Plot summary (with spoilers): Historian Mark Easterbrook is spending time in Chelsea to work on a book. While there, he runs into an old school chum named Corrigan, who is currently the county coroner. Corrigan mentions an odd case that the police department is working on because it tangentially involves Mark’s godmother. A dying woman [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Reggie Heath is a London solicitor who rents office space at 221 Baker Street. This address, of course, is the one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used as the home base of the most famous literary detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes. Because of this, part of Reggie’s lease clearly states that [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): There’s a revolution taking place in the fictional Middle Eastern country of Ramat, which forces Prince Ali Yusuf to flee the country. Before leaving, he gives his best friend/pilot Bob Rawlinson for safekeeping a small bag containing nearly a million dollars in precious stones to smuggle out of the country. Since [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Rachel Innes is a middle-aged spinster who decides to rent a house at Sunnyside for the summer while her own home is being renovated. She is joined there by her maid Liddy, and her niece and nephew Gertrude and Halsey. The first night passes without incident, but that will turn out [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): The novel opens with Dr. Calgary facing a distasteful mission. He is going to see members of the Argyle family to tell them that their adopted son and brother, Jack “Jacko” Argyle, was wrongly convicted of murdering their mother during a heated spat about money. Jacko maintained that he wasn’t even [...]
Plot summary (from the publisher): “You found my philandering ex-husband?” Bitty asked. “Where? Mexico? Paris? In Tupelo with a cocktail waitress?” “In your closet,” I answered. “Dead.” Break out the hoop skirts and the zinfandel. The Divas are on the case. Wine. Chocolate. Transvestite strippers. Just another good-time get-together for the Dixie Divas of historic [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Elspeth McGillicuddy is traveling by rail from Scotland to the little village of St. Mary Mead to visit her dear old friend Jane Marple. On the way, she witnesses something awful: a man strangling a woman on a train running on a parallel track. Mrs. McGillicuddy reports the incident first to [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Inspector Mike Burden gets a frantic call from neighbor Ronald Parsons one evening. Mr. Parsons’s wife, Margaret, has not returned home from her daily errands, nor has she left any indication that she intended to be gone for a long time. This is completely unlike her. Burden tries to assure Parsons [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Precious Ramotswe (aka Mma Ramotswe) is a thirty-something divorced woman who decides to use the money she inherits after her father’s death to open a detective agency. She calls it the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency — the first of its kind in Gaborone, or indeed in all of Botswana. Mma [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Sports agent/detective Myron Bolitar is back in action with another case. This time he’s called in by old associate Norm Zuckerman to be a bodyguard of sorts to Brenda Slaughter, a professional basketball player who is going to be the face of the new women’s league Norm is starting. Brenda has [...]