Bestselling mystery writer and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher is invited to travel to London on the grand dame of ocean liners, the Queen Elizabeth II, as one of seven guest lecturers. The night they set sail, a fellow speaker is found brutally murdered. Now Jessica has just four days at sea to find the killer...before she finds more of her colleagues, or even herself, dead in the water!
Wealthy Beverly Hills socialites, Brian and Sylvia Sinclair, are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary on a cruise from London to New York on the luxurious QEII. Joining them are their family and close friends. The joyous occasion takes an ugly turn, when one of the party dies an unnatural death. Find out whodunnit in this captivating mystery.
“Sheer entertainment… Bennett infuses wit and an arch sensibility into her prose… This is not mere froth, it is pure confection.” – New York Times Book Review “[A] pitch-perfect murder mystery… If The Crown were crossed with Miss Marple…, the result would probably be something like this charming whodunnit.” – Ruth Ware, author of One by One The bestselling first book in a highly original and delightfully clever crime series in which Queen Elizabeth II secretly solves crimes while carrying out her royal duties. It is the early spring of 2016 and Queen Elizabeth is at Windsor Castle in advance of her 90th birthday celebrations. But the preparations are interrupted by the shocking and untimely death of a guest in one of the Castle bedrooms. The scene leads some to think the young Russian pianist strangled himself, yet a badly tied knot leads MI5 to suspect foul play. When they begin to question the Household’s most loyal servants, Her Majesty knows they’re looking in the wrong place. For the Queen has been living an extraordinary double life ever since her teenage years as “Lilibet.” Away from the public eye and unbeknownst to her closest friends and advisers, she has the most brilliant skill for solving crimes. With help from her Assistant Private Secretary, Rozie Oshodi, a British Nigerian officer recently appointed to the Royal Horse Artillery, the Queen discreetly begins making inquiries. As she carries out her royal duties with her usual aplomb, no one in the Royal Household, the government, or the public knows that the resolute Elizabeth won’t hesitate to use her keen eye, quick mind, and steady nerve to bring a murderer to justice. SJ Bennett captures Queen Elizabeth’s voice with skill, nuance, wit, and genuine charm in this imaginative and engaging mystery that portrays Her Majesty as she’s rarely seen: kind yet worldly, decisive, shrewd, and, most important, a superb judge of character.
Jessica Fletcher and a group of friends from Cabot Cove take off for the British Isles and end up at a castle in Scotland in this Murder, She Wrote mystery... Scotland's most celebrated witch, executed long ago with a pitchfork through her heart, is said to haunt Inspector George Sutherland's family castle in the village of Wick. It's an intriguing tale and after a British book tour, Jessica accepts Sutherland's invitation to bring her Cabot Cove friends to the heather-covered Highlands. Indeed, after "roamin' in the gloamin'" with the handsome inspector, she spots a spectral woman in white in the gloomy castle. But Jessica's blood runs cold when she later finds a local lass executed in the same way as the legendary witch. Something is very vile in Wick. It's a case of evil, greed, and murder that pits Jessica Fletcher against a killer from this world—or maybe the next.
“Sheer entertainment… Bennett infuses wit and an arch sensibility into her prose… This is not mere froth, it is pure confection.” — New York Times Book Review on The Windsor Knot Amateur detective Queen Elizabeth II is back in this hugely entertaining follow-up to the bestseller The Windsor Knot, in which Her Majesty must determine how a missing painting is connected to the shocking death of a staff member inside Buckingham Palace. At Buckingham Palace, the autumn of 2016 presages uncertain times. The Queen must deal with the fallout from the Brexit referendum, a new female prime minister, and a tumultuous election in the United States—yet these prove to be the least of her worries when a staff member is found dead beside the palace swimming pool. Is it truly the result of a tragic accident, as the police think, or is something more sinister going on? Meanwhile, her assistant private secretary, Rozie Oshodi, is on the trail of a favorite painting that once hung outside the Queen’s bedroom and appears to have been misappropriated by the Royal Navy. And a series of disturbing anonymous letters have begun circulating in the palace. The Queen’s courtiers think they have it all ‘under control’, but Her Majesty is not so sure. After all, though the staff and public may not be aware, she is the keenest sleuth among them. Sometimes, it takes a Queen’s eye to see connections where no one else can.
While visiting an old friend's ranch in Colorado, bestselling mystery author Jessica Fletcher is caught in a fiendish plot of revenge when one of the guests is found stabbed to death. Soon after, the victim's wife is also discovered murdered in a gruesome fashion. With the police at a loss, and the rest of the ranch guests on edge, Jessica decides to do some research into the past of some of the less than cordial guests. What she discovers may help her crack the case...if it doesn't get her killed first!
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Alison Weir's Mary Boleyn. Handsome, accomplished, and charming, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, staked his claim to the English throne by marrying Mary Stuart, who herself claimed to be the Queen of England. It was not long before Mary discovered that her new husband was interested only in securing sovereign power for himself. Then, on February 10, 1567, an explosion at his lodgings left Darnley dead; the intrigue thickened after it was discovered that he had apparently been suffocated before the blast. After an exhaustive reevaluation of the source material, Alison Weir has come up with a solution to this enduring mystery. Employing her gift for vivid characterization and gripping storytelling, Weir has written one of her most engaging excursions yet into Britain’s bloodstained, power-obsessed past.
Jessica Fletcher and a group of friends from Cabot Cove take off for the British Isles and end up at a castle in Scotland in this Murder, She Wrote mystery... Scotland's most celebrated witch, executed long ago with a pitchfork through her heart, is said to haunt Inspector George Sutherland's family castle in the village of Wick. It's an intriguing tale and after a British book tour, Jessica accepts Sutherland's invitation to bring her Cabot Cove friends to the heather-covered Highlands. Indeed, after "roamin' in the gloamin'" with the handsome inspector, she spots a spectral woman in white in the gloomy castle. But Jessica's blood runs cold when she later finds a local lass executed in the same way as the legendary witch. Something is very vile in Wick. It's a case of evil, greed, and murder that pits Jessica Fletcher against a killer from this world—or maybe the next.
The definitive story of one American family at the center of a single, shocking act of international terrorism that "manages to capture the essence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" (Dan Ephron). On October 3, 1985, Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish New Yorker, and his wife boarded the Achille Lauro to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary with a Mediterranean cruise. Four days later, four Palestinian fedayeen hijacked the Italian luxury liner and took the passengers and crew hostage. Leon Klinghoffer was shot in the head, his body and wheelchair thrown overboard. His murder became a flashpoint in the intractable struggle between Israelis and Arabs and gave Americans a horrifying preview of what it means when terrorism hits home. In this richly reported book, drawing on multiple perspectives, Julie Salamon dispels the mythology that has grown around that shattering moment. What transpired on the Achille Lauro left the Klinghoffer family in the grip of irredeemable sorrow, while precipitating tragic reverberations for the wives and sons of Abu al-Abbas, the Palestinian mastermind behind the hijacking, and the family of Alex Odeh, a Palestinian-American murdered in Los Angeles in a brutal act of retaliation. Through intimate interviews with almost all living participants, including one of the hijackers, Julie Salamon brings alive the moment-by-moment saga of the hijacking and the ensuing U.S.-led international manhunt; the diplomatic wrangling between the United States, Egypt, Italy, and Israel; the long agonizing search for justice; and the inside story of the controversial opera about the Klinghoffer tragedy that provoked a culture war. An Innocent Bystander is a masterful work of journalism that moves between the personal and the global with the pace of a geopolitical thriller and the depth of a psychological drama. Throughout lies the tension wrought by terrorism and its repercussions today.
