My love of British crime fiction began when, as a young teen, I discovered Agatha Christie on the shelves of my local library. With Scottish grandparents, I was already well indoctrinated in the “everything British is best” theory, but it was as a student at St. Clare’s College, Oxford, that I fell totally under the spell of the British Isles. No surprise, then, that my Kate Hamilton Mystery series is set in the UK and features an American antiques dealer with a gift for solving crimes. I love to read the classic mysteries of the Golden Age as well as authors today who follow that tradition.
When I think of the classic mysteries of the Golden Age, I automatically picture an English country house. In Deborah Crombie’s A Bitter Feast, Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his wife, Detective Inspector Gemma James, are invited for a fall getaway at Beck House a country estate in the Cotswolds. When a posh charity luncheon catered by brilliant young chef Viv Holland turns deadly, Duncan and Gemma are pulled into the investigation. While I enjoyed the masterful unfolding of the investigation and the fascinating behind-the-scenes look into a high-end restaurant kitchen, it was the iconic setting that hooked me. Worthy of Miss Marple herself.
"Crombie’s characters are rich, emotionally textured, fully human. They are the remarkable creations of a remarkable writer."—Louise Penny
“Nobody writes the modern English mystery the way Deborah Crombie does—and A Bitter Feast is the latest in a series that is gripping, enthralling, and just plain the best.” — Charles Todd, New York Times bestselling author of The Black Ascot and A Cruel Deception
New York Times bestselling author Deborah Crombie returns with a mesmerizing entry in her “excellent” (Miami Herald) series, in which Scotland Yard detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James are pulled into a dangerous web of secrets, lies,…
“‘Well, my dear,’ said Miss Marple, ‘human nature is much the same everywhere, and, of course, one has opportunities of observing it at closer quarters in a village.'” (The Thumb Mark of St. Peter) An Irish village is the setting for Gordon’s fourth Gethsemene Brown mystery. When African-American violinist Gethsemane Brown takes a job leading the orchestra at a boys’ school in the village of Dunmullach, she has no idea her cliffside cottage comes complete with a resident ghost, Eamon McCarthy. Nor does she imagine she’ll become the village’s amateur sleuth—with a little help from Eamon, of course. When a wedding party descends on the village, Gethsemane learns the groom-to-be once jilted her friend Frankie’s new girlfriend, Verna. When the groom turns up dead, Verna is the logical suspect.
Romance is in the air. Or on the ’Gram, anyway. When an influencer-turned-bridezilla shows up at the lighthouse to capture Insta-perfect wedding photos designed to entice sponsors to fund her lavish wedding, Gethsemane has her hands full trying to keep Eamon from blasting the entire wedding party over the edge of the cliff. Wedding bells become funeral bells when members of the bride’s entourage start turning up dead. Frankie’s girlfriend, Verna, is pegged as maid-of-honor on the suspect list when the Garda discover the not-so-dearly departed groom was her ex and Gethsemane catches her standing over a body. Gethsemane uncovers…
Dressed to kill and ready to make rent, best friends Lisa and Jamie work as “paid to party” girls at the Rose City Ripe for Disruption gala, a gathering of Portland's elite.
Their evening is derailed when Lisa stumbles across Ellen, a ruthless politician and Lisa’s estranged mother. And to…
A Line to Kill is the third in the Detective Hawthorne series by Anthony Horowitz, creator of the TV series Foyle’s Warand a screenwriter for the popular Midsomer Murders. Ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne and his slow-witted, Captain-Hastings-like chronicler, Anthony Horowitz (yes, the author writes himself into the story) are invited to a literary festival on the tiny Channel island of Alderney. With a bizarre murder to solve, an island cut off from the mainland, a limited number of suspects, and a classic locked-room puzzle plot, Horowitz evokes the finest traditions of the Golden Age—with his own modern take and characteristic wit.
Pre-order the brand new Anthony Horowitz novel The Twist of a Knife, coming August 2022!
'EASILY THE GREATEST OF OUR CRIME WRITERS' Sunday Times
'A homage to the Golden Age of mystery - it is pure delight.' NEW YORK TIMES 'This is crime fiction as dazzling entertainment' SUNDAY TIMES 'Witty, wry, clever, a fabulous detective story and perfect summer reading' KATE MOSSE 'Funny, intriguing, thrilling and thought-provoking: a marvellous mystery' ADAM HAMDY 'A golden-age whodunnit on steroids' KIRKUS REVIEWS 'My favourite literary hero at the moment is Anthony Horowitz' SHARI LAPENA __________________
Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and the writer Anthony…
Since the publication of Dorothy L. Sayer’sThe Unpleasantness at the Bellona Clubin 1928, London’s gentlemen’s clubs, bastions of upper-class male privilege, have been fertile ground for murder and mayhem. Huang’s debut novel is set in 1924. With the memory of the Great War still fresh in everyone’s minds, the prestigious soldiers-only Britannia Club is rocked by the stabbing of a member within the club vaults. The killer must be a fellow club member, but when Eric Peterkin, descendant of one of the club’s founders, witnesses the Scotland Yard detective tampering with evidence, he is forced to launch an investigation of his own.
The year is 1924. The streets of St. James ring with jazz as Britain races forward into an age of peace and prosperity. London's back alleys, however, are filled with broken soldiers and still shadowed by the lingering horrors of the Great War.
Only a few years removed from the trenches of Flanders himself, Lieutenant Eric Peterkin has just been granted membership in the most prestigious soldiers-only club in London: The Britannia. But when a gentleman's wager ends with a member stabbed to death, the victim's last words echo in the Lieutenant's head: that he would "soon right a great…
Margaret O’Keefe, a horse farm owner, is desperate to save her ancestral property, Needham Forest. When she hears a rumor about a hidden treasure on her land, she plunges into a search that uncovers more than gold—secrets, betrayal, and danger at every turn.
Caught between her volatile ex-husband, a scandalous…
For my last pick, I’ve chosen a novel published near the end of the Golden Age (roughly the 1920s through the 1950s). Author and solicitor Michael Gilbert set his novel in the chambers of Horniman, Birley, and Craine. After the death of the firm’s senior partner, a hermetically sealed deed box is opened, revealing the corpse of Marcus Smallbone, a co-trustee with the late Mr. Horniman of the valuable Ichbod Trust. With the help of newly qualified solicitor Henry Bohun, Chief Inspector Hazelrigg sorts through a maze of lies and misdirection to uncover the surprising perpetrator and motive. Martin Edwards, in the foreword to the Poisoned Pen Press edition, said, “The book blends in masterly fashion, an authentic setting, pleasingly differentiated characters, smoothly readable prose, and a clever puzzle.”
Discover the captivating treasures buried in the British Library's archives. Largely inaccessible to the public until now, these enduring classics were written in the golden age of detective fiction.
"A first-rate job"—New York Times
"A classic of the genre"—Guardian
Horniman, Birley and Craine is a highly respected legal firm with clients drawn from the highest in the land. When a deed box in the office is opened to reveal a corpse, the threat of scandal promises to wreak havoc on the firm's reputation—especially as the murder looks like an inside job. The partners and staff of the firm keep a…
American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton and her colleague, Ivor Tweedy, visit Netherfield, a former insane asylum on the Suffolk coast. They’ve been asked to auction off a fine collection of antiques, including a 15th-century paintingby Jan Van Eyck. But when retired policeman Will Parker is found dead, Kate suspects the halls of Netherfield housed more than priceless art. Will Parker was her friend Vivian’s first boyfriend. They met in 1963 when, along with three other teens, they explored an abandoned house near the asylum where a doctor and his wife had died under bizarre circumstances. When a second member of the childhood gang dies unexpectedly—and then a third—it becomes clear the teens unwittingly discovered a deadly secret, one that now threatens Vivian.
In the harrowing aftermath of Chornobyl's meltdown in 1986, the fate of Eastern Europe hangs by a thread.
From Beijing, American radiation scientist Lara, once a thorn in the Russian mob's side, is drawn back into the shadows of the Soviet Union on the Trans-Mongolian Express. She isn't alone. Anton,…
On Draakensky Windmill Estate, magick and mystery rule. Sketch artist Charlotte Knight is hired to live on the estate while illustrating poetry under the direction of the reclusive spinster, and wind witch, Jaa Morland—who believes in ghosts. Charlotte quickly encounters the voice…