Scottish Cozy Mysteries

When murder is served at a Scottish Burns supper, it’s not the haggis that hides the deadliest secret. Can an amateur sleuth catch the killer before they toast another victim? Antiques expert, Dotty Sayers, is thrilled to return to the Cotswolds to reconnect with old friends and run the auction house where her career began. She and her friend, Sergeant Keya Varma, organise a traditional Burns Night celebration, but things go awry when one of their guests meets his end before the first whisky is poured.When the new police inspector is pushed aside by headquarters before she can crack the ...

The aromas of wild thyme and Highland heather waft through Lochdubh, home to M. C. Beaton's eccentric policeman, Hamish Macbeth. Yet what the irascible constable smells in his latest case is the acrid scent of fear as an entire town is entrapped in something dark and deadly.... Yet as he deftly investigates the summer's high crimes and misdemeanors, he attracts the attention of his superiors. They feel a promotion and transfer will give him a larger playing field than Lochdubh. That's the last thing Macbeth wants.

Opening her shop Cashmere Crush and making a new home for herself, her son Brody, Gramps, and their black Scottish terrier Wallace in the beautiful Scottish village of Nairn, is a dream come true. So Paislee is happy to give back by donating a luxurious cashmere sweater for an auction to raise money for the Nairn Food Bank. She's less happy to make the acquaintance of a clique of competitive moms at the charity event, who treat a baking contest like it's life or death. It turns out to be the latter for queen bee Kirsten Buchanan.

It's a quiet, snowy morning at The Cracked Spine bookshop when book seller Delaney Nichols receives a mysterious visitor, a messenger. He presents her with a perplexing note: an invitation to a meeting with eccentric socialite Shelagh O'Conner, who requests Delaney's participation in an exclusive treasure hunt.

Winter is leaving the residents of Glenkillen snowbound, but Eden isn't about to let the weather dampen her spirits. With only a little time left in Scotland, she's determined to make the most of it - starting with attending a fancy whisky tasting with local looker Leith Cameron. But her classy date turns into a major party foul after a woman is found drowned in one of the vats of alcohol.

NEW FOR 2023 – STAND-ALONE, #20 IN THE SERIES. MEET MAVERICK BRITISH DETECTIVE DI SKELGILL... "A COMPELLING BRITISH CRIME MYSTERY." AN ATTEMPTED MURDER in the United States … a tragic road death in a Cumbrian forest … an old photograph stolen from an ancient coaching inn. Unrelated events – until a midnight drowning below Ouse Bridge exposes a connection. After two decades, has a killer returned to Cumbria to ply their trade? Does a suspect hide in plain sight among loose acquaintances? Who is truthful and who is lying? Skelgill must patiently circle … until finally he picks up ...

After ninety-three well-lived years, Violet MacAskill is ready to simplify her life. Her eccentric solution? She’ll throw a decanting and decluttering party at her family home—a Scottish Baronial manor near the seaside town of Inversgail. She sets aside everything she wants or needs, then she invites her many friends in to sip sherry and help themselves to whatever they want from all that’s left. Janet Marsh and Christine Robertson, two of the women who own Yon Bonnie Books in Inversgail, enjoy themselves at the party. Not everyone who attends has a good time, though.

The seal on the spell that’s been keeping my Fae side in check is due to break tonight at midnight… And I’m set to marry a man I don’t really know, and what I do know of him, I don’t particularly like. All because some stupid prophecy (from before I was even born) proclaimed as much. Talk about a crappy deal… With my Fae powers set to take over and the threat of becoming the Queen of the Winter Court becoming all too real, I find myself stuck at the bar of the Half-Moon Grill in a full-blown pity party. In walks Maverick, a bounty hunter who occasionally works for me and who’s...

NEW FOR 2023 – STAND-ALONE, #21 IN THE SERIES. MEET MAVERICK BRITISH DETECTIVE DI SKELGILL... "A COMPELLING BRITISH CRIME MYSTERY." SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, SPEAK NO EVIL ... A reality documentary crew is on the hunt for a victim. An unsolved murder from the 1970s that could leave the authorities red-faced. Celebrity criminologist Professor Simeon Freud plans to bask in the glory. Posing as a researcher, DS Jones joins the production team, but Skelgill must work in the shadows. His instincts rebel – not least that his protégé is prey to a narcissist on the one hand and a killer on ...

At one time, Corrie ten Boom would have laughed at the idea that she had a story to tell. For the first 50 years of her life, nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to her. She was a spinster watchmaker living contentedly with her sister and their elderly father in the tiny house over their shop in Haarlem. Their uneventful days, as regulated as their own watches, revolved around their abiding love for one another. But with the Nazi invasion and occupation of Holland, everything changed....

Running from her past lands Kat in a whole lot of trouble in the present! Fleeing from her past and determined to make a fresh start, Kat heads for the picturesque town of Glen Falls. Opting to ignore the tourist hype about spooky goings-on (it’s all make believe anyway, right?), Kat gets a job in a shop selling magical candles, charms and crystals. Discovering her new boss is a real witch who actually casts spells to ward off evil, Kat starts to wonder whether running from her old life has landed her in even more trouble in the present... With a fiery feud threatening to destroy the town...

A murder on stage. Her father a prime suspect. Can an amateur sleuth step into the limelight and find the killer before the final curtain falls? Dotty Sayers and her cat, Earl Grey, are anxious about visiting her parents in Edinburgh, Scotland. When Dotty and her father accept a stranger’s VIP tickets to a Fringe Festival play, they discover more than the best seats in the house. On stage for the first act, Dotty hears a shot in the dark and presumes it’s part of the script. So she’s shocked when a spotlight illuminates a controversial politician’s dead body. Befriended by a local ...

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.

This set includes the first two books in the Hamish Macbeth cozy mystery series set in the Scottish Highlands. Death of a Gossip: When society widow and gossip columnist Lady Jane Winters joined the fishing class, she wasted no time in ruffling the feathers—or was it the fins?—of those around her. Death of a Cad: When Priscilla Halburton-Smythe brings her London playwright fiancé home to Lochdubh, everybody in town is delighted…except for love-smitten Constable Hamish Macbeth. Yet his affairs of the heart will have to wait.

The Isle of Lewis, the northernmost island in the Outer Hebrides, a dot in the ocean, but the scene of a powerful event that changed lives in the years following World War II—including that of Aileana Mackay who is dragged back much against her will. Today, Felicity Sherwood, a young American woman, is drawn to Aileana’s story. Two women, two generations apart, and yet their lives coincide in strange ways. Anguish and ecstasy in the midst of a spiritual outpouring on the Isle of Lewis

Recent retiree Ally McKinley has stepped out with her puppy Flora for a walk by the loch in the tiny village of Locharran, taking a break from running the cosiest little guesthouse in the Highlands. But Ally’s peace and quiet is sunk when she and Flora find the body of a mysterious woman floating in the water…

So, it’s official: Andre and I are now an item. How do I feel about it? Excited and just a little nervous. Okay, a lot nervous—what if I mess this up? I’ve promised myself that I won’t focus on the negative! Instead, I’m trying not to be too depressed because Andre is leaving Haven Hollow for a few weeks. Why? Because he’s a traveling Magician. As a goodbye present, I’ve whipped up a potion I haven’t made in a long while: Gypsy Gold. I figure it will make an impressive stage trick when he’s able to turn things into fool’s gold! But after Andre leaves town (taking with ...

When Edwin, Delaney's boss at the Cracked Spine bookstore, leaves town on secret business, Delaney is called upon to guide his yearly literary tour around Edinburgh. But on the first night of the tour, at the inn where the tour group is staying, the inn manager falls—or is pushed—off the roof of the inn, and killed. Then, one of the tour members disappears, leaving a trail of puzzles in his wake. In a race against the clock, Delaney sets out on the expedition of her life, following clues around Edinburgh to get to the bottom of this mystery.

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.

Blair has a deadline. A scary one. Track down and hand over a magical mystery object she has never seen before and doesn’t know a single thing about... or face the might of the town’s Supernatural Mafia. Welcome to Glen Falls. A town where nothing is quite as it seems... Beauty salon owner Blair Montgomery’s world turns upside down when she receives a do-or-die deadline from the local branch of the Supernatural Mafia. They’re demanding she hands over a powerful and magical object they’re convinced she’s inherited from her gran. Problem is, Blair has no idea what it even looks ...