A murder committed in the night of dead. It's all a game for Detective Wycliffe to solve in a puzzling case.Writer David Cleeve lived exactly the way a bestselling novelist should live - in an opulent house set in a beautiful corner of Cornwall. But beneath the successful façade was a private nightmare. For at regular intervals a sinister and mysterious warning was delivered to him: a single playing card, the Jack of Diamonds. Then, one day, the card arrived torn i...

There was no doubt at all that the girl was dead. The front of her skull and her facial bones had been splintered like the cracked shell of an egg. What made it even more shocking was the setting of the murder - an idyllic corner of the Scilly Isles where violent crime was almost unknown.Angry and distressed, the villagers instinctively turn against the only stranger in their midst, the famous pop star and teenage idol Vince Peters. But Superintendent Wycliffe is not so sure. Slowl...

Born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, young Cornishman Roger Kilter leaves his native fishing village and journeys to Plymouth, to join the fleet of Sir Francis Drake. Destined to face the mighty Spanish Armada, Roger’s adventures in port and at sea are both amorous and dangerous reflecting the violence and passions of those times. Even more tumultuous for Roger than the seas of war are the currents of love and desire anchored deep in the long-standing bitter feud between two Cornish fa...

When Cedric Tremain is charged with murdering his father by booby-trapping his fishing boat, all the locals are agreed that he is an unlikely murderer. But the case against him is strong: he has the motive, the opportunity and the know-how; not to mention the fact that there is some hard circumstantial evidence against him. So Cedric is arrested.But Chief Superintendent Wycliffe has a strong sense that something about the case just doesn't fit. As he quietly continues his investiga...

The Kemps were a Cornish Catholic family who had held on to Kellycoryk, their family home, for almost five hundred years. But it was beginning to look as though the present century would be their last. Roger, head of the shrinking clan, was desparate to save the house and land. His second marriage, to the shrewd and tough businesswoman, Bridget, offered a way out. Bridget, prosperous head of her own company, wanted to take Kellycoryk over for development and although Roger hated the idea B...

In the new novel in the “breezy [and] humorous” (Chicago Sun-Times) series, Benni Harper is carrying a bundle of holiday stress—as she unwraps the secrets of an elite and possibly murderous society …San Celina’s most exclusive society suddenly has an opening and Benni Harper has been tapped—not to join, but to investigate. The upper crust, female-only “49 Club” is restricted to exactly that many members, and one must die b...

In Liège, the city of Georges Simenon’s youth, a foreigner is found dead, and two young boys are accused of his murder, in this installment in the Inspector Maigret series.Somewhere in Liège, Jean Chabot and René Delfrosse hide out in the cellar of a seedy bar. Their plan to rob the establishment goes awry when, by the light of a match, they see the dead body of a man whom they had seen only hours before. They flee in horror.When the two boys are accused of...

Sun, sand, the Côte d’Azur—and a mysterious dead man with multiple hidden lives. Who was Mr. Brown? And why does the mystery of his life preoccupy Maigret so?Georges Simenon’s Maigret arrives in Antibes on the French Riviera tasked with discreetly solving the murder of one Mr. Brown, stabbed in the back as he returned to the house of his mistress and her mother. As Maigret investigates, he finds himself drawn to the seedy dive bar frequented by the late Mr. Brown, ...

A small town gardening—and archery—club must solve a murder case and save their town from developers in the first cozy mystery featuring Dittany Henbit.Anyone growing up in Lobelia Falls is taught to learn the elegant, ancient, and occasionally deadly art of shooting with a bow and arrow. Practicing the craft, freelance secretary Dittany Henbit is strolling through the woods with her bow at her side when she meets a surveyor making surveys where he shouldn't. Ditta...

A mysterious death in the Cornish art world - and a murder investigation for Chief Superintendent Wycliffe...When Edwin Garland dies of a heart attack, no one outside the expectant circle of his relatives is concerned, but the situation changes dramatically when, on the evening of the funeral, his son is shot dead. Chief Superintendent Wycliffe is faced with a seemingly motiveless killing, and Edwin's will, though mischievously contrived, offers no explanation....

A mysterious death ... an eccentric family living on the edge of Dartmoor ... And Chief Superintendent Wycliffe has one of his most complex cases to date.The Cornish Detective series'Gripping' THE TIMESThe Beales are an odd, reclusive family living in Ashill House, on the edge of Dartmoor: old Simon has withdrawn from active life; Nicholas and Gertrude confine themselves respectively to war games and the bottle; you...

Two violent deaths shatter a small community. And to solve the case, Wycliffe must untangle a complex network of secrecy within the quiet of Paul's Court . . .The Cornish Detective series'First-class, old-time, hyper-ingenious whodunit OBSERVERPaul's Court is a quiet corner in the heart of the city: an oasis of peace and safety until the night when two of its inhabitants meet violent deaths. Old Willy Goppel, a Germ...