Asher's in trouble, again. He’s been sober for three years now, and is about to star in a grand scale come-back movie. Messing up now will mean the end of his career, and possibly his marriage. To get ready, he's rented a cottage in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina where they will start filming in a month. Although he’s thousands of miles from his family and friends, he’s looking forward to the upcoming challenges. But on his first day there, the trouble started with a car crash. Then he found a body in the woods. Or did he? When the sheriff arrives, it’s nowhere to be seen. There are more dark deeds brewing in the mountains. An explosion starts a wildfire in the woods behind his cottage. Then a rockslide pushes his car off the road. Is someone trying to kill him, again? For fans of cozy-leaning murder mysteries.

Murder, suicide and a ghost from the Civil War. Asher’s stuck in a strange old hotel in the middle of a cornfield in Kansas. He’s trapped on a retreat with the cast of his latest movie. There had been some bad feelings and worse behavior that disrupted the filming. To fix that, the studio sent them all out to the cornfield until they learn to get along. Then an actress goes missing starting a cascade of events that has Asher up to his neck in lies, deceit and bad coffee. When vultures start circling that cornfield, Asher knows that there’s a body in there. But it’s not who he expected. Things get more complicated when a new guest checks into the hotel. She’s got ties to the cornfield that might turn lethal for them all.

Description "He is dead. It is quite impossible that he should have killed himself. He has been murdered. About half an hour ago. By a long knife passed under the left shoulder-blade into the heart."On a fog-bound London night, a soirée is taking place in the studio of artist Laurence Newtree. The guests include an eminent psychiatrist, a wealthy philanthropist and an observant young friend of Newtree's, John Christmas. Before the evening is over, Newtree's neighbour is found stabbed to death in what appears to be an impossible crime. But a mysterious man in a fez has been spotted in the fog asking for highly unlikely directions...The resourceful John Christmas takes on the case, unofficially, leading to an ingenious solution no one could have expected, least of all Inspector Hembrow of Scotland Yard.The Studio Crime is the first of Ianthe Jerrold's classic whodunit novels, originally published in 1929. Its impact led to her membership of the elite Detection Club, and its influence can be felt on later works by John Dickson Carr, Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy L. Sayers among others.This edition, the first in over eighty years, features a new introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.Praise for The Studio Crime"The best out of a new batch of detective stories." J.B. Priestley in The Evening News"Very carefully constructed, is very well written, and keeps its secret until the end." The Morning Post"Can be most heartily recommended to those who like a good mystery story written in good English." Newcastle Chronicle"The book is a pleasantly written record of an admirable piece of detective work." Times Literary Supplement

With her hometown awash with crime, a sleuth must solve a slaying. Can she save her family from a treacherous plot? Yorkshire, England, 1962. Miss Riddell definitely isn't having a merry Christmas. With her mother sick and brother pestering her to investigate a forged will, the worst winter in decades has her longing to return to regular life. And just as a series of ugly incidents in the village pushes the pressure to a boiling point, things take a deadly turn when her cousin is brutally murdered. Convinced there's a devious link between the fraud and the death, Miss Riddell puts her sharp mind to work uncovering clues. But with the unscrupulous culprit evading police, she'll have to put everything on the line to corner the killer. Can Miss Riddell wrap up the case without becoming the next frozen corpse? A Murder for Christmas is the electric third tale in the Miss Riddell Cozy Mysteries series. If you like crafty heroines, perplexing puzzles, and charming Yuletide settings, then you'll love P.C. James' clever story. Buy A Murder for Christmas to set a cunning trap today!

A vibrant southern constellation of crime writers. Dark Deeds Down Under features the very best of modern Australian and New Zealand crime and mystery writing. Spend time with some of your favourite Aussie and Kiwi cops, sleuths and accidental heroes, and meet some edgy new investigators. A crew of beloved series characters - Corinna Chapman, Hirsch, Sam Shephard, Rowly Sinclair, Nick Chester, Murray Whelan - will lead you down dark alleys to meet our newer heroes - the Nancys, Penny Yee and Matiu, Alex Clayton, Kate Miles - and the stars of some cracking standalone tales. Travel the criminal trails of two countries. From the dusty Outback to South Island glaciers, from ocean-carved coastlines and craggy mountains to sultry rainforests or Middle Earth valleys, and via sleepy towns to the seething underbellies of our cosmopolitan cities. The 19 dark deeds herein are perpetrated by: Alan Carter - Nikki Crutchley - Aoife Clifford - Garry Disher - Helen Vivienne Fletcher - Lisa Fuller - Sulari Gentill - Kerry Greenwood - Narrelle M. Harris - Katherine Kovacic - Shane Maloney - R.W.R. McDonald - Dinuka McKenzie - Dan Rabarts & Lee Murray - Renee - Stephen Ross - Fiona Sussman - Vanda Symon - David Whish-Wilson 'Punchy plotlines, contemporary themes, and familiar settings - you can't go wrong with this eclectic mix. Dip in and discover some new favourite writers.' - Michael Robotham 'A perfect showcase for the brilliant new wave of Antipodean crime writing.' - Val McDermid

Join our plucky Victorian Egyptologist, together with her devastatingly handsome and brilliant husband Radcliffe, in another exciting escapade Swapping the stifling heat and dust of Egypt for the cooler climes of London, adventuress Amelia Peabody finds herself plunged into an escapade set in the dignified surroundings of the British Museum, and as ever, she is aided and abetted by her irascible husband Emerson and precocious son Ramses. First of all a night watchman is found dead in the Mummy Room of the museum, a look of horror frozen on his face and very soon panic spreads through the capital while the gutter press ask the question 'Can Fear Kill?'. And before Amelia can respond with an appropriate answer, a pair of dissolute aristocrats with a shady past appear in her life together with supernatural curses, a lady of dubious reputation with a link to Emerson's bachelor past and a homicidal maniac disguised as an ancient Sem priest - but they are only the very tip of this most singular mystery. And as Amelia closes in on the murderer, Emerson and Ramses must try to keep her from adding herself to the list of victims...

With their intimate settings, subdued action and likeable characters, cozy mysteries are rarely seen as anything more than light entertainment. The cozy, a subgenre of crime fiction, has been historically misunderstood and often overlooked as the subject of serious study. This anthology brings together a groundbreaking collection of essays that examine the cozy mystery from a range of critical viewpoints. The authors engage with the standard classification of a cozy, the characters who appear in its pages, the environment where the crime occurs and how these elements reveal the cozy story's complexity in surprising ways. Essays analyze cozy mysteries to argue that Agatha Christie is actually not a cozy writer; that Columbo fits the mold of the cozy detective; and that the stories' portrayals of settings like the quaint English village reveal a more complicated society than meets the eye.

The body of John Cornell the well-known London Merchant and banker, was exhumed early this morning with great secrecy, following representations made to the Home Office. Everyone was astonished when the beautiful Josephine Rivron rejected the young, popular and handsome Frank Cornell, and married his elderly, wealthy father John instead. When John fell ill and died shortly after marrying, there were suspicions that the cause wasn't pneumonia, but a nasty case of poisoning. Then Frank Cornell too was dead - shot through the head, the weapon vanished. This time no one had any doubt it was murder. Amateur sleuth Algernon Vereker is drawn to the case by a recurring bout of his "old detective fever". He packs his Colt automatic and joins Inspector Heather down at Marston Manor to investigate. The Ginger Cat Mystery (1935 - originally titled Murder at Marston Manor in the USA) is a classic country house whodunit stuffed with suspects, clues, red herrings and dark deeds. Not to mention the eponymous feline, whose tell-tale fur might just help to hang a murderer. This new edition, the first in over seventy years, features an introduction by Curtis Evans. 'Mr Forsythe has contrived an ingenious tale.' The Times

"What's the matter?" Vereker asked breathlessly, and at the same moment realised that the mass lying at Ricardo's feet was the body of a woman. "Has she fainted?" "It's Mrs. Mesado, Algernon," replied Ricardo, "and if I'm not mistaken, she's dead." Algernon Vereker's best friend Manuel Ricardo is looking forward to a cruise on the luxury liner Mars, and persuades an overwrought Vereker to join him. Once on board, Ricky's mind is on romance while the amiable and eccentric Vereker is keener to relax with a cigar and a good book - until murder at sea means an abrupt detour into spine-chilling mystery. Vereker starts to investigate Mrs Mesado's demise, which presents many baffling features - beneath borrowed gloves, the lady's hands were cut and bruised; and where was the diamond necklace she had been wearing earlier that evening? These and other conundrums must be solved before Vereker can bring the culprit (or culprits) to justice, but as Ricky sagely observes: "half the fun of eating a nut is cracking the shell". The Pleasure Cruise Mystery (1933), a light-hearted but lethal maritime whodunit, is the third Algernon Vereker detective novel. It is republished here for the first time in over 70 years, and includes a new introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans. 'Before all is cleared up the reader has raced excitedly through a thoroughly sound and quite unusual yarn.' Aberdeen Press

"What are you looking for, sir?" he said. "Bloodstains." Scotland Yard is concerned with the murderer, or murderers, of the mysterious Bernard Pitt. The dead man is discovered with a false identity, courtesy of the many forged papers and documents found with him. The trail leads to France, where we discover why a French milliner chose to ride in a laundry basket, why the two American men are so interested in their wives' hat trimmings, and why it is so difficult for the French police to touch a criminal with high political connections. But Richardson discovers that the murder of Bernard Pitt was only an incident in the diabolical plot linking a network of criminals on both sides of the Channel. The Milliner's Hat Mystery, a novel which inspired Ian Fleming, was first published in 1937. This new edition, the first for many decades, includes an introduction by crime novelist Martin Edwards, author of acclaimed genre history The Golden Age of Murder. "Sir Basil Thomson is a past-master in the mysteries of Scotland Yard." Times Literary Supplement