Mrs. Malory returns to investigate a rich widow's disappearance after her daughter pressures her mother to sign over a large inheritance. There are many surprises as the dauntless sleuth delves beneath the peaceful surface of village life.
While in Stratford, widow Sheila Malory always stays with her old friend, actor David Beaumont. On this visit she finds him in dire straits: his career is on the skids and his finances are in ruins. Unless he can convince his penny-pinching brother Francis to sell their jointly owned family home in the seaside village of Taviscombe, the bank will repossess his cottage. Francis, Dean of the Culminster Cathedral, does not believe that charity begins at home. He refuses to put the house on the market or provide a loan. Mrs. Malory offers David a place to stay in her own home in Taviscombe so that the two brothers might meet in person to find a solution. Even if Francis can be persuaded to sell, one impediment remains: their ancient and addled nanny has been told that she can stay in the home until she dies. Even after Nana's sudden death, Francis insists that they hold on to the property. When he dies from consuming high tea laced with poison, the police conclude that both deaths were murder. Unfortunately David is their prime suspect. Determined to clear her friend's name, Mrs. Malory applies her considerable skills as an amateur sleuth to identify the real culprit. She has seen her share of evil, but even Mrs. Malory is shocked by what her investigation turns up. Death of a Dean is the seventh of Hazel Holt's Mrs. Malory mysteries.
The first book in the delightful British cozy mystery series featuring Mrs. Sheila Malory, a plain-spoken widow residing in the little seaside town of Taviscombe, England. When pretty but avaricious Lee Montgomery disappears, her fiancé Charles Richardson enlists Mrs. Malory's help. The dauntless Mrs. Malory soon suspects the worst. Little does she realize the terrible secrets her investigation will reveal….
When Sheila Malory agrees to help in one of Taviscombe's charity shops, she expects some slight boredom and irritation thanks to the shop manager, Desmond Barlow. But when an apparent botched robbery leaves him lying dead in the shop, Shelia has more on her plate than she bargained for.
Taviscombe's veterinary practice is facing closure unless they can find a new partner to invest money in the business. Enter Malcolm Hardy; tall, good looking and rich enough to save the surgery. But soon he has offended most of the town, accusing a colleague of malpractice and installing his girlfriend as a veterinary assistant. As far as Sheila Malory is concerned, there is nothing to like about the new vet. But despite his unpopularity it is still a shock when Hardy collapses and dies at the surgery. When the post-mortem reveals unnatural death, suspicion falls on his former colleagues. Could somebody at the practice be a killer? Or might Hardy have other enemies with murder in mind?
When local author Sheila Malory is asked to research the history of Mere Barton, she has her reservations; particularly as 'The Book' is one of the many projects of Annie Roberts, the most unpopular resident. Indeed, it seems that hardly anyone has a good word to say about her. When Annie suffers a fatal bout of self-inflicted food poisoning, there is more relief than grief around the village. However, as Sheila continues work she discovers there is more to Annie's unpopularity than just a forceful personality. Was the death as accidental as it first seemed?
Something peculiar is going on at the Group Medical Practice in Taviscombe. Sheila Malory can't help but feel it may be linked with the unexpected arrival of Dr Morrison. Arrogant and cold-mannered, his alleged misdiagnosis of a local patient who later died has made him the focus of village rumour. When Dr Morrison is found dead, apparently murdered, it is assumed to be a random act of violence. However Sheila Malory is not convinced. Had Dr Morrison been involved in some sort of dangerous business in London. Or did someone local have a motive for wanting him out of the way? A twisting mystery, No Cure for Death should not be prescribed for the faint-hearted.
The sleepy seaside town of Taviscombe has more than its share of gossips and schemers. It also has Mrs. Sheila Malory, a widow whose gift for judging character and unmasking murderers is as impressive as her knowledge of nineteenth-century literature. Mrs. Malory's sleuthing talents are tested once again when she comes upon the body of one of her friends, a sweet elderly lady. Miss Graham's death by poison is quite convenient for a local doctor of dubious reputation; the dead woman's refusal to move thwarted Dr. Cowley's plans to build a nursing home. But Mrs. Malory knows that nothing is as simple as it seems, especially when it is revealed that Miss Graham left a considerable fortune. Another suspicious death during a fireworks display further complicates matters. These two very different murders--one furtive, the other violent--can't possibly be related. Or can they? Superfluous Death is the sixth of Hazel Holt's Mrs. Malory mysteries.
When widower Shidney Middleton is found dead in his cottage from carbon monoxide poisoning, Sheila Malory is deeply disturbed. The old man had seemed in good health and the ageing wood-burning stove, cited as causing the fatality, had just been serviced. Sheila's suspicions that this was no accidental death just won't be quietened. Sidney had always seemed a pleasant, unassuming gentleman. So Sheila is shocked when, at the old man's funeral, she encounters outright hostility. Then Sheila uncovers some rather shocking information about the deceased - information that paints him in a very different light and leads her to ask how many people might have borne him a grudge?
When Sheila Malory is warned that her second cousin Bernard Prior is visiting members of the family in order to research their genealogy, she considers it nothing more than a bore. However, when Bernard is found dead in suspicious circumstances, Sheila begins to suspect that his innocent pastime may have led to something more sinister. Never one to let sleeping dogs lie, Sheila takes it upon herself to discover the truth behind Bernard's demise. What secrets lie buried in the family past? And what will happen to those who try to uncover them? Our intrepid modern-day Miss Marple is about to learn that murder can often hit uncomfortably close to home, and that appearances can be deceptive...
When a series of shocking and suspicious deaths plagues the quiet English town of Taviscombe, including that of a popular riding school owner, Sheila Malory, always ready with a cup of tea and an ear for the latest gossip, gets back in the saddle as she tries to solve another mystery. Original.
A solicitor is murdered in the cozy village of Taviscombe, but no one is mourning as the man was a bore. Still, crime must be punished and Mrs. Malory opens an investigation, discovering the solicitor was a blackmailer.
When Sheila Malory fills in for a friend at a local charity shop in the quiet English town of Taviscombe, she’s happy for the change of scene. It will give her a chance to deal with interesting books, meet new people, and above all, work for a good cause! Still, not everything at the shop is so appealing. The ill-tempered, officious store supervisor, Desmond Barlow, runs the shop as a tyrant. That is, until Desmond is found stabbed to death in the shop, and Mrs. Malory puts her impeccable sleuthing skills into play. Unfortunately, it seems that Desmond was disliked by pretty much everyone. In a town full of suspects, Mrs. Malory must go behind closed doors and delve into a slew of small-town secrets if she wants to discover a killer who is far from charitable…
Sheila Malory's pleasant return to Oxford is disturbed when she is drawn into the inquiry into a bizarre accidental death--all of which raises uncomfortable questions about Sheila's own student past
The village of Mere Barton would be a different place without local busybody Annie Roberts. Standing only five feet tall, the tireless retired nurse organizes and oversees all local activity with military precision. When Sheila Malory gets roped into Annie's latest project, a compilation of the village's history, she has a feeling it will lead to trouble. But the project is cut short when Annie is found dead from a nasty case of mushroom poisoning--and Mrs. Malory seems to be the only one who finds the death suspicious. Because of her nosy nature, Annie had discovered some dark secrets about her fellow villagers. Secrets someone might kill to keep quiet.
When Dr. Malcolm Hardy, a much-despised veterinarian who is even detested by his furry patients, is found murdered, Mrs. Malory sets out to find a killer in a town full of suspects.
Hazel Holt has published 19 Mrs. Malory mysteries in the tradition of Barbara Pym and has admirers around the world. My Dear Charlotte is a departure from her other work. It is a novel-in-letters written "with the assistance of Jane Austen's letters." From the Introduction by Jan Fergus:My Dear Charlotte is a great British mystery set in the early 1800s and infused throughout with the actual language and style of Jane Austen, one of the world's great stylists and comic writers. Of course, you don't have to love Austen to love this book. If you enjoy detective novels, you will find here a completely satisfying murder mystery, coupled with a romance (or more than one, in fact). My Dear Charlotte gives you, in addition to mystery and romance, a portrait of the world of the English gentry at around 1815, immediately after the defeat of Napoleon-its manners and its moral certainty. As in Austen, Napoleon is not directly mentioned, but his shadow is there: one brother of the heroine is a sailor and the other a junior diplomat at the Congress of Vienna. It's the social world at home that is central, however, with its balls, visits, courtships, gossip, and of course murder, underlining the tensions and rifts within that apparently civilized society.
Sheila Malory, a middle-aged widow and expert on nineteenth-century novelists, turns detective when an old friend asks her to investigate the mysterious disappearance of his fiancee from a small English seaside town
Barbara Pym is a writer of whom it may be truly said that her life is reflected in her work. This definitive biography puts Barbara in her setting and relates her life to the age and the world in which she lived. Drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished material and with the help of Barbara’s sister Hilary and her friends (including Philip Larkin, Robert Liddell, Henry Harvey and Robert Smith, Hazel Holt, her friend and literary executor, has drawn a perceptive portrait of Barbara Pym, the woman as well as the novelist. From the heady atmosphere of pre-war Oxford where she embarked upon a series of highly romantic love affairs, through her wartime service in the WRNS, to early success as a published writer, we come to know a person whose humour and sharp observation were uniquely combined with a compassionate acceptance of human nature – qualities that made her such an outstanding novelist. Hazel Holt also describes the dark period from 1963, when Barbara Pym’s novels were rejected as unpublishable, through the wilderness years until 1977 when her literary reputation was triumphantly re-established by Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil. Barbara Pym emerges from these pages as an entertaining companion with an insatiable curiosity and an unquenchable delight in the eccentricities of her fellows. Readers already acquainted with her novels will find great pleasure in this biography and those who are not will be irresistibly drawn towards the world of Barbara Pym.
Middle-aged widow and amateur sleuth Sheila Malory probes a hotbed of small village animosities, betrayal, and murder after a mysterious killer bludgeons insufferable local poet Adrian Palgrave to death during the Taviscombe Festival. Reprint.
When the ever-charming, fifty-something widow Sheila Malory tries to protect two elderly women from being evicted from their flats in her quiet English village, one of them ends up dead
The twelfth mystery in the acclaimed Sheila Malory series It is twenty years since Leonora Staveley retired as an investigative journalist to live on Exmoor, surrounded only by her beloved animals. Living as a virtual recluse, her house filled with the relics of an extraordinary life, no-one was too surprised when she suffered a fatal bout of food poisoning. But Sheila Malory suspects something far more sinister was involved in the death of her friend. For a number of people had good reason to want this wealthy lady out of the way. And aside from the obvious suspects, just who was the mysterious young man seen camping near Leonora's house days before she died?
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