The death of an instructor, a mugging, and another "accidental" death has Detective Constable Ellis Pooley sending Robert Amiss undercover to investigate Knightsbridge School of English and capture the killer before anymore "accidents" occur.

A group of guests gather in a large country house, owned by the dying Lord Warbeck, who wants what is left of his family around him to celebrate what he assumes will be his last Christmas. The guests are a motley bunch, including Sir Julius Warbeck, Chancellor of the Exchequer, the wife of one of his underlings, the fascist son of the present Lord Warbeck, and the Chancellor's bodyguard. Also present is foreign historian Dr Bottwink, and the traditional faithful butler. When the first murder occurs, the house is cut off from the rest of the world by a heavy snowfall, and it is left to Sir Julius's bodyguard to initiate a preliminary investigation before contact can be made with the local police force.

As friends, the boisterous and brash American Beryl couldn’t be less alike than the prim and proper British Edwina. But as sleuths in an England recovering from the Great War, they’re the perfect match . . . 1920: Flying in the face of convention, legendary American adventuress Beryl Helliwell never fails to surprise and shock. The last thing her adoring public would expect is that she craves some peace and quiet. The humdrum hamlet of Walmsley Parva in the English countryside seems just the ticket. And, honestly, until America comes to its senses and repeals Prohibition, Beryl has no intention of returning stateside and subjecting herself to bathtub gin. For over three decades, Edwina Davenport has lived comfortably in Walmsley Parva, but the post–World War I bust has left her in dire financial straits and forced her to advertise for a lodger. When her long-lost school chum Beryl arrives on her doorstep—actually crashes into it in her red motorcar—Edwina welcomes her old friend as her new roommate. But her idyllic hometown has a hidden sinister side, and when the two friends are drawn in, they decide to set up shop as private inquiry agents, helping Edwina to make ends meet and satisfying Beryl’s thirst for adventure. Now this odd couple will need to put their heads together to catch a killer—before this sleepy English village becomes their final resting place . . .

“The Lynley books constitute the smartest, most gratifyingly complex and impassioned mystery series now being published.”—Entertainment Weekly When thirteen-year-old Matthew Whately goes missing from Bredgar Chambers, a prestigious public school in the heart of West Sussex, aristocratic Inspector Thomas Lynley receives a call for help from the lad’s housemaster, who also happens to be an old school chum. Thus, the inspector, his partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, and forensic scientist Simon Allcourt-St. James find themselves once again outside their jurisdiction and deeply involved in the search for a child—and then, tragically, for a child killer. Questioning prefects, teachers, and pupils closest to the dead boy, Lynley and Havers sense that something extraordinarily evil is going on behind Bredgar Chambers’s cloistered walls. But as they begin to unlock the secrets of this closed society, the investigation into Matthew’s death leads them perilously close to their own emotional wounds—and blinds them to the signs of another murder in the making. . . . Praise for Well-Schooled in Murder “George is a master . . . an outstanding practitioner of the modern English mystery.”—Chicago Tribune “A spectacular new voice in mystery writing.”—Los Angeles Times “A compelling whodunit . . . a reader’s delight.”—Daily News, New York “Like P.D. James, George knows the import of the smallest human gesture; Well-Schooled in Murder puts the younger author clearly in the running with the genre master.”—People “Ms. George may wind up creating one of the most popular and entertaining series in mystery fiction today.”—The Sun, Baltimore

Quiet, small-town Tinker's Cove, Maine, is once again the scene of the crime as Lucy Stone juggles family, job, and night classes to track down the killer of the local elementary school assistant principal.

This is the story of a national obsession. Ever since the Ratcliffe Highway Murders caused a nation-wide panic in Regency England, the British have taken an almost ghoulish pleasure in 'a good murder'. This fascination helped create a whole new world of entertainment, inspiring novels, plays and films, puppet shows, paintings and true-crime journalism - as well as an army of fictional detectives who still enthrall us today. A Very British Murder is Lucy Worsley's captivating account of this curious national obsession. It is a tale of dark deeds and guilty pleasures, a riveting investigation into the British soul by one of our finest historians.

"The first book to examine murder through written words. A criminologist and an anthropologist explore the motives for murder by analyzing the writings of convicted killers as well as depictions of murder in literature and the media"--