Showing results by author "Ann Granger" in All Categories

When Meredith Mitchell agreed to stay with her actress cousin, Eve, in the run up to Eve's daughter's wedding, she anticipated a degree of drama. But she can hardly have expected it to include murder, blackmail, and unrequited love. Or to involve a certain Chief Inspector Markby, a middle aged divorcee.

When the body of a young woman is discovered in the cowshed of Cricket Farm, the tranquility of the British countryside is shattered. Inspector Jess Campbell is on the case, but with few leads, a grumbling partner, and the new superintendent Ian Carter piling on the pressure, she's beginning to wonder why she chose to be a detective in the first place.

When the body of a man killed by a point blank shot to the head is found in Crooked Man Woods, it appears to be a suicide. But when Inspector Jess Campbell and Superintendent Ian Carter begin to investigate, it soon becomes clear that not all is as it seems. The victim, Carl Finch, had been causing quite a stir in the small-town community. With rising debts and complicated relationships, the suspects are beginning to mount up.

It is with some trepiditation that Meredith Mitchell returns to the Cotswolds: the Bamford district holds memories that, to put it generously, are bittersweet, and Christmas is a difficult time to find oneself a stranger in a new area. Yet she receives a kindly welcome, in particular from her old acquaintance Chief Inspector Markby and from her new neighbour Harriet Needham, a striking redhead with whom Meredith immediately feels a certain kinship. But Meredith has barely got to know her neighbour when Harriet is involved in a shocking—and fatal—accident at the Boxing Day Hunt.

Meredith Mitchell's old friend Sally Caswell and her scientist husband have moved from London to the quiet of Oxfordshire, but find nothing but trouble. Quarrels between the moody scientist and an eccentric neighbour; goats in the backyard, and a letter bomb in the mail all add to malice, mystery, and murder—and another case for Meredith and her police inspector friend Alan Markby to solve.

When Jerry Harrison receives an unwelcome visitor at his remote Cotswold cottage one winter's night, the last thing he expects is to end up dead. But, next morning, his cleaners find him fatally stabbed and the police have a murder inquiry on their hands. With no witnesses coming forward and very little evidence to go on, Jess and Ian must dig deep to find the answers to this baffling case. But not before another villager is attacked and left for dead . . .

It is 1864 when Lizzie Martin takes up the post of companion to a wealthy widow who is also a slum landlord. Lizzie is intrigued to learn that her predecessor disappeared, supposedly having run off with an unknown man. But when the girl's body is found in the rubble of one of the recently demolished slums around the prestigious new railway station at St Pancras, Lizzie begins to wonder exactly what has been going on.

A body is discovered inside of the smoldering ruins of Key House. The crumbling Cotswold manor has long been empty, but rumor has it that the owner, Gervase Crown, was seen lurking around just before the fire. Inspector Jess Campbell and Superintendent Ian Carter pin Gervase as a prime suspect, but was he the murderer, or the target? It seems that his sudden reappearance has stirred up animosity long thought forgotten.

When Mr. Thomas Tapley is found bludgeoned to death in his sitting room, his neighbor, Inspector Benjamin Ross of Scotland Yard, is immediately summoned. Little is known about the elusive gentleman until Mr. Jonathan Tapley, QC, hears of the news, and the truth about his cousin's tragic past slowly begins to emerge. Meanwhile, Ben's wife, Lizzie, is convinced she saw someone following Thomas Tapley on the day he died, and she discovers that he received a mysterious visitor a few days before his death.

When children Josh and Dilys find a body in the woods on the outskirts of their small Cotswold village, they are too terrified to report it. But when, as adults, Josh discovers that his sister has kept a memento - the victim's charm bracelet - he feels compelled to share the secret. When Josh unburdens himself to retired superintendent Alan Markby, his instincts tell him that this is linked to a missing person, a case long grown cold. The missing girl was last seen in the region currently under the jurisdiction of Superintendent Ian Carter and Inspector Jess Campbell.

On a cold November night in a Deptford yard, dock worker Harry Parker stumbles upon the body of a dead woman. Inspector Ben Ross is summoned from Scotland Yard to this insalubrious part of town, but no witness to the murder of this well-dressed, middle-aged woman can be found. Even Jeb Fisher, the local rag-and-bone man, swears he's seen nothing.

London, 1867. As Inspector Ben Ross of Scotland Yard walks homeward one Saturday night, the fog that swirls around him is like a living beast. After it has lifted a woman lies murdered in Green Park. Allegra Benedict was the beautiful Italian wife of an art dealer. As Ben begins his investigation, his wife Lizzie looks into Allegra's private life and uncovers more than one reason why someone might want her dead...

Where Old Bones Lie is set on an isolated archaeological dig in the Cotswolds. When a body is found near the site, the suspects, witnesses, and clues all conflict, and the disappearance of a group of New Age travellers just seems to add to the mystery. Superintendent Markby and Meredith Mitchell must untangle the mess, and in doing so find themselves in a dangerous and uncompromising situation.

It is March 1870. London is in the grip of fog and ice. But Scotland Yard's Inspector Ben Ross has more than the weather to worry about when the body of a young woman is found in a dustbin at the back of a Piccadilly restaurant. Ben must establish who the victim is before he can find out how and why she came to be there. His enquiries lead him first to a bootmaker in Salisbury and then to a landowner in Yorkshire.

When Meredith Mitchell's old friend, Toby Smythe, turns up on leave, she is delighted to see him. But Toby has a problem - or rather his relative, Alison Jenner, has - and he wants to enlist the help of Meredith's fiancé, Detective Superintendent Alan Markby.

When old Monty discovers a dead body in his drawing room, it's up to Inspector Jess Campbell to get to the bottom of the mystery. Monty is a recluse, holed up in his crumbling manor house being generally unpleasant to everyone, even those relatives he actually likes. When his family and locals claim they've never seen the murder victim before, Campbell smells a lie. With the help of Superintendent Ian Carter, she will have to dig deep into the murky past of Monty and his family, all the way to the shocking truth.

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.

When a hotelier announces that he will be converting Springwood Hall into a smart country hotel, his plan is greeted with a chorus of local disapproval, led by the fearsome Hope Mapple, head of the Society for the Preservation of Historical Bamford. So the grand opening, to which all are invited, promises to be a lively affair, particularly since Hope is planning a disruptive protest "streak". However, Hope is to be unwittingly upstaged by the discovery of a recently murdered body on the premises.

Fran Varady is insolvent, unemployed, and, though for the moment she's got the leaky roof of the squat she shares in Jubilee Street over her head, she'll very soon be homeless thanks to the council eviction department. Her dreams of becoming an actress, nurtured when her father and grandmother were still alive, seem a long way off.

In the heart of the Cotswolds, a body is found, that of a teenage girl, probably local - somebody's daughter who went out one evening and didn't come back. It's not long before she is identified: 15-year-old Lynne Wills, a habitual, underage drinker at The Silver Bells pub who, on the night of her death, was seen leaving with an unknown man.