Crime with the Classics

A game of charades ends in coldblooded murder in this entertaining cozy mystery, third in the Crime with the Classics series. Having finished transforming Windy Corner, the grand Victorian mansion she inherited from her great aunt, into a writers' retreat, widowed literature professor Emily Cavanaugh is ready to receive her first set of guests. But her careful planning is thrown into disarray by the unexpected arrival of outrageous true-crime writer, Cruella Crime, whose unpardonably rude behaviour is causing great offence. As a ferocious ice storm rages outside, the guests entertain one another with a game of charades. But their revelries are brought to a sudden halt by the discovery of a body in one of the guest bedrooms. When it transpires the victim was poisoned, Emily decides to take a leaf out of the book of her favourite detective writer, Agatha Christie, and investigate. But as she pursues her enquiries, it becomes chillingly clear that she herself may have been the intended victim...

Professor Emily Cavanaugh makes a horrific discovery while writing her book on Dostoevsky in the entertaining fourth Crime with the Classics cozy. Professor Emily Cavanaugh has left Windy Corner behind and is back at Reed College on her sabbatical, determined to finish writing her book on Dostoevsky. She is soon reunited with one of her promising students, Daniel Razumov, as well as familiar faces on the teaching staff - her friend, Marguerite Grenier, her half-brother, Oscar Lansing, the abrasive division chair, Richard McClintock, and the predatory Taylor Curzon. Known for her relentless pursuit of young male students, Taylor now has Daniel firmly in her sights. Emily knows Taylor must be stopped, but as she starts gathering evidence of Daniel's harassment, she has a disturbing flashback, and then makes a gruesome discovery . . . Can Emily catch a dangerous campus killer while also confronting events from her own past?

Emily Cavanaugh walks into a family drama that recalls Forster's classic work while honeymooning at an English country house in the gripping fifth Crime with the Classics cozy. Retired professor Emily Cavanaugh and her husband, Luke, are taking a much-needed break from Windy Corner and spending their honeymoon five thousand miles away as paying guests at Fizhugh Manor in Oxfordshire. Quaint nearby villages and the manor's impressive turrets and arches capture Emily's Anglophile heart, but when she meets its dashing young heir, James Fitzhugh and his American wife, Allison, James's cousin Penelope, his dithering uncle Roger and the manor's formidable dowager, Lady Margaret Fitzhugh, it's clear that class prejudice, resentment and secrets threaten to tear the family apart. Is there more to a fatal accident than meets the eye? Emily soon finds herself in the middle of a family drama redolent of Forster's classic novels, but can she pull off her own masterstroke to catch a killer?

When Emily Cavanaugh inherits a fortune from her great aunt, she expects her life to change. She doesn't expect to embark on a murder investigation, confront the man who broke her heart 35 years before, and nearly lose her own life. Emily travels to the sleepy coastal village of Stony Beach, Oregon, to claim her inheritance, centered in a beautiful Victorian estate called Windy Corner but also including a substantial portion of the real estate of the whole town. As she gets to know the town's eccentric inhabitants--including her own once-and-possibly-future love, Sheriff Luke Richards--she learns of a covert plan to develop Stony Beach into a major resort. She also hears hints that her aunt may have been murdered. Soon another suspicious death confirms this, and before long Emily herself experiences a near-fatal accident. Meanwhile, Emily reads Persuasion, hoping to find belated happiness with her first love as Anne Elliot did with Captain Wentworth. She notices a similarity between her not-quite-cousin Brock Runcible, heir to a smaller portion of her aunt's property, and Mr. Elliot in Persuasion, and her suspicions of Brock crystallize. But as she and Luke continue to investigate and events speed toward a climax, Emily realizes that underneath the innocent-looking rocks of Stony Beach lurk festering jealousies that would have shocked even the worst of Jane Austen's charming reprobates.

Writer's retreat Windy Corner becomes a sanctuary of a different kind when a man and his foster daughter are harassed by a social worker, with tragic consequences. Emily and Luke have returned from their honeymoon and are caught in a whirlwind of activity. Emily's half-brother, Oscar, and his fiancée want to be married at St Bede's Church in Stony Beach with a reception at Windy Corner. But they're not the only guests arriving at Emily's writers' retreat. Emily finds herself unexpectedly playing host to the family of the artist repairing the church's stained-glass window as well as Moses Valory and his foster daughter, Charlotte, who are seeking sanctuary after being harassed by social worker Janine Vertue. When Janine appears and is then discovered hanged in her hotel room, Emily uncovers shocking links between Janine, the rest of her guests at Windy Corner. Which one of them despised Janine enough to kill her?