Recommendations based on "Manna from Hades"

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time with her works outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible. She is regarded by generations of fans as the greatest mystery writer ever, and her novels are read and cherished the world over.Clarissa, the young wife of a Foreign Office Diplomat, delights in tweaking the sensibilities of her more serious friends and for playing a game she calls "supposing" - imagining a difficult situation and figuring out how people would respond. But Clarissa's lighthearted game becomes deadly serious when she discovers the dead body of an unknown person in her own drawing room. If that wasn't bad enough, her husband is on the way home with an important foreign politician and the attendant scandal of the dead body would irrevocably damage his career at the very least. Therefore, Clarissa decides to dispose of the body and persuades her three houseguests to help.But before she can get the body off the premises, a policeman arrives at her front door. The police received an anonymous tip about a murder in the house and have shown up to investigate. Now Clarissa must keep the body hidden, convince the skeptical police inspector that there has been no murder, and, in the meantime, find out who has been murdered, why, and what the body is doing in her house.

Agatha Christie’s most exotic murder mystery in a sumptuous hardback Special Edition.The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything – until she lost her life.Hercule Poirot recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: ‘I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.’ Yet in this exotic setting’ nothing is ever quite what it seems…

Combining the best of modern forensic thrillers with the drama of medieval fiction, New York Times–bestselling author Ariana Franklin returns with the third title in the Mistress of the Art of Death series.England, 1176. Beautiful, tranquil Glastonbury Abbey— one of England’s holiest sites, and believed by some to be King Arthur’s sacred Isle of Avalon—has been burned almost to the ground. The arsonist remains at large, but the fire has uncovered something even more shocking: two hidden skeletons, a man and a woman. The skeletons’ height and age send rumors flying—are the remains those of Arthur and Guinevere?King Henry II hopes so. Struggling to put down a rebellion in Wales, where the legend of Celtic savior Arthur is particularly strong, Henry wants definitive proof that the bones are Arthur’s. If the rebels are sure that the Once and Future King will not be coming to their aid, Henry can stamp out the insurgence for good. He calls on Adelia Aguilar, Mistress of the Art of Death, to examine the bones.Henry’s summons comes not a moment too soon, for Adelia has worn out her welcome in Cambridge. As word of her healing powers has spread, so have rumors of witchcraft. So Adelia and her household ride to Glastonbury, where the investigation into the abbey fire will be overseen by the Church authorities—in this case, the Bishop of St. Albans, who happens also to be the father of Adelia’s daughter.

Inspector William Monk has his hands full when an aristocrat's daugher is stabbed to death in her own bed. He is instructed to proceed without delay, but finds his efforts hamstrung by the lingering traces of amnesia and the craven ineptitutde of his supervisor, who would love to see him fail. With the help of Hester Latterly, formerly a nurse with Florence Nightingale, Monk gropes warily through the silence and shadows, knowing that with each step he comes closer to the appalling truth.... "A richly textured, masterfully plotted, thoroughly enjoyable story." THE KIRKUS REVIEWS

A violent past haunts Sir Walter Maltravers, the wealthy lord of Ingoldby Hall. As a commander during the War of the Roses, he fought alongside Edward IV at the bloody, fratricidal Battle of Towton. Decades earlier, and thousands of miles away, he served in the fanatical bodyguard of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaeologus.There, as Turkish Jannisaries breached Constantinople’s walls and set the city aflame, Sir Walter committed what may have been an unforgivable sin: instead of defending the emperor with his last drop of blood, Maltravers fled. But not before scooping up all the treasure he could carry, including the Lacrima Christi---a giant ruby said to be a holy relic of incalculable value.When the ruby disappears from Canterbury’s Franciscan monastery, Sir Walter fears the emperor’s vengeful loyalists---the Athanatoi---have tracked him to his estate. He doesn’t have much time to ponder his dilemma. Crawling on his bare knees to the shrine at the center of his enormous private hedge maze, the penitent Sir Walter encounters his axe-wielding killer. . . . Maltravers’s head turns up days later, impaled on a pole.Gossips in Canterbury whisper of the fabled Athanatoi, come to claim their bloody due from a traitor. But apothecary Kathryn Swinbrooke doesn’t think so. Her Irish fiancée, Colum Murtagh, the King’s Commissioner in Canterbury, is called in to investigate the crimes. A Renaissance woman in a Middle Age world, Swinbroke comes to believe that all is not as it seems within the cozy confines of Ingoldby Hall. She asks tough questions of the wealthy power-players who seem to hover around the murder case. And before long, the death toll mounts: a maid, a madwoman, a scribe, a retainer. . . . One thing becomes abundantly clear: if Swinbrooke and Murtagh don’t nail down the killer---or killers---soon, they’ll be next!

"Diane Fallon has been working hard to put the past behind her, and she has established herself as the head of the River Trail Museum of Natural History. Late one night at the museum, Diane is shocked when terrified cries lead her to an injured man--a former coworker Diane recognizes from her time as a human rights activist in South America. Clutching a child's femur in his hands, he whispers to her, 'It was one of us--' and dies. Left with a body, a bone, and a cryptic message, Diane has to dig into her past with World Accord International--before the next human rights abused are hers."--P. [4] of cover.

The eleventh cozy mystery featuring everyone’s favorite phantom-detective. Watch out for Nancy Atherton's latest, Aunt Dimity and the King's Ransom, coming in July 2018 from Viking!Nancy Atherton ’s Aunt Dimity novels have enchanted thousands of readers, and this new addition to the series is likely to broaden the spell. A series of death threats sends Lori Shepard to a remote island off the Scottish coast and to a fabulous castle restored by an eccentric friend of her husband’s. But she finds herself drawn into an elaborate whodunit that may involve smuggling—or worse. Why has a human skull washed up on the beach? Is a desolate island really the best place to hide from a murderer? As Lori draws once more on Aunt Dimity’s supernatural aid, Atherton whips equal measures of whimsy and suspense into an irresistible confection.

Life isn’t all sunny in Fort Lauderdale’s Lanai Gardens. Returning from a blissful double honeymoon with her sister Evvie, Gladdy Gold announces that she wants her new hubby, Jack, to join her detective agency. But Gladdy’s gals say no dice, and soon Ida, Sophie, and Bella are striking out on their own, enrolling in a class to learn how to be real PIs. But there’s more than enough trouble for two detective agencies when sultry Joyce Steiner moves in, reopening an old rivalry with Arlene Simon, whose husband ran off with Joyce fifty-five years earlier. When Joyce is found murdered, Arlene becomes the prime suspect, and Gladdy and her girls will have to band together if they’re going to prove that the truth is not just elusive but a real killer.

Croquet is a genteel game, usually played on a summer afternoon on a tranquil green lawn. Extreme Croquet is a whole other story. That's what Meg Langslow and her new friends (whether she wants to call them friends or not) are playing on the several-acre farm of her new neighbor. It's a countryside studded with rocks, steep hills, and placid, seemingly immovable cows. Extreme Croquet is the current rage in Caerphilly, where Meg and her fiancé, Michael, have bought a house. While this society game can get quite warm, it hasn't reached the stage of actual homicide---at least not until Meg knocks her ball down a small cliff and encounters the body of a dead woman. Her head has been bashed in, illustrating, perhaps, one of the many uses of a croquet mallet. It turns out that Michael knew the woman from years before. Meg finds herself further drawn in when it's discovered that the woman was seeking to expose the bad dealings of a certain local society lady's ancestors. In the meantime, the old house needs many basic improvements and swarms with an entire family of working men, including countless second cousins, sawing and pounding away. Meg's father is the overseer but is easily distracted since he has a tendency to become wrapped up in his current animal charges---this time it's ducks. One of the beauties of fiction is that you can enjoy reading about someone who has been knocked on the head and killed. The particular joy that Donna Andrews offers mystery lovers everywhere is the wonderful gift of laughter. Her novels, filled with crazy relatives, puzzling murders, and the hilarious conquests of Meg, make for a combination found nowhere else. Fine-feathered friends are only one of the treats in this award-winning series from Donna Andrews, an author whose name has become synonymous with lighthearted, knee-slapping fun.

By Jenn McKinlay, author of the Library Lover's mysteries and the Cupcake Bakery mysteries, writing as Josie Belle Maggie Gerber and those discount divas, the Good Buy Girls, are gearing up for their first big holiday thrift shop sale. But one of the Girls--Joanne Claramotta, pregnant with her first child--is acting less than festive. It could be hormones. Or it could be Diane Jenkins, the young knockout her husband, Michael, hired as his new deli assistant. Calming Joanne's nerves proves impossible when Maggie finds Michael unconscious on his deli floor--and with Diane next to him, strangled to death with her apron strings. Then Maggie discovers something even more disturbing. There's no record of Diane having been hired. In fact, she has no history at all. It's as if she never even existed. Now Maggie fears that unwrapping Michael's secrets could really kill her holiday spirit. INCLUDES BARGAIN-HUNTING TIPS!