International Cozy Mysteries

France's top wine expert Benjamin Cooker sets off to enjoy the delights of Vienna, a romantic ride down the Danube, a gourmand's visit to Budapest, and a luxury train through the enchanting Hungarian countryside. All too soon, stolen wallets, disappearing passports, guides who are a bit too obliging, and murder mar the trip. Meanwhile, in Bordeaux, Cooker's handsome assistant Virgile faces an annoying rival and a mildew crisis in the vineyards just as Cooker's lab technician is the victim of a mugging.

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...

Dorothy Martin’s husband, Alan Nesbitt, is heavily involved in the complex and lengthy process of choosing a new bishop for Sherebury Cathedral. The very day that the short list is announced publicly, one of the candidates is found murdered in his own church. With a long list of possible suspects, including Alan himself, Dorothy and Alan start to delve into the history of the victim, hoping to find some clue to a motive for murder. Then a second candidate is found dead, and the case becomes very complicated indeed. Who is murdering England’s clergymen and why …?

It’s the bitterly cold spring season in alpine Aosta, and a girl has been kidnapped. Chiara Berguet, daughter of the owners of a local construction firm, was targeted thanks to the sizable debt her parents owe. But like many a best-laid plan, a blown tire causes the crime to go haywire as the kidnappers’ van skids off the road and crashes into a pair of larch trees. Both the driver and his accomplice die on impact, leaving the girl in the back, gagged and bound and unable to break herself free.

The heirs to one of the oldest Cognac estates in France face a hostile takeover by foreign investors. Renowned wine expert Benjamin Cooker is called in to audit the books. In what he thought was a sleepy provincial town, he is stonewalled, crosses paths with his first love, and stands up to high-level state officials keen on controlling the buyout. Meanwhile irresistible Virgile mingles with the local population until a drowning changes the stakes.

Thanks to Jenny and Jaimie, two local street children, there's a new resident at 221B Baker Street, the boarding house where the famous Sherlock Holmes resides; however, the landlady, Mrs. Hudson, is somewhat skeptical as to how Holmes will react to his new housemate. If Tuck will just do as he's been told and stay out of the detective's way...but then, cats never do as they're told, and Tuck is no exception.

Hettie Bagshot has bitten off more than any cat could chew. As soon as she launches her No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, she's bucketed into a case: Furcross, a home for slightly older cats, has a nasty spate of bodysnatching, and three of the residents have been stolen from their graves. Hettie and her sidekick, Tilly, set out to reveal the terrible truth. In a haze of catnip and pastry, Hettie steers the Furcross Case to its conclusion, but will she get there before the body count rises - and the pies sell out?

Harriet, der i mange år har haft Harriets Antiques i Lund, dør på mystisk vis. Samtidig forsvinder Kjell, souschefen i Albin Larssons herreekviperingsbutik, pludselig sporløst. Den excentriske hr. Larsson finder det svært at leve uden tjenestefolk, så han ansætter Bodil som erstatning for Kjell. Men det tomrum, som Kjell efterlader, er svært at udfylde. Larsson og hans sidekick Oskar, der kæmper med både sit forhold og det rejsebureau, som tiden synes at være løbet fra, begynder at lede efter den forsvundne Kjell. Undervejs støder de på lyssky agenter, affyrede pistoler og udstoppede dyr.

Sailing on a cruise ship to discover unusual adventures for her travel magazine, journalist Sam Anderson gets caught up in the disappearance of a wealthy dining companion. From the glaciers of Alaska to the steamy heat of New Orleans, Sam begins to tie up the loose strings of this intriguing mystery.

The Euganean Hills golf community in northern Italy is a golfer's paradise. With a perpetual smell of freshly cut grass, rolling green plains, and bright blue skies, it seems nothing could go wrong for the tight-knit group that lives there. But the normally laid-back residents are shaken to their cores when one of their own turns up at the club brutally murdered. After discovering his friend's body, investigative journalist Riccardo Ranieri makes it his mission to track down the perpetrator of the heinous crime.

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.

Olga Pushkin, Railway Engineer (Third Class) and would-be best-selling author, spends her days in a little rail-side hut with only Dmitri the hedgehog for company. While tourists and travellers clatter by on the Trans-Siberian Express, Olga dreams of studying literature at Tomsk State University and escaping the sleepy, snow-clad village of Roslazny. But Roslazny doesn't stay sleepy for long. One day Olga arrives at her hut only to be knocked unconscious by a man falling from the Trans-Siberian, an American tourist with his throat cut from ear to ear.

Constable Hamish Macbeth ist traurig: Gegen seinen Willen muss er einen Kollegen vertreten, und zwar ausgerechnet im weit entfernten Cnothan, dem mürrischsten Dorf Schottlands. Den Einzigen, den die Bewohner von Cnothan noch weniger ausstehen können als Hamish, ist ein besserwisserischer Engländer. Als dessen Skelett mitten im Moor gefunden wird, ahnt Hamish, dass ihm ein ziemlich außergewöhnlicher Fall bevorsteht - und dass es noch eine ganze Weile dauern wird, bis er in sein geliebtes Dorf Lochdubh zurückkehren kann.

A small town holds fiercely on to its secrets. In the heart of Gascony, a fire ravages the warehouse of one of Armagnac's top estates, killing the master distiller. Wine expert Benjamin Cooker is called in to estimate the value of the losses. But Cooker and his assistant, Virgile, want to know more. How did the old alembic explode? Was it really an accident? Why is the estate owner, Baron de Castayrac, penniless? How legal are his dealings?

In dem malerischen Dörfchen Ballydehag in Irland, in das die Hexe Quinn Callahan vor kurzem gezogen ist, scheint ein uralter Fluch Unheil zu stiften. Ist dieser schuld an dem Mord, der sich ereignet? Oder läuft dort ein sehr lebendiger Mörder frei herum? Der Umzug in ein kleines irisches Dorf hätte die nicht mehr allzu junge Hexe vor Schwierigkeiten bewahren sollen. Doch leider geht diese Rechnung nicht auf. Quinn und ihre untoten Bücherwürmer müssen den wahren Mörder finden und dem Fluch ein Ende setzen, bevor noch jemand ums Leben kommt.

Wherever there was trouble in the world, one would find Martha McGillivray. The celebrated journalist had a nose for rooting out corruption and a passion for sticking it to the man. Unsurprisingly, then, eventually trouble finds her and she dies of Ricin poisoning whilst traveling on a train to Edinburgh. Back from a spell on a punitive training course for middle-aged male dinosaurs, Detective Inspector Russell McCord is under pressure to crack the case quickly. However, his superiors have forbidden all contact with the press. In particular magazine writer and amateur sleuth Amy Thornton.

Mumbai, murder and a baby elephant combine in a charming, joyful mystery for fans of Alexander McCall Smith and Harold Fry. On the day he retires, Inspector Ashwin Chopra inherits two unexpected mysteries. The first is the case of a drowned boy, whose suspicious death no one seems to want solved. And the second is a baby elephant.

Kim faces two cases in this gripping instalment. An escaped felon and a strange request from an olive-skinned beauty. She must wrestle simultaneously with both conundrums, and track down the convict while resolving the mystery of what exactly is inside the booty in the boathouse - and who put it there and why? There are the usual splashes of humour as Kim gets to grips with her tasks.

Darkness in Ronda is the second in Paul S Bradley’s Andalusian Mystery Series. Bullfighting in Spain is fading fast. The majority demand that this centuries-old national tradition be banned forever, yet the old men who run the controlling committee are stone-deaf to public protests. Bullfighter Diego Romero recognises the need for change and suggests reforms to stop killing such magnificent animals. The division between vested interests and modernisers grows wider. Tempers fray, and violence raises its ugly head. The conflict comes to a head at La Goyesca, Ronda’s stylish bullfighting ...