My mom always wanted to write mysteries, so I learned to read them from her. It’s the puzzle part of a mystery that pulls me. Cozies, world travelers, no matter, just not thrillers, no real menace. The mysteries, like every other book I read, need to be character-based, and the quirkier, the better. I prefer women sleuths as I write one. It doesn’t matter if they’re amateurs or professionals. Again, character. Who is this person becoming through her cases? How is she different, better, wiser, because of them? Who does she serve, help, heal? I do jigsaw puzzles for meditation. Got puzzle? Bring it. Except math.
Fifteen-year-old, gawky, recently orphaned, Mary Russell meets Sherlock Holmes the afternoon she nearly steps on him on the Sussex Downs when he’s about to commit a crime against himself. Brilliant, Mary’s intellect captures Holmes’ interest immediately, and thus begins a markedly odd, if singularly fruitful, partnership between the two. She, an eventual Oxford student in Theology; he, the Consulting Detective of Scotland Yard, and sometime agent provocateur in Her Majesty’s Service via his beloved brother, Mycroft. Mary is smart as a whip, a singularly apt pupil, and unbeknownst to Holmes, finds a place for herself deep in his heart. For her part, she is enrapt and en-irked with Holmes by turns, growing into an elegant co-protagonist by hook, crook, bolt-hole, and disguise. They are enchanting together.
In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees when a young woman literally stumbles into him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes--and match him wit for wit. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern twentieth-century woman proves a deft protegee and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. But even in their first case together, the pair face a truly cunning adversary who will stop at nothing to put an end to their partnership.
Emily Pollifax is struggling with her quiet life when she decides to take the train from New Brunswick, New Jersey, and her prize-winning geraniums, to Washington, D.C. where, like any ordinary retiree, she calls upon the CIA, volunteering her services as a spy. One case of slightly mistaken identity later, the higher-ups realize [horrified] she’s not their operative, and they’ve sent her to Mexico on a dangerous mission. The other books take her all over the world… to Turkey, Albania, China, Switzerland, Zambia, anywhere and everywhere her unique, grandmotherly brand of charm, nerve, wit, verve, and intrigue are needed. Mrs. Pollifax is the inspiration behind my intuitive investigator traveling the world for her cases, and Miss Marple has nothing on her.
Mrs Emily Pollifax is a 60-ish widow wanting more from life than teas and garden club meetings. In search of adventure, she decides to offer her services to the CIA - who, after all, would spot a suburban grandmother as a cold war secret agent? - and adventure she finds. Her first assignment, in Mexico City, doesn't sound dangerous until something goes wrong. She suddenly finds herself abducted across the world, embroiled in quite a hot Cold War... and her abductors find themselves entangled with one unbelievably feisty lady. Armed with only an open mind and a little karate, Mrs…
On the surface, the sleuth in this series would seem to be mustachioed Jim Qwilleran, newspaperman, who, when he inherits a boatload of money with a condition, moves to Moose County—400 miles north of everywhere. Two Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum, in tow. It might seem that his male feline, Koko, is the sleuth; he’s the more vocal of the two. But when all’s said and done, no matter if he’s writing his weekly column, The Qwill Pen, acting in a community theatre production, or patronizing local artists, when it comes right down to it, Yum Yum, his little girl Siamese, is always the one who inadvertently points him in the direction of the miscreant. Clever girl.
The world of modern art is a mystery to many. But for Jim Qwilleran it turns into a mystery of another sort when his assignment to cover the art beat for the Daily Fluxion leads down the path to murder. A stabbing in an art gallery, vandalised paintings, a fatal fall from a scaffolding - this is not at all what Qwilleran expects when he turns his reporting talents to art. But now Qwilleran and his newly found partner, Koko the brilliant Siamese, are in their element - sniffing out clues and confounding criminals intent on mayhem and murder.
Isabel Dalhousie is a moral philosopher by profession. She edits a journal on the subject. One of the most intriguing aspects of this series is that she’s always weighing the moral shoulds and shouldn’ts of her circumstances and her cases. What is her obligation to act? To speak? To pursue? Insatiably curious, her habit makes these books ripe with meaning. Set in a charming Edinburgh, between her bassoon-playing friend Jamie, her no-nonsense, Spiritualist housekeeper, Grace, and her slightly wild, deli-owning niece, Cat, Isabel has her hands and her mind full navigating what’s right, what’s wrong, and what’s in-between. Her constant self-scrutiny is part of what caused me to be as transparent as I am about the metaphysics in my own books.
Nothing captures the charm of Edinburgh like the bestselling Isabel Dalhousie series of novels featuring the insatiably curious philosopher and woman detective. Whether investigating a case or a problem of philosophy, the indefatigable Isabel Dalhousie, one of fiction’s most richly developed amateur detectives, is always ready to pursue the answers to all of life’s questions, large and small.
In this first installment, Isabel is attending a concert in the Usher Hall when she witnesses a man fall from the upper balcony. Isabel can’t help wondering whether it was the result of mischance or mischief. Against…
Flavia de Luce, eleven, at Buckshaw in Bishop’s Lacey, a bucolic hamlet in the English countryside, has a passion for poisons. Bright, bored, and with a nose for trouble, Flavia begins to put together things that do not go together in a series of cases that showcase her mind, grow up her heart, and keep her busy whilst her body matures. There are secrets begging for revelation in her quiet home just as there are secrets in and amidst her own clan. Two older sisters, an absent-minded father, and not enough money go to create Flavia as ingenious, resourceful, and clever as they come. I never can resist a smart, smarter, smartest girl protagonist. She makes me laugh out loud. Sign me up—forever.
Meet Flavia: Mystery Solver. Master Poisoner. 11 Years Old.
England 1950. At Buckshaw, the crumbling country seat of the de Luce family, very-nearly-eleven-year-old Flavia is plotting revenge on her older sisters.
Then a dead bird is left on the doorstep, which has an extraordinary effect on Flavia's eccentric father, and a body is found in the garden. As the police descend on Buckshaw, Flavia decides to do some investigating of her own.
Praise for the historical Flavia de Luce mysteries: 'The Flavia de Luce novels are now a cult favourite' Mail on Sunday
Blood in the water in Boston. The hallowed halls of Harvard Law may never be the same.
Mex is no fan of the Feebs, but for a sting to expose the sugar baby black market, only Mex will do. Legally Blonde is at the Colonial Theatre on Boston Common. Aaaand… some of Harvard’s best and brightest are in a scheme that wouldn’t survive even the briefest legal scrutiny. Her relationship cools. The case heats up guided by “random” dipping into ancient Chinese wisdom. Mex goes undercover as a philanthropic sugar mama hot after the shadowy higher-ups in the world of mutually beneficial relationships. Can Mex and the Feebs preserve higher education in Boston or will malum in se—evil in itself—rule the day?
My book is fantastical historical fiction about two characters who're wrestling with the monstrosity of their grief.
It takes you into London high society, where Ambrose tries to forget about how much he misses Bennett and how much he dreads becoming as cold as their Grandfather. It takes you to the family's country manor house, where Mattie isolates and old ghosts start to come out of the woodwork.
It's a story about loss and depression; it's a story about friends who don't let you walk through the valley of death alone.
Ambrose Bancroft returns to London society with his younger sister, hoping they'll leave ghosts of memory behind. They have only each other left. While Ambrose attempts to draw Mattie out, dragging her to balls and threatening to seek suitors for her, his sister recoils from his meddling. Finally, when Ambrose compels her to attend art class before she's ready, Mattie paints something horrific enough to banish them from society in public disgrace.
At Linwood Manor, Mattie and Ambrose aren't as alone as they think. Taking advantage of Mattie's desperate need to find freedom, a vanishing room lures Ambrose's sister into…
