Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Pardonable Lies: A Maisie Dobbs Novel

by Jacqueline Winspear

A new Maisie Dobbs novel from award-winning author Jacqueline Winspear In the third novel of this unique and masterly crime series, a deathbed plea from his wife leads Sir Cecil Lawton, KC, to seek the aid of Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator. As Maisie soon learns, Agnes Lawton never accepted that her aviator son was killed in the Great War, a torment that led her not only to the edge of madness but... (more)

Kincaid and James: Book 13

Necessary as Blood

by Deborah Crombie

Once the haunt of Jack the Ripper, London's East End is a vibrant mix of history and the avant-garde, a place where elegant Georgian townhouses exist side by side with colourful street markets and the hippest clubs. But here races and cultures still clash, and the trendy galleries and glamourous nightlife of Whitechapel disguise a violent and seedy underside, where unthinkable crimes bring terror to the... (more)

Hercule Poirot: Book 12

ABC Murders

by Agatha Christie

Alice Ascher, a shopkeeper in Andover, is bludgeoned to death at her place of work. Next to die is Miss Bernard in Bexhill, then Mr. Clarke in Churston. More disturbing than the alphabetic sequence of the killings or the ABC Railway guide that the killer leaves at the scene of each crime are the taunting notes Hercule Poirot receives each time the killer is about to strike again. It is one of Poirot’s most... (more)

The Crossing Places: A Ruth Galloway Mystery

The Crossing Places: A Ruth Galloway Mystery

by Elly Griffiths

When a child’s bones are found near an ancient henge in the wild saltmarshes of Norfolk’s north coast, Ruth Galloway, a university lecturer in forensic archaeology, is asked to date them by DCI Harry Nelson. He thinks they may be the bones of a child called Lucy who has been missing for ten years. It’s a cold case he has never been able to forget, in part because he’s been getting creepy letters about Lucy ever... (more)

Case Histories: A Novel

by Kate Atkinson

Case one: A little girl goes missing in the night. Case two: A beautiful young office worker falls victim to a maniac's apparently random attack. Case three: A new mother finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making - with a very needy baby and a very demanding husband - until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape. Thirty years after the first incident, as private investigator Jackson Brodie... (more)

Hercule Poirot Mystery: Book 17

Dumb Witness

by Agatha Christie

Miss Emily was old, rich, and afraid--and now, she's dead. Her terrified plea to Hercule Poirot came a little too late. All that's left is a house full of greedy heirs, and a very strange letter that could solve the mystery--or add to it.

The Various Haunts of Men

by Susan Hill

A woman vanishes in the fog up on "the Hill", an area locally known for its tranquility and peace. The police are not alarmed; people usually disappear for their own reasons. But when a young girl, an old man, and even a dog disappear, no one can deny that something untoward is happening in this quiet cathedral town. Young policewoman Freya Graffham is assigned to the case; she's new to the job,... (more)

The Fiend in Human: A Victorian Thriller

The Fiend in Human: A Victorian Thriller

by John MacLachlan Gray

It's 1852, and the ranks of the London poor have doubled. In the swollen shadow of the great St. Giles Rookery, fallen women attract the perfumed dandies of the West End into a vicious circle of venality, vanity, and vice. Edmund Whitty, correspondent for The Falcon , the city's second-best sensational tabloid, writes whatever will stimulate the reader, delay his (increasingly physical) creditors, and supply... (more)

Sherlock's Sisters: The British Female Detective, 1864-1913 (The Nineteenth Century Series)

Sherlock's Sisters: The British Female Detective, 1864-1913 (The Nineteenth Century Series)

by Joseph A. Kestner

This title examines the fictional female detective in Victorian and Edwardian literature. This character, originating in the 1860s, configures a new representation of women in narratives of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This analysis explores female empowerment through professional unofficial or official detection, especially as this surveillance illuminates legal, moral, gendered, institutional,... (more)

The Superintendent's Daughter: A Gil Mayo Mystery (Gil Mayo Mysteries)

The Superintendent's Daughter: A Gil Mayo Mystery (Gil Mayo Mysteries)

by Marjorie Eccles

Superintendent Gil Mayo is a policeman, and even in his quiet country town no stranger to tragedy. But up until now, there had always been some distance between the official investigator and those who had been personally stricken. It was someone else's tragedy.Now it is his.His daughter Julie and her friend Kathryn are missing, and the blow that falls is the discovery of Kat's body in a small hotel (once a... (more)

Where Memories Lie: A Novel (Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Novels)

Kincaid and James: Book 12

Where Memories Lie: A Novel (Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Novels)

by Deborah Crombie

Erika Rosenthal has always been secretive with her friend and neighbor, Detective Inspector Gemma James, about her past, except for one telling detail: She and her long-dead husband, David, came to London as refugees from Nazi Germany. But now the elderly woman needs Gemma's help. A unique piece of jewelry stolen from her years ago has mysteriously turned up at a prestigious London auction house. Erika believes... (more)

White Nights: Book Two of the Shetland Island Quartet

White Nights: Book Two of the Shetland Island Quartet

by Ann Cleeves

The electrifying follow up to the award-winning Raven Black Raven Black received crime fiction’s highest monetary honor, the Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award. Now Detective Jimmy Perez is back in an electrifying sequel. It’s midsummer in the Shetland Islands, the time of the white nights, when birds sing at midnight and the sun never sets. Artist Bella Sinclair throws an elaborate party to launch an exhibition of... (more)

Hidden Depths

by Ann Cleeves

A hot summer on the Northumberland coast, and Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son murdered. Luke has been strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wild flowers. This stylized murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team intrigued. But then a second body - that of beautiful young teacher Lily Marsh - is discovered laid out in a rock pool, the water strewn with... (more)

A Darker Domain: A Novel

by Val McDermid

Past and present intertwine in this rare stand-alone novel of taut psychological drama—a brilliant exploration of loyalty and greed from the bestselling mistress of suspense. Fife, Scotland, 1985. Heiress Catriona Maclennan Grant and her baby son are kidnapped. The ransom payoff goes horribly wrong and Grant is killed. Her son disappears without a trace—until 2008, when a tourist in Tuscany stumbles upon... (more)

The Dead of Winter: A John Madden Mystery

The Dead of Winter: A John Madden Mystery

by Rennie Airth

The murder of a young Polish girl in wartime London puts John Madden on the trail of a ruthless hired killer On a freezing London night in 1944, Rosa Novak is brutally murdered during a blackout. The police suspect she was the victim of a random act of violence and might have dropped the case if former police investigator John Madden hadnÂ’t been the victimÂ’s employer. MaddenÂ’s old colleagues at Scotland... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: british mysteries

Pardonable Lies: A Maisie Dobbs Novel

by Jacqueline Winspear

Necessary as Blood

by Deborah Crombie

ABC Murders

by Agatha Christie

The Crossing Places: A Ruth Galloway Mystery

by Elly Griffiths

Case Histories: A Novel

by Kate Atkinson

Dumb Witness

by Agatha Christie

The Various Haunts of Men

by Susan Hill

The Fiend in Human: A Victorian Thriller

by John MacLachlan Gray

Sherlock's Sisters: The British Female Detective, 1864-1913 (The Nineteenth Century Series)

by Joseph A. Kestner

The Superintendent's Daughter: A Gil Mayo Mystery (Gil Mayo Mysteries)

by Marjorie Eccles

Where Memories Lie: A Novel (Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Novels)

by Deborah Crombie

White Nights: Book Two of the Shetland Island Quartet

by Ann Cleeves

Hidden Depths

by Ann Cleeves

A Darker Domain: A Novel

by Val McDermid

The Dead of Winter: A John Madden Mystery

by Rennie Airth