Mystery Reads

Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves A female cop with her first big case A brutal murder Welcome to... THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it's too late?

In post-World War II England, former Secret Service operative Mirabelle Bevan takes a job at a debt collection agency, but when she discovers that a pregnant Hungarian refugee who had taken out a routine loan has been reported dead, she decides to investigate.

One bright spring morning in London, Diana Cowper - the wealthy mother of a famous actor - enters a funeral parlor. She is there to plan her own service. Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home. Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator who's as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes. He chooses Anthony Horowitz. Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself a the center of a story he cannot control. Hawthorne is brusque, temperamental and annoying but even so his latest case with its many twists and turns proves irresistible. The writer and the detective form an unusual partnership. At the same time, it soon becomes clear that Hawthorne is hiding some dark secrets of his own. A masterful and tricky mystery that springs many surprises, The Word is Murder is Anthony Horowitz at his very best.

In this gripping child-in-danger story, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers and her partner, Inspector Thomas Lynley, investigate the kidnapping of a friend's little girl from an Italian marketplace. With both her job and the life of a little girl on the line, Barbara must decide what matters most, and how far she's willing to go to protect it.

From the award-winning author of The Babes in the Wood and The Rottweiler comes another terrifically paced, richly drawn novel of suspense and psychological intrigue.

Grimes' popular police Inspector Richard Jury is on the case again, this time delving into the world of escorts.

We do love a man in a uniform, but the "Constables" in question are not policemen but paintings the landscapes, specifically, of the 19th-century painter John Constable. Agatha Troy (the artist wife, you ll remember, of Inspector Alleyn) has a special fondness for Constable s work, so she jumps at the chance to take a river-cruise through "Constable Country" in the east of England. Her enthusiasm dims a little when it becomes clear that the ticket became available at the last minute only because a previous passenger was murdered in his cabin and murdered, it seems, by a notorious international criminal known as the "Jampot." (How we long for the days when notorious international criminals had really cute names.)"

Another installment in the popular Midsomer series. Inspector Barnaby tackles a case involving an authentic torture device

As high summer bakes the rich earth of north-east Herefordshire, dark shadows gather around a converted hopkiln where the last owner was savagely murdered. Though the local vicar dismisses claims by its current occupants that the place is haunted, their story is soon splashed over a Sunday newspaper—and Merrily Watkins is directed by the Bishop of Hereford to defuse this situation. Merrily, however, is already contending with a woman's claim that her adopted teenage daughter is possessed by an evil spirit. In both cases Merrily remains unconvinced, but in this summer of oppressive heat and sudden storms, nothing is ever quite what it seems.

Home from a two-year assignment in the British Virgin Islands, Inspector Robert Lewis, protégé of the legendary Inspector Morse, returns to Oxford, England in the series pilot, where he is teamed with a brilliant new partner, Detective Sergeant James Hathaway. Lewis barely makes it out of the airport before falling into his first murder investigation. But even if he solves the case, will his new boss still move him from the front lines to a training assignment? Next, Lewis and Hathaway return to the streets of Cambridge and the halls of Oxford University with three more mysteries to unravel. In Whom the gods would destroy, Detectives Lewis and Hathaway are thrown into a delicate murder case that implicates one of Oxford University's most prominent figures when an old classmate of his is found dead. In Old school ties, Lewis comes face to face with his past when the murder of bright young Jo Gilchrist pulls Lewis and Hathaway into a case driven by celebrity, scheming, and dangerous sexual politics. In Expiation, when a North Oxford housewife is found hanged, it appears to be an open and shut case of suicide. But the lack of a suicide note and the victim's seemingly perfect life leads Lewis to suspect foul play.