottage so her new family can live together. Meanwhile, Melissa’s mother, Sylvia, is back in good health and enjoying a brief stay at a stately retirement home. She loves getting to know the residents, until first a dog and then his owner are both found dead in the dining room. Like mother, like daughter, Sylvia decides to do a little investigating of her own.

A friend in his cigar club asks Antoine Verlaque to visit Rene Rouquet, a retired postal worker who has found a rolled-up canvas in his apartment. As the apartment once belonged to Paul Cezanne, Rouquet is convinced he's discovered a treasure. But when Antoine arrives at the apartment, he finds Rene dead, the canvas missing, and a mysterious art history professor standing over the body. When the painting is finally recovered, the mystery only deepens.

A winter weekend ends in snowbound disaster in a novel which remains a favourite among Marsh readers. It began as an entertainment: eight people, many of them enemies, gathered for a winter weekend by a host with a love for theatre. They would be the characters in a drama that he would devise. It ended in snowbound disaster. Everyone had an alibi - and most had motives as well. But Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn, when he finally arrived, knew it all hung on Thomas, the dancing footman....

It's the following Thursday. Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster and a very real threat to his life. As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds, too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus? But this time, they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians.

Delaney Nichols has settled so comfortably into her new life in Edinburgh that she truly feels it's become more home than her once beloved Kansas. Her job at the Cracked Spine, a bookshop that specializes in rare manuscripts as well as other sundry valuable historical objects, is everything she had dreamed. Her latest task includes a trip to Castle Doune to retrieve a hard-to-find edition of an old Scottish comic, an "Oor Wullie", in a cloak-and-dagger transaction that Edwin has orchestrated.

Two days before Christmas, a young woman is found dead beneath the cliffs of the deserted village of Kalfshamarvik. Did she jump, or did something more sinister take place beneath the lighthouse and the abandoned old house on the remote rocky outcrop? With winter closing in and the snow falling relentlessly, Ari Thor Arason discovers that the victim's mother and young sister also lost their lives in this same spot, 25 years earlier....

The trouble started in Greece with a favor for her new father-in-law. When Poppy Fields picked up a package in Athens, she had no idea how many people were interested in its contents. Desperately interested. Murderously interested. Now she's on the run, racing across Turkey in a cat-and-mouse game with multiple killers. Because what's in the package could change the world.

An Unexpected Death. A Powerful Inheritance. A Deadly Game of Deceit. What begins as a fluff piece quickly spirals into a treacherous web of suspicion and buried family secrets. Leopoldo Bonavista’s career is hanging by a thread. The disgraced socialite journalist’s reputation has been shattered by scandal. His last shot at redemption? A lucrative offer to write a glowing profile on Silvia Domenech, the iron-fisted matriarch of the Fonseca family—one of the wealthiest and most influential clans on the Costa Blanca. The catch: He must spend a week at their opulent summer estate. Lies. ...

Minnie and her rescue cat, Eddie, can often be found out and about in their bookmobile near Chilson, Michigan, delivering great reads to grateful patrons all over the county. But they always brake for trouble, and when Minnie sees a car speeding away down the road, and soon comes upon a dead bicyclist, she assumes she just missed seeing a hit-and-run.

Facing boredom after his long-postponed knee surgery, Jack volunteers at Fitz Morton Manor to serve as steward, chatting with visitors about the long history of the house. And when the retired volunteer Cyril Roebuck is found dead in the Great Hall, one morning, it seems at first that the dear old man must have suffered a heart attack. But the room was locked from the inside - and it quickly becomes clear that Cyril could not have bolted it. Soon Jack and Sarah are confronting the odd mystery of the locked room... and what must be - in fact - a case of foul play.

Bernard Mandeville loves trains. Every Sunday, the elderly and frail Bernard, in perfect attire, purchases a ticket on the Great Cotswold's Steam Railway, takes a seat in First-Class and revels in a journey from the past. But on one particular Sunday, in the midst of that short trip, the impossible happens. Bernard vanishes without a trace... The family reaches out to Sarah and Jack who must make their own remarkable journey on the rails...to track down the vanished gentleman!

A cold case warms up when an archaeological dig uncovers the remains of a student who went missing a decade previously. It was a missing person case that bugged ex-inspector Fabia Havard long after she left the force. Now she has been asked by DCI Matt Lambert to aid the investigation. Caleb Morgan went missing whilst studying at a university campus near the ancient Roman city of Caerleon. Now, with his body finally found during an archaeological dig, partly exposed due to the riverbank subsiding after a flood, there is new evidence. It is clear he was murdered.

Two years ago, Miff Ferguson chose to opt out of the rat race. Since then he's been living rough and happily so. Until now. For as the first signs of winter approach, everything in his life is uprooted. While looking for shelter, Miff stumbles across the corpse of a young woman in a dilapidated warehouse. Quickly realizing he is not alone, and has been spotted, Miff becomes embroiled in a game of cat-and-mouse with a killer that forces him to abandon his life and take refuge with his aunt and uncle in the village of Weston St. Ambrose.

Even if the entire town is now accusing Aunt Pearl of murdering her guest. Even if her fiancee is acting weird and talking about seeing ghosts. Even if the town's sexy new sheriff, Tyler Gates, treats her like the most hexing of all the witches.