Ellie Haskell Mystery

Voted one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association of America In this delectable debut that earned her instant acclaim, award-winning author Dorothy Cannell serves up a cozy murder mystery to be savored... Ellie Simons stands to inherit her Uncle Merlin's huge English country house. But on three utterly bizarre conditions. One: she must lose sixty-three pounds (rude!). Two: she must marry the fake fiance she's been passing off as her true love all weekend. And three: she must catch whoever killed Uncle Merlin in the first place. Her family constantly mock her single status (and her weight!), so Ellie hired a boyfriend for this latest awful family reunion at Merlin's Court. Bentley T. Haskell is devastatingly handsome and so annoying-and he's making this fake engagement very difficult... But Bentley and her catty family are the least of Ellie's worries. Uncle Merlin's death looks more than a little bit like murder. Which can only mean one thing. One of her horrid relatives is the killer... AN UTTERLY CHARMING ENGLISH COZY MURDER MYSTERY TO SINK YOUR TEETH INTO.

Award-winning author Dorothy Cannell serves up a delectable English cozy murder mystery. The men of Chitterton Fells are dropping like flies. And the membership of the Widows Club is growing bigger every day... Newlywed Ellie Haskell (nee Simons, thank you very much) is settling nicely into married bliss in the charming village of Chitterton Fells. Until she receives an alarming visit from Misses Hyacinth and Primrose Tramwell, of Flowers Detective Agency. The spinster sleuths suspect the local 'Widows Club' is cooking up more than innocent get-togethers for bereaved ladies. All the members' husbands were unfaithful. And all have met very sticky ends. To uncover the murdering masterminds, Ellie must pose as an unhappy betrayed wife. But can she catch the killers and keep new hubby Ben safe from the clutches of the Widows Club?

Award-winning author Dorothy Cannell serves up a delectable English cozy murder mystery... to die for. Married to the man of her dreams and expecting a darling little bundle of joy, Ellie Haskell is excited to put her feet up and play the part of pampered wife for the next nine months. But handsome hubby Ben has other ideas. He whisks her off to America for an exclusive gourmet cooking competition in Mud Creek, Illinois. And worse, they're staying in crumbling old gothic mansion that's straight out of a horror movie! Then two of their fellow chefs mysteriously disappear one night. Is this a haunted house? Or is someone cooking up more than they bargained for? Ellie decides to get to the bottom of these deliciously deadly goings-on-before her own husband is the next to vanish.

Before her beautiful bouncing babies came along, Ellie Haskell's life was a fairy tale. Marriage to the gorgeous super-chef Ben was going swimmingly before every day was filled with nappies, bottles and laundry. Determined to revive her love life, Ellie joins a new local ladies' group, Fully Female, which promises to restore some oomph back to her relationship by way of a Peach Melba Love Rub. But before long, things start going fatally wrong in the charming village of Chitterton Fells. First, one of Ellie's new friends from the group is electrocuted in her own bathtub. Then Ellie gets a call from another group member. Her husband has fallen to his death in their boudoir at a rather inopportune moment... One death could be an accident, but two is decidedly suspicious. Can Ellie save her marriage without falling foul of the curse of these femmes fatal?

Ellie Simons's delightful mother-in-law comes to visit for a simply lovely weekend of crocheted doilies, thinly-veiled insults, and passive-aggressive "suggestions." It's enough to make anyone wish their mother-in-law was dead. But it turns out the ladies of Chitterton Fells should be more careful what they wish for. Only last night Ellie and her friends raised their gin and tonics to toast an end to mothers-in-law the world over... The next day, Pamela Pomeroy's own MIL is found dead. Lady Kitty Pomeroy went over the handlebars of her bike into the village pond and drowned. Was it a horrid accident, or is someone really ridding Chitterton Fells of all the mothers-in-law? Ellie must catch this killer before her own darling mother-in-law is the next to be bumped off.

Chitterton Fells is all of a flutter. Along with every female member of the village Library League, Ellie Haskell has developed a veritable obsession with novels of the romance variety. The steamier, the better... But tragedy strikes when Miss Bunch the librarian is found dead between the non-fiction stacks. Then the local milkman collapses in broad daylight. Ellie decides that two heart attacks in one week is more than a little bit suspicious, so begins investigating. And that's when things really start hotting up. The hunky model who graces the covers of Ellie's favorite books turns up in Chitterton Fells! And someone is going after his entourage. They're being bumped off, one by one. Ellie must stop a twisted killer before they murder the man of her dreams.

This wickedly funny English whodunit was a Mystery Guild Main Selection. Its spunky heroine, interior decorator Ellie Haskell, aspires to live a perfectly normal life with her husband and children in their lovely old house. But bizarre events and outlandish characters keep landing on her doorstep in Chitterton Fells, the charming little village by the sea. Just when Ellie means to escape her hectic life by taking a vacation in France, her long-lost father shows up with the ashes of his lady love in his suitcase. Ellie becomes suspicious as Daddy recounts the details of his storybook romance with Harriet, the platinum-blonde ideal of English womanhood he met in a German biergarten. You will relish Cannell's keen sense of the absurd as the plot thickens to include a visit from a kleptomaniac aunt, a village production called Murder Most Fowl, and missing relics of the local saint, Ethelwort. Barbara Rosenblat, with her impeccable comic timing and flair for characterization, is the perfect narrator for Cannell's uproarious series.