Literary chef Tish Tarragon is preparing her English Secret Garden-themed luncheon for Coleton Creek's annual garden club awards, but two days before the event one of the competitors is found dead in his pristine garden. After hearing that he was the favourite to win the top prize this year, Tish can't help being drawn into the investigation...
Tish Tarragon’s preparations for Coleton Creek’s annual garden club awards luncheon are threatened when one of the prime contenders is murdered. Literary caterer Letitia ‘Tish’ Tarragon is preparing her English Secret Garden-themed luncheon for Coleton Creek’s annual garden club awards, but when she is taken on a tour of some of the top contenders with the garden club’s president, Jim Ainsley, Tish is surprised at how seriously the residents take the awards – and how desperate they are to win. Wealthy, retired businessman Sloane Shackleford has won the coveted best garden category five years in a row, but he and his Bichon Frise, Biscuit, are universally despised. When Sloane’s bludgeoned body is discovered in his pristine garden, Tish soon learns that he was disliked for reasons that go beyond his green fingers. Have the hotly contested awards brought out a competitive and murderous streak in one of the residents?
Who killed Sally Kahn? There hasn't been a murder in 15 years in tranquil, affluent Hardington, Massachusetts. But someone pushed a moderately wealthy 65-year-old widow down her basement stairs, and then tried to make it look like an accident. Two people will work - together and independently - to find the murderer. John Flynn, a retired Boston Police Department detective with an outstanding record, will lead the official investigation. He will solve the murder despite the best efforts of Hardington's police chief, who cannot abide the idea of a murderer on the loose in his bucolic town and so who arrests the first likely suspect. Liz Phillips has a life centered on her garden and her garden club. Sally Kahn was one of her best friends and it is Liz who found the body. But Liz is a lonely woman, her daughter married and living far away, and her husband constantly on the road. Liz will help solve the murder by using intuition, asking questions, and knowing her town. Their quest to find Sally Kahn's killer will lead Liz Phillips and Detective John Flynn into an unfamiliar world of email inboxes and wireless Internet routers, hazardous waste disposal and the economics of tearing down houses to build 'McMansions'. Their search will also take them through an emotional landscape of adultery and the simmering resentment between 'townies' and the new-money affluent.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A modern classic of true crime, set in a most beguiling Southern city—now in a 30th anniversary edition with a new afterword by the author “Elegant and wicked . . . might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.”—The New York Times Book Review Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. In this sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative, John Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club; the turbulent young gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the “soul of pampered self-absorption”; the uproariously funny drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young people dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience.
A New York Times bestseller | Soon to be a major motion picture “Witty, endearing and greatly entertaining.” —Wall Street Journal “Don’t trust anyone, including the four septuagenarian sleuths in Osman’s own laugh-out-loud whodunit.” —Parade Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves A female cop with her first big case A brutal murder Welcome to... THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it's too late?
Can Helena solve the mystery of a murder in the family that has festered for over two generations? In 1925 the beautiful, bohemian Diana Pollexfen was celebrating her thirtieth birthday with a party at a country estate, but the celebrations soured when her husband died, poisoned by a cocktail that had been liberally laced with some of Diana's photographic chemicals. Sixty years later, Diana's grand-niece, Helena, is also turning thirty, but with rather less fanfare. An overworked attorney in London, Helena's primary social outlet is an obsessive love affair. By way of distraction, Helena starts looking through her great-aunt's papers and soon develops another obsession: Determining just who killed George Pollexfen in that lovely, sunlit garden between the wars. Praise for Elizabeth Ironside ‘Excellent local colour and culture, good adventure and an admirable denouement’ Marcel Berlins ‘She joins those few mystery writers you unreservedly look forward to reading ... a thoroughly satisfying psychological thriller’ Harriet Waugh, Spectator ‘A fine, stylish book to be savoured’ James Melville ‘Superbly handled ... a masterly example of classic crime fiction’ Birmingham Post ‘A spell-binding story of love, murder and deception’ Coventry Evening Telegraph ‘Enticing murder mystery’ Manchester Evening News
Literary chef Tish Tarragon is preparing her English Secret Garden-themed luncheon for Coleton Creek's annual garden club awards, but two days before the event one of the competitors is found dead in his pristine garden. After hearing that he was the favourite to win the top prize this year, Tish can't help being drawn into the investigation...
An internationally acclaimed Russian floral designer is found murdered in a Boston hotel ballroom. Who killed her? And why?Valentina Zhukova is a glamorous, globetrotting floral designer; the “Queen of Negative Space” and “Vladimir Putin's favorite flower arranger”. But in the hours before the opening of the prestigious International Floral Design Alliance conference in Boston, someone stabbed her and then hung her body from a massive floral design.Six weeks after solving the murder of the Executive Director of the New England Botanical Society, Lieutenant Victoria Lee and young, computer-savvy Detective Jason Alvarez are again plunged into a world where flowers and horticulture can be grounds for homicide. They quickly learn that Zhukova was both more and less than the woman she seemed. The proud granddaughter of a World War II hero, she was also an ardent nationalist who toed the Kremlin line, and someone who relished inflicting on those around her. Who killed Zhukova? With an international cast of suspects, Lee and Alvarez – aided by suburban garden club president Liz Phillips – find few who knew her will mourn her death. Murder in Negative Space takes you into a world where 'amateur' designers are deadly serious about their work.
An instant New York Times bestseller! The second gripping novel in the New York Times bestselling Thursday Murder Club series, soon to be a major motion picture from Steven Spielberg at Amblin Entertainment “It’s taken a mere two books for Richard Osman to vault into the upper leagues of crime writers. . . The Man Who Died Twice. . . dives right into joyous fun." —The New York Times Book Review Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim—the Thursday Murder Club—are still riding high off their recent real-life murder case and are looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet at Cooper’s Chase, their posh retirement village. But they are out of luck. An unexpected visitor—an old pal of Elizabeth’s (or perhaps more than just a pal?)—arrives, desperate for her help. He has been accused of stealing diamonds worth millions from the wrong men and he’s seriously on the lam. Then, as night follows day, the first body is found. But not the last. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim are up against a ruthless murderer who wouldn’t bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can our four friends catch the killer before the killer catches them? And if they find the diamonds, too? Well, wouldn’t that be a bonus? You should never put anything beyond the Thursday Murder Club. Richard Osman is back with everyone’s favorite mystery-solving quartet, and the second installment of the Thursday Murder Club series is just as clever and warm as the first—an unputdownable, laugh-out-loud pleasure of a read.
