Here are 71 books that Cloche and Dagger fans have personally recommended if you like
Cloche and Dagger.
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I write cozy mysteries about a house flipper turned sleuth in fictional Crocus Heights, Minnesota. My father was a carpenter, and I was his helper. My childhood was spent on a farm, with the biggest event of the week being a trip to the local library, where I checked out seven books. I would prop my library book in front of my school book and read in class whenever I could. My favorites were mysteries, and later romances, and now cozy mysteries, which combine a bit of both. I am always fascinated by people and their motivations, and that is what I enjoy in all the authors I recommend.
I love every one of M. C. Beaton’s books, including her witty, wry humor and observations of an abusive ex-husband and her move to a small village. I love her flaws and that she is an unapologetic smoker and has two cats she loves. I love that she is relatable with a hardscrabble life, coming from an impoverished childhood and finally making it. Albeit with all the insecurities that come from her past. Every book is a treat.
'Every new Agatha Raisin escapade is a total joy' ASHLEY JENSEN
'No wonder she's been crowned Queen of Cosy Crime' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A Beaton novel is like The Archers on speed' DAILY MAIL
The first Agatha Raisin mystery from bestselling author M. C. Beaton
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Revenge is a dish best served warm...
High-flying public relations supremo Agatha Raisin has decided to take early retirement. She's off to make a new life in a picture-perfect Cotswold village. To make friends, she enters the local quiche-making competition - and to make quite sure of first prize she secretly pays a visit…
My picks reflect my passion for the cozy mystery genre (which I write myself!) One of the reasons I love cozy mysteries is that justice always prevails. There is no violence, bad language, or sex on the page. The murders take place in a small town or community where everyone is known to everyone else. If you like Murder She Wrote and Midsomer Murders, you’ll enjoy this genre.
I love the adventures of bookbinder Brooklyn Wainwright. There are 15 books in the series and each one features a well-known book as a backdrop that is integral to the plot. The plots are clever with a lot of laugh-out-loud moments. Most of all I enjoy the interaction of the characters – Brooklyn was brought up in a commune and was named after the bridge beneath which she was conceived … which says it all really!
Book expert Brooklyn Wainwright discovers that murder is always a bestseller in the first novel in the New York Times bestselling Bibliophile Mystery series.
Brooklyn Wainwright is a skilled surgeon. Sure, her patients might smell like mold and have spines made of leather, but no ailing book is going to die on her watch. The same can’t be said of Abraham Karastovsky, Brooklyn’s friend and former employer.
On the eve of a celebration for his latest book restoration, Brooklyn finds her mentor lying in a pool of his own blood. With his final breath Abraham leaves Brooklyn with a cryptic…
I’m an ecologist who loves history. I love incorporating elements from the past in my non-fiction and fiction writing. I’ve learnt so much about parts of the world I have never visited from historical mysteries, especially those with strong female characters. My grandmother, born in 1907 during the British Raj, fought just to go to school. I love books that offer an insight into the lives and thoughts of fierce, feisty women like her, everyday women who did extraordinary things. Each of the books I’ve selected is the first in a series, and I hope they give you endless hours of reading pleasure, just as they did for me.
Who wouldn’t love a fun book about royals and murder?
Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, Georgie for short, is waaay down the line of people to inherit, 34th in the queue, to be precise. And she’s flat broke. Thrown out of the Scotland castle that is her childhood home by her greedy sister-in-law, Georgie cleans homes in secret to earn a bit of money.
Things are just beginning to look up when she finds a dead Frenchman in her bathtub! If being suspected of murder is not enough, she’s also been given a job by the Queen to spy on the playboy Prince of Wales.
Georgie is irrepressible and full of spunk. She’s clumsy, makes mistakes, and fails often, but never gives up. A most relatable heroine.
The New York Times bestselling author of the Molly Murphy and Constable Evan Evans mysteries turns her attentions to "a feisty new heroine to delight a legion of Anglophile readers."*
London, 1932. Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, 34th in line for the English throne, is flat broke. She's bolted Scotland, her greedy brother, and her fish-faced betrothed. London is a place where she'll experience freedom, learn life lessons aplenty, do a bit of spying for HRH-oh, and find a dead Frenchman in her tub. Now her new job is to clear her long family name...
I’ve been addicted to reading and writing mystery novels since I picked up my first Nancy Drew. But in addition to a good puzzle, I also love a good laugh and grew up watching classic screwball comedies. I’ve written a dozen funny cozy mysteries now with more in the works. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
Zany family members and weddings gone wrong provide page-turning laughs in the first book in the Meg Lanslow series. The heroine is smart, funny, and… a blacksmith. The small-town shenanigans just keep coming in this laugh-out-loud mystery, but the heart comes from the familial relationships. (No peacocks are harmed in the making of this mystery, but they do provide plenty of laughs.)
As a child, I lived in 1950’s London. Despite the ravages of WWII, the city retained many of its Victorian buildings and its foggy atmosphere. I found it enchanting. Reading books sent in England around the 19th century connected me to the city long after my family moved to Ireland. If I felt homesick for the Angel or Camden Town, a book would take me back. Thanks to The Hound, I became captivated by Gothic tales and by what my mum called ‘A juicy mystery.’ This apple didn’t fall far from that tree. It’s a good thing I became a writer, or who knows how I would have ended up!
There are few joys to match happening upon a fabulous book by accident. This was the case in Kate Summerscale's work. I knew nothing about it when I picked it up, but I liked the premise. I started to read it on the bus going home and finished it in two days.
This real 1860 murder inspired many writers, from Dickens to Conan Doyle, and I can see why. It contains all those elements so dear to the hearts of mystery lovers like me: a corpse, a detective, and a closed circle of suspects in a country manor. This is a book I will reread, probably more than once.
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WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK
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'A remarkable achievement' - Sunday Times
'A classic, to my mind, of the finest documentary writing' - John le Carre
'Absolutely riveting' - Sarah Waters, Guardian
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On a summer's morning in 1860, the Kent family awakes in their elegant Wiltshire home to a terrible discovery; their youngest son has been brutally murdered. When celebrated detective Jack Whicher is summoned from Scotland Yard he faces the unenviable task of identifying the killer - when the grieving family are the…
I’ve always loved a good character-driven mystery, with people in all their wonder and weirdness at its heart. The perfect book to me is one that has enough of a puzzle to allow me to escape into it, while offering a sense of comfort that it will all come together in the end. My family moved around a lot when I was a child, before finally settling down in Chennai, India and books – particularly mystery novels – were a real constant in my life. I moved to Sydney, Australia as an adult and live here, where I write stories that celebrate my heritage and my love of a good mystery.
While I do love Miss Marple (if you don’t, I’m not sure we can be friends), I also love a good romp, which is exactly what this is. Our heroine Anne Beddingfield is in search of an adventure. Heading up to London, she finds herself investigating a murder involving mysterious clues, stolen diamonds, and the Secret Service. Her investigation quickly leads to a one-way passage on the Killmordan Castle, a liner heading for South Africa.
She soon finds herself mired deep in a complex intrigue but is bright, resourceful, and just foolhardy enough to be believable as a complete amateur who unravels it (with a touch of kidnapping along the way).
Read this if you’re looking for a book where the author subverts expectations to deliver a punchy, action-packed adventure.
Nadina, a dancer in Paris, receives a visit from Count Sergius Paulovitch. Both are in the service of "the Colonel", an international agent provocateur and criminal. "The Colonel" is retiring, leaving his agents high and dry. Nadina has a plan to blackmail the Colonel. Anne Beddingfeld is an orphan after the sudden death of her archaeologist father. Longing for adventure, she jumps at the chance live in London. Returning from an unsuccessful job interview, Anne is at Hyde Park Corner tube station when a man falls onto the live track, dying instantly. A doctor examines the man, pronounces him dead,…
At an early age, I became a fan of tightly plotted mysteries that play fair with the reader. This led to my career in mystery games and videos and a dozen books of short mysteries. It also led to my TV career. When the creator of Monkrealized he needed some twisty plots, he visited a bookstore, found my books, and tracked me down. Since then, I’ve been plying my trade on the small screen as well, working with some very talented people, like Steve Martin, who needed a mystery guy to come in and add some structure to their ideas.
Although a suspense novel rather than a mystery, this one utilizes plenty of tricks to keep you enthralled and guessing. It starts with a “Strangers on a Train” kind of premise, the exchanging of murders by people who just met. Then it takes off, morphing into unexpected incarnations, each one exciting and satisfying. If you become a fan, and I’m betting you will, be warned. Swanson uses similar plot developments in his other books. This is by far his best one.
You should never talk to strangers...Gone Girl meets Strangers on a Train in this year's must-read psychological thriller. "Extremely hard to put down". (Sophie Hannah). "Chilling and hypnotically suspenseful". (Lee Child). 'Hello there.' I looked at the pale, freckled hand on the back of the empty bar seat next to me in the business class lounge of Heathrow airport, then up into the stranger's face. 'Do I know you?' Delayed in London, Ted Severson meets a woman at the airport bar. Over cocktails they tell each other rather more than they should, and a dark plan is hatched - but…
I am by no means an expert on the Victorian era, but I am most certainly passionate – I have written seven novels set in this period and have researched different aspects of the social, domestic, and gender-related issues for each of those books. The Victorian era is such a fascinating time – from the huge differences in money and class, to the beginnings of women starting to initiate (or maybe even demand) change with the first murmurings of women’s suffrage and, of course, the Married Women’s Property Act 1882. Rich in storytelling possibility and the opportunity to bring societal, gender, and sexual issues to the fore, I find writing in the Victorian period immensely exciting.
I stumbled across this book while browsing through a charity shop – a murder/mystery set in Whitechapel when Jack the Ripper is still roaming free. I am by no means a follower of Ripper stories, legend or myth, despite recommending this book, but there is something about Victorian London in the 1880s that fascinates me.
The Yard is the first in a series that I have devoured over the last few years. I love Alex Grecian’s easy writing style and the main character, Detective Inspector Walter Day is one I wish I had created myself. He has a brilliant mind, a quick and quiet humour, and a soul that is truly good. Of course, he does have his faults, but they are all forgivable…at least for me!
If you were fascinated by The Five, you'll love this gripping and atmospheric historical thriller set in Victorian London in the wake of Jack the Ripper.
A killer is haunting London's streets . . .
A year after Jack the Ripper claimed his last victim, London is in the grip of a wave of terror. The newly formed Murder Squad of Scotland Yard battles in vain against the tide of horror.
When the body of a detective is found in a suitcase, his lips sewn together and his eyes sewn shut, it becomes clear that no one is safe from…
I am a British writer/producer with a 30-year interest in Richard III (1452-1485). A visit to Bosworth Field, the penultimate battle of the Wars of the Roses changed my life irrevocably. This haunting place captured my imagination and with it the story of the last Plantagenet monarch who died fighting in this small corner of Leicestershire for crown and country.
The murder of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ is the most famous cold case in British history. Matthew Lewis delves into the context of the disappearance and the characters of the suspects and asks a crucial but often overlooked question: what if there was no murder? Lewis provides a rounded and complete assessment of this most fascinating historical mystery.
The murder of the Princes in the Tower is the most famous cold case in British history. Traditionally considered victims of a ruthless uncle, there are other suspects too often and too easily discounted. There may be no definitive answer, but by delving into the context of their disappearance and the characters of the suspects Matthew Lewis examines the motives and opportunities afresh as well as asking a crucial but often overlooked question: what if there was no murder? What if Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York survived their uncle's reign and even that of their brother-in-law…
Like my main character, Annie Hawkins Green, I’m passionate about photojournalism, and we both love to travel the world capturing images that tell our stories. My training as a photographer has led me to write novels that are visual and cinematic, affording readers authentic and immersive experiences in the places Annie takes us—Afghanistan, Milwaukee, wherever. We’re both seriously committed to empowering girls through education and go to great lengths, and some risk, to make that happen. Readers tend to think Annie and I are brave and gutsy and, well, badass. Annie is, for sure—she goes to dangerous places. Okay, I admit that many of her adventures have an autobiographical twist.
Pam Jenoff’s historical fiction rocks, butAlmost Home is my favorite of her books. Here’s a secret: it’s her favorite, too. With its interwoven past and present storylines and breathtaking suspense, I couldn’t put it down. As a graduate student ten years ago at Cambridge University, Jordan Weiss’s life was shattered when her boyfriend drowned. Now, a U.S. intelligence officer, she finally returns to England to help her terminally ill friend, Sarah, and to make sense of decade-old secrets. As soon as Jordan arrives, she discovers that no one and nothing are what they seem. But she doesn’t give up her investigation—even in the face of grave danger. A true badass! This book kept me up all night—exactly the kind of read I adore.
Ten years ago, American Jordan Weiss's idyllic life as a graduate student and coxswain at Cambridge was shattered when her boyfriend and fellow crew member, Jared Short, drowned in the River Cam the night before the biggest race of the year. Since that time, Jordan, a State Department intelligence officer, has traveled the world on dangerous assignments but has avoided returning to face her painful memories in England. When her terminally ill friend Sarah asks her to come to London, though, Jordan returns. Shortly after her arrival in London, she is approached by a former college classmate who makes the…
