Names of Sleuths: Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney
Day Job: Job? Heavens no. Gentry do not work.
Fun Fact: Jonathan is the son of Pride and Prejudice’s Darcy and Elizabeth, while Juliet is the daughter of Northanger Abbey’s Catherine and Henry.
The best installment by far in Claudia Gray’s Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney series, The Rushworth Family Plot is a cozy mystery with high emotional stakes. Jonathan Darcy dreads his upcoming visit to London. Jonathan, who clearly reads as someone on the autism spectrum, finds the hustle and bustle of London unbearable—until he learns Miss Juliet Tilney will be there for the Season. In the previous three novels in this series, Jonathan found himself falling for Juliet as the pair solved murders among Jane Austen’s most famous characters. But Juliet’s association with these grisly crimes (even merely in solving them) has convinced Jonathan’s father that she is an improper match for his son, preventing any hope of courtship. The Rushworth Family Plot is a gentle mystery written in Austen’s style. While the murder itself may feel removed for the reader, the emotional intensity of Jonathan and Juliet’s forbidden love will not. Growing over the course of the previous three books, their affection for each other has reached a breathless pitch that Austen herself would applaud.
—Elyse Discher
Name of Sleuth: Miss Hortense
Day Job: Now retired, was a nurse
Fun Fact: Has been solving crimes in her community since the 1960s
London playwright Mel Pennant deftly explores her grandparents’ Jamaican heritage in her debut, the series starter A Murder for Miss Hortense. Pennant roots her mystery in a vibrant community of Jamaicans—part of the Windrush generation, a mass migration of people from former British colonies in the Caribbean to the U.K. after World War II—living in Bigglesweigh, a suburb of Birmingham, England, in the 1990s. Miss Hortense, a retired nurse, lives a seemingly quiet life, tending her garden and keeping her small house spick-and-span. However, the sudden, unexpected death of fellow Bigglesweigh resident Constance Brown upends Miss Hortense’s life, leading her to investigate a series of murders both past and present. Pennant’s cast of characters is broad and well-drawn as she weaves a complex spiderweb of relationships and events, both past and present. While it has many of the markings of a cozy mystery—an unlikely sleuth, a broad cast of colorful characters, plenty of gossipy intrigue and humor, and even a number of Jamaican recipes—this book is more than that, with some hard truths and dark crimes at its core.
—Alice Cary
Name of Sleuth: Cath Little
Day Job: Optician
Fun Fact: A diehard literature enthusiast
Romantic, reflective and self-aware, Karen Dukess’ Welcome to Murder Week is a multilayered yet tightly constructed mystery that unfolds through the perspective of its book-loving protagonist and in conversation with a wealth of novels that came before. When her absentee mother, Skye, dies unexpectedly, the last thing Cath Little wants to do is take the trip Skye planned to a sketchy sounding “Murder Week” in a tiny English village called Willowthrop. And yet, Cath soon finds herself deeply invested in the full immersion, village-wide fake mystery her fanciful mom booked for them to take part in together. While the Golden Age-inspired game is fairly perfunctory, the beauty and heart of this poignant story lies in the life-changing family mysteries Cath uncovers.
—Carole V. Bell
Name of Sleuth: Minnie Harper
Day Job: Typist
Fun Fact: Enjoys traveling by donkey cart
Known for her historical romance novels—the League of Scoundrels series and 2024’s Duchess Material—Emily Sullivan adds murder to the mix in A Death on Corfu, her kickoff to a cozy mystery series. Set on the titular Greek isle in 1898, it’s a simmering, slow-burn tale that plays out among charming villas and fragrant gardens stretching down to the sparkling Ionian Sea. Our heroine, British expat Minnie Harper, moved to Corfu eight years ago with her husband, Oliver, and their young children. Before his sudden death four years ago, Oliver—who retired early from the British Foreign Service in hopes of a more peaceful existence for their family—implored Minnie never to return to England. A handsome new neighbor brings aggravation and opportunity: Successful mystery author Stephen Dorian is brusque and arrogant, but offers Minnie a well-paying job as the typist for his new novel. The two forge a prickly work partnership that transforms into something else altogether when Daphne, a young maid, is found dead nearby. Sullivan cleverly folds in fun meta elements regarding mystery-novel plotting and characters, and thoughtfully illuminates the ways in which gossip can be both informative and destructive. This entertaining, immersive read is perfect for fans of Deanna Raybourn’s Veronica Speedwell series and the PBS TV series The Durrells in Corfu.
—Linda M. Castellitto
Name of Sleuth: Susan Ryeland
Day Job: Freelance book editor
Fun Fact: The proud owner of a gorgeous MGB Roadster
Like its predecessors, Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders, Anthony Horowitz’s third Susan Ryeland mystery, Marble Hall Murders, has a plot like a matryoshka doll. Now a freelance editor, Susan has been hired to work on the newest book in the Atticus Pund series. The original author of the Pund series was murdered in book one, and a new author, Eliot Crace, is at the helm. As Susan (and the reader) get deeper into Eliot’s manuscript, she sees similarities between the death of his character Lady Margaret Chalfont and his own late grandmother, Miriam Crace, who died two decades prior. In fact, the entire manuscript seems to be a dark mirror to Eliot’s own extremely dysfunctional family and to the matriarch who once controlled them all through her vast literary fortune. As Eliot develops Pund’s Last Case, his own behavior grows more troubling and erratic. The reader bounces back and forth between Ryeland’s amateur detective work in the modern day and the sleuthing of famed PI Pund in 1955. It takes a skilled hand to not only write a book-within-a-book, but do so cogently. Readers looking for a cozy that gives them something to really chew on will enjoy this lengthy mystery, and fans of Susan Ryeland will find this a satisfying installment in the series.
—Elyse Discher
Name of Sleuth: Nora Breen
Day Job: None, at present
Fun Fact: Was a nun for 30 years and only recently gave up the habit (sorry)
In Jess Kidd’s Murder at Gulls Nest, the year is 1954, the country is England and the irrepressible amateur sleuth is Nora Breen, formerly Sister Agnes. The mystery-novel aficionada has embarked on an urgent mission: Find her mentee and friend, “sunny young novice” Frieda Brogan. Several months ago, an ailing Frieda left the convent for Gulls Nest boardinghouse in Gore-on-Sea, Kent, a small town rife with salty, healing air. When Frieda’s weekly letters suddenly ceased, Nora’s deep worry was exacerbated by a comment in her last missive: “I believe every one of us at Gulls Nest is concealing some kind of secret.” What better way to investigate Frieda’s disappearance than to go undercover as a new Gulls Nest resident? In previous works like The Night Ship, Kidd evoked the supernatural; here, she explores the ineffable via a woman compelled by intuition and haunted by memories. At the convent, Nora’s inquisitiveness and cleverness “found her scrubbing a far greater share of bathtubs than any other postulant.” Now, who knows where those qualities might lead her?
—Linda M. Castellitto
Name of Sleuth: Pomona Afton
Day Job: Barista
Fun Fact: She’s the heiress to the Afton hotel fortune—but her family’s assets were frozen after her grandmother’s murder.
Bellamy Rose’s Pomona Afton Can So Solve a Murder pairs the perky, fashion-forward heart of Legally Blonde with the cozy wit of Only Murders in the Building as its riches-to-rags protagonist attempts to get to the bottom of her formidable grandmother’s untimely death. Forced to work as a barista and move in with Gabe, her ex-nanny’s very handsome but rather grumpy son, Pomona vows to solve the case and return to her once-fabulous life. As she gets closer to finding answers, however, Pomona reckons with the idea of making her own way—and the irritating fact that Gabe is really, really cute. Rose has created a hilarious, plucky heroine, who’s never before considered her own immense privilege. Besides a mystery that keeps the reader guessing, the book boasts a charming cast, from Pomona’s perpetually exasperated accountant brother, Nicholas, to fellow socialite Opal, whose own life has come apart (though her Instagram feed says otherwise). Strap on your Manolos and stay on your toes: Pomona Afton is on the case, and she always gets what she wants.
—Lauren Emily Whalen