The death of a librarian in Oxford's New Bodleian library stirs Sheila Malory to probe the victim's past.

In England, the dean of a cathedral is poisoned while having tea. Suspicion centers on his wife, who had to put up with his affairs, and on a brother wanting to sell family property which the dean opposed. Or did his death have something to do with church finances? Mrs. Malory, a friend of the family, investigates.

The sleuthing widow, Sheila Malory, leaves her cozy English village for a university in Pennsylvania to teach a course in literature. While there she investigates a murder, in the process providing a British perspective on American life. By the author of Mrs. Malory and the Festival Murders.

A friend asks for Sheila's help when his fiancée vanishes from her West County seaside town. Plumbing the depths of the coffee-morning circuit and the long memories of many a pillar of the local community leads Sheila to a horrific discovery.

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 local activity with military precision. When Sheila Malory gets roped into Annie's latest project - a village 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 finds...

Sheila's friend, larger-than-life Eva Jackson, has returned to the village of Taviscombe after losing her husband, Alan. A foreign correspondent, Alan reported on dangerous stories around the world from Libya to Afghanistan, but the cause of his death was more mundane: kidney failure in a London hospital. Still, he led a storied life, and much of his past lies in his writings, papers, and books now boxed away in Eva's garage. After Eva decides to...