A Man Lay Dead

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Agatha Christie · 190 pages

Set in the summer of 1917 in an Essex country estate, the story follows the war-wounded Captain Arthur Hastings to the Styles St. Mary manor of his friend John Cavendish. The Cavendish household is wrought with tension due to the marriage of John's widowed old aunt Emily, she of a sizeable fortune, to a suspicious younger man, Alfred Inglethorp, twenty years her junior. Emily's two stepsons, John

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Alan Bradley · 375 pages

In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950--and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia's family calls home. A dead bird is found

No Wind of Blame

Georgette Heyer · 320 pages

Tragedy befalls the Carter family following an eventful visit from a Russian prince and a scandalous blackmail letter. The murder of Wally Carter generates a bewildering mystery: how does one shoot a man crossing a narrow bridge without being near the murder weapon when it is fired? The superlatively analytical Inspector Hemingway reveals his unnerving talent for solving a fiendish problem.

Hamlet, Revenge!

Michael Innes · 285 pages

Murder at Scamnum Court, the grandest of England's stately homes, a treasure-house guarded only by the marble deities that line its terraces. And murder during a performance of *Hamlet*, played on an Elizabethan stage erected in the Banqueting Hall, and with a cast that includes the Duke of Horton as Claudius, his duchess as Gertrude, and the greatest of English actors, Melville Clay, as Hamlet. A

The Private Patient

P.D. James · 448 pages

Cheverell Manor is a lovely old house in deepest Dorset, now a private clinic belonging to the famous plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell. When investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn arrived there one late autumn afternoon, scheduled to have a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar removed, she had every expectation of a successful operation and a pleasant week recuperating.Two days later sh

The Crime at Black Dudley

Margery Allingham · 211 pages

Jerusalem Inn

Martha Grimes · 299 pages

Superintendent Richard Tury of Scotland Yard spends his Christmas holiday at a colorful country inn near a vast estate inhabited by the titled, the rich, the famous, and--suddenly--the deceased.

The Siamese Twin Mystery

Ellery Queen · 325 pages

Ellery Queen and his father are driving through a mountainous area of the United States on vacation when they are forced by a forest fire to seek shelter in a private home on the top of a mountain. The home soon becomes impossible to escape due to the fire. Dr. Xavier's aerie is host to an unusual assortment of characters, including his family and guests, a pair of teenage boys who are "Siamese" o

Sweet Poison

David Roberts · 288 pages

It is 1935 and the Duke of Mersham is hosting a party at his country house, when one of the guests is poisoned. Was it an accident or something more sinister? The Duke's younger brother, Lord Edward Corinth, and journalist Verity Browne set out to investigate.

Satellite People

Hans Olav Lahlum · 336 pages

A Speedy Death

Gladys Mitchell · 305 pages

If anything rouses the rancour of guests at Chayning Court, it is that someone should dare be late for dinner. But as it turns out, the object of their disdain and speculation on this occasion, the intrepid explorer Everard Mountjoy, would never apologise for his tardiness. In fact, he would never eat dinner again, for he was slumped dead in the bath... The alarming Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bra

Hag's Nook

John Dickson Carr · 190 pages

**Hag's Nook**, first published in 1933, is a detective novel by John Dickson Carr and the first to feature his series detective Gideon Fell. Tad Rampole is a young American traveling in England who, in a chance encounter on a railway platform, meets and falls in love with Dorothy Starberth. Rampole has a letter of introduction to Dr. Gideon Fell and both soon become involved in the affairs of

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Arthur Conan Doyle · 207 pages

Busman's Honeymoon

Dorothy L. Sayers · 397 pages

Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane marry and go to spend their honeymoon at Talboys, an old farmhouse in Hertfordshire which he has bought her as a present. The honeymoon is intended as a break from their usual routine of solving crimes (him) and writing about them (her), but it turns into a murder investigation when the seller of the house is found dead at the bottom of the cellar steps with seve

Death of a Cozy Writer

G.M. Malliet · 297 pages

Case for Three Detectives

Leo Bruce · 240 pages

A Rule Against Murder

Louise Penny · 360 pages

*Starred Review* Readers who haven’t discovered Louise Penny and her Armand Gamache series yet are in for a treat. In the latest entry, Chief Inspector Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec has traveled to the luxurious and remote Manoir Bellechasse with his wife, Reine-Marie. Each year they return to the manor to celebrate their wedding anniversary on July 1, Canada Day. This year they are fellow guest

The Murder at Sissingham Hall

Clara Benson · 262 pages

Murder at Rutherford Hall

P.B. Kolleri · 216 pages

On a cold November evening, Lord Rutherford disappears suddenly and unaccountably while his breathtakingly beautiful young wife, Celia, flees Rutherford Hall with blood on her hands. Rachel Markham, Rutherford's niece, and Jeremy Richards, a Scotland Yard detective, team up to help the local police force unravel the mystery.

The Clock Strikes Twelve

Patricia Wentworth · 259 pages

**Miss Silver investigates the murder of a great British industrialist.** Though they share a manor house, the Paradines are not close, and their patriarch does nothing to discourage the petty jealousies that divide wealthy families. A cold figure, James Paradine prefers work to his relations, but on New Year’s Eve he convenes the household. Valuable plans have been stolen from his office, and

An English Murder

Cyril Hare · 176 pages

A country house murder mystery classic, as a party find themselves snowed-in on Christmas Eve with a murderer among them... The snow is thick, the phone line is down, and no one is getting in or out of Warbeck Hall. All is set for a lovely Christmas, with friends and family gathered round the fire, except as the bells chime midnight, a murder is committed. But who is responsible? The scorned yo

The Moonstone

Wilkie Collins · 444 pages

One of the first English detective novels, this mystery involves the disappearance of a valuable diamond, originally stolen from a Hindu idol, given to a young woman on her eighteenth birthday, and then stolen again. A classic of 19th-century literature.

Farthing

Jo Walton · 319 pages

In an alternate reality in which a group of English nobles overthrew Winston Churchill and made peace with Adolf Hitler in 1941, a murder is committed at the home of Lord and Lady Eversley, and suspicion falls on David Kahn, the Jewish husband of Lucy Eversley.

The Murders of Richard III

Elizabeth Peters · 240 pages

In a remote English manor house, modern admirers of the much-maligned King Richard III -- one of Shakespeare's most extraordinary villains -- are gathered for a grand weekend of dress-up and make-believe murder. But the fun ends when the masquerade turns more sinister ... and deadly. Jacqueline Kirby, an American librarian on hand for the festivities, suddenly finds herself in the center of strang