International Cozy Mysteries

OPERAS CAN BE DEADLYIn the cobblestone streets of Vienna, rumors of a musical treasure draw out a killer. . . Kapellmeister Joseph Haydn is busy preparing for the opera season when he receives an urgent request from Vienna. An impoverished violinist with bills to pay wants Haydn to examine his bequest—a collection of scores so valuable they could wipe out his debts. A collection reputed to be the long-lost works of the Italian master of opera Monteverdi. Haydn agrees to help, but remains skeptical. Until Kaspar is murdered—beaten and left to die in front of a wine tavern. The police ...

So much that is valued is rooted in a family’s history. A library filled with old books, journals, and newspapers tells the stories that are passed down from one generation to the next…cherished traditions never to be forgotten…and for some, an unbreakable sense of honor that stands the test of time.Family Tribute…the eighth book in the Delahass Legacy continues the ongoing story of the search for the secrets that Jeremy Delahass took great care to hide in the hope that his descendants would recognize their importance. As some of those secrets are found, they also discover what ...

When Dorothy Martin and her ex-policeman husband Alan are asked by some friends to look into a series of petty crimes that are perplexing the local Mounties in the picturesque Canadian city of Victoria, they immediately jump on a plane to British Columbia and settle themselves into the heart of the local community. Drinking champagne with the local businessman and would-be politician as well as cups of tea with the local recluse, they infiltrate all ranks of Victoria society. But when a young woman goes missing and a body is discovered, it would appear that the petty crimes have turned deadly.

Dorothy Martin isn’t overly enthusiastic when her husband, retired police detective Alan Nesbitt, invites her to accompany him to a conference in Cambridge, picturing cramped student accommodation. But St. Stephen’s turns out to be recently renovated, and, bolstered by ensuite facilities, Dorothy is looking forward to exploring the historic and beautiful city. It is not long, though, before disaster strikes. Lost in the maze of college buildings, Dorothy stumbles into a laboratory—and is shocked to find what looks like a pool of blood on the floor.

When young, pretty Eliza Anderson walks through Grace McKenna’s door begging for help finding her missing sister, it sparks the Portobello Detective Agency’s most dangerous investigation to date. The trail leads Grace and her team to a plush clinic nestled in Scotland’s remote wilderness. On the surface, Whiteadder House seems too good to be true, offering miracle cures and luxury comfort at no cost. But as they dig deeper, the cracks in its gleaming façade start to show.

The Department of Sensitive Crimes is downsizing in light of a recent downturn of sensitive crime, and staff members are wondering who among them will be transferred elsewhere. As the bickering between colleagues intensifies, Ulf tries his best to stay above the fray. But when Anna, a long-time friend and co-worker, appears to blame him for an old case that went sideways, it seems she may be putting her own job prospects above their friendship. In the midst of all this, Ulf embarks on an important inquiry.

What could be better than going to Northern England to visit the places where famous authors such as Bram Stoker, Beatrix Potter, and Catherine Cookson lived and worked? It was something Kat had always wanted to do. Her dream became a reality when her friend, Marion, decided such a trip should be a payback to her friends for helping her discover the truth about her husband. But having the popular pub employee, Sam, murdered the night they arrived at the pub/hotel where Kat and her friends were staying, was not a preferred way to start a vacation.

Rising star and incorrigible playboy Vikram Verma has disappeared, leaving his latest film in jeopardy. Hired by Verma's formidable mother to find him, Inspector Chopra and his sidekick, baby elephant Ganesha, embark on a journey deep into the world's most flamboyant movie industry. As they uncover feuding stars, failed investments and death threats, it seems that many people have a motive for wanting Verma out of the picture. And yet, as Chopra has long suspected, in Bollywood the truth is often stranger than fiction....

Egypt, 1914. It is the beginning of the war and Gareth Owen, Mamur Zapt and Head of Cairo’s Secret Police, is given the unhappy task of rounding up enemy aliens. But, in a land where adoption of foreign nationality is a popular means of avoiding trial by an Egyptian court, determining who counts as German proves contentious. And then there’s the face in the cemetery.

When his violinist disappears just weeks before the Empress's visit, Haydn uncovers a treacherous secret. . . Kapellmeister Joseph Haydn would like nothing better than to show his principal violinist, Bartó Daboczi, the door. But with the Empress Maria Theresa's visit scheduled in three weeks, Haydn can ill-afford to lose his surly virtuoso. But when Bartó disappears--along with all the music composed for the imperial visit--the Kapellmeister is forced to don the role of Kapell-detective, or risk losing his job. Before long Haydn uncovers pieces of a disturbing puzzle. Bartó is more than...

Literary fame beckons for Olga Pushkin, Railway Engineer (Second Class), when her self-help manual for hard-working women is published at last. But Olga's scheming superior, Boris Andreyev, forces her to babysit a special Romanov-themed murder mystery steam train doing the rounds of the local towns. Parked in a siding near Roslazny, the players deliver the first of several intended performances - only for a staged murder to become very real. Vassily starts a homicide investigation in conjunction with his boss but both are baffled when another murder follows on the heels of the first.

When world-renowned wine expert Benjamin Cooker's elderly father needs him most, the erudite consultant and his dashing assistant Virgile Lanssien are called away to Burgundy to orchestrate the harvest. More than just picking grapes, the Winemaker Detective must keep a delicate balance between an old-time vintner and his heir as a catastrophic hailstorm endangers some of France's most celebrated wines. Adding insult to injury, the brutal and mysterious murder of a grape picker sends shock waves through the winemaking world.

When Kat Denham decided it was to time to become a licensed private investigator, in addition to her successful career as an author, she never expected her first case to take her to South Africa to investigate the murder of a member of the US Trade Commission. Talk about trial by fire! Not only does she have to navigate language and living condition barriers, but she also has to walk a very fine line not to upstage the investigation by the local Cape Town police officials. Ladies of the night, gamblers, old feuds, and jealousy make for a lot of suspects.

Fine wines, dirty secrets. It's summer in Bordeaux. There's a heat wave, the vineyards are suffering, vintners are on edge, and wine expert Benjamin Cooker's daughter is visiting. A tragic car accident draws the winemaker detective and his assistant, Virgile, into a case where the stakes are very personal.

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 Yucatan. There he joins the hunt for a lost Mayan city. But in the dense cover of the jungle, a band of vicious convict mercenaries are waiting to strike....

CHAPPELL AND LILY WHITE LIE ARE RECIPIENTS OF COMMENDATION FROM OHIO HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FOR LITERARY ACCOMPLISHMENTS "Simply brilliant. Descriptiveness around every turn." --The Baltimore Sun In Lily White Lie, engravings on a pocketwatch, cryptic messages, Easter lilies, and sidelined spy Bret Kilmore combine to thrust historian Wrenn Grayson into the mysterious world of symbolism. A worried Wrenn connects the messages to her longtime love Gideon and his father. Contact is impossible. Gideon deer hunts deep in the West Virginia wilderness. His father, a prominent banker, vanished ...

Ever since he survived a suicide attempt, New York artist Stan Foster has not been himself. Plagued by amnesia and a head full of visions of death and destruction that fuel his ever-more disturbing work, he claws his way through a life he doesn't recognize in search of his true identity. What he finds leads him to believe he is Satan, spit out from the bowels of hell to live among the mortal inhabitants of earth. Is he delusional, or is there truth behind this troubling revelation? One woman can help him find out.

In Death at La Fenice, Donna Leon’s first novel in the Commissario Brunetti series, readers were introduced to the glamorous and cut-throat world of opera and to one of Italy’s finest living sopranos, Flavia Petrelli - then a suspect in the poisoning of a renowned German conductor. Now, many years after Brunetti cleared her name, Flavia has returned to the illustrious La Fenice to sing the lead in Tosca. As an opera superstar, Flavia is well acquainted with attention from adoring fans and aspiring singers.

Winter has come early to the tiny Siberian village of Roslazny, but for Olga Pushkin, aspiring writer and Railway Engineer (Second Class), it only makes leaving the harder. Olga is being forced overseas by her jealous superior, and now faces two years in exile from her beloved rail-side hut, her white-breasted hedgehog Dmitri and Vassily Marushkin, sergeant-in-charge at the tiny Roslazny police station. Fate seems to intervene when Olga's train crashes outside Roslazny, shutting the line and killing two on board—local celebrity Danyl Petrovich and his wife, Anoushka.

When murder invades Haydn's opera stage, scandal isn't far behind . . . Charged with ensuring that an imperial wedding transpires without mishap, composer Joseph Haydn has his hands full. Barely seventeen, Archduke Ferdinand Karl, the imperial bridegroom, is reluctant to marry. And the bride, Maria Beatrice, has her reservations as well. But when an extortion note surfaces—an unpleasant reminder of the bridegroom's shameful past—the wedding seems truly doomed. Worse still, all the evidence points to Haydn's prima donna, Lucia Pacelli, being the blackmailer. Before Haydn can confront her...