Recommendations based on "Vanished in the Crowd A Molly Murphy Mystery"

Lady Georgiana Rannoch is just back from her honeymoon with dashing Darcy O’Mara when a friend in need pulls her into a twisted Gothic tale of betrayal, deception and, most definitely, murder. . . .I am a bit at loose ends at the moment. My cook, Queenie, is making my new role as mistress of Eynsleigh something akin to constant torture as Darcy is off on another one of his top secret jaunts. And Grandad is busy helping wayward youths avoid lives of crime. So when my dearest friend, Belinda, inherits an old cottage in Cornwall and begs me to go with her to inspect the property, I jump at the chance.After a heart-stopping journey in Belinda’s beast of a motorcar, we arrive at the creaky old cottage called White Sails and quickly realize that it is completely uninhabitable. Just when I’m starting to wonder if I would have been better off trying to get Queenie to cook a roast that hasn’t been burnt beyond all recognition, we meet Rose Summers, a woman Belinda knew as a child when she spent time in Cornwall. Rose invites us to stay at Trewoma Hall, the lovely estate now owned by her husband, Tony.Belinda confesses that she never liked Rose and had a fling with Tony years ago, so staying with them is far from ideal but beggars can’t be choosers as they say. Trewoma is not the idyllic house Belinda remembers. There’s something claustrophobic and foreboding about the place. Matters aren’t helped by the oppressively efficient housekeeper Mrs. Mannering or by the fact that Tony seems to want to rekindle whatever he and Belinda once had right under his wife’s nose.Our increasingly awkward visit soon turns deadly when a member of the household is found murdered and all clues point to Belinda as the prime suspect. I soon learn that some long buried secrets have come back to haunt those in residence at Trewoma Hall and I’ll need to sift through the ruins of their past so Belinda doesn’t lose her chance at freedom in the present. . . .

Pandemic lockdowns have Ruth Galloway feeling isolated from everyone but a new neighbor--until Nelson comes calling, investigating a decades-long string of murder-suicides that's looming ever closer, in USA Today Elly Griffiths' penultimate novel in the beloved series. Three years after her mother's death, Ruth is finally sorting through her things when she finds a curious relic: a decades-old photograph of her own Norfolk cottage--before she lived there--with a peculiar inscription on the back. Ruth returns to the cottage to uncover its meaning as Norfolk's first cases of Covid-19 make headlines, leaving her and Kate to shelter in place there. They struggle to stave off isolation by clapping for frontline workers each evening and befriending a kind neighbor, Zoe, from a distance. Meanwhile, Nelson is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links a case to an archaeological discovery, he breaks curfew to visit Ruth and enlist her help. But the further Nelson investigates the deaths, the closer he gets to Ruth's isolated cottage--until Ruth, Zoe, and Kate all go missing, and Nelson is left scrambling to find them before it's too late. PRAISE FOR ELLY GRIFFITHS AND THE RUTH GALLOWAY SERIES Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel Winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award Winner of the CWA Dagger in the Library Award "Galloway is an everywoman, smart, successful and a little bit unsure of herself. Readers will look forward to learning more about her." --USA Today "Elly Griffiths draws us all the way back to prehistoric times . . . Highly atmospheric." --New York Times Book Review "Forensic archeologist and academic Ruth Galloway is a captivating amateur sleuth--an inspired creation. I identified with her insecurities and struggles, and cheered her on." --Louise Penny

New York Times Bestseller • Now a MASTERPIECE mystery series on PBS! Bestselling author Anthony Horowitz brings back his famous literary detective Atticus Pund and Susan Ryeland, hero of Magpie Murders, in an inventive, labyrinthine story that is “catnip for classic mystery lovers” (Time magazine). Retired publisher Susan Ryeland is living the good life. She is running a small hotel on a Greek island with her long-term boyfriend Andreas. It should be everything she's always wanted. But is it? She's exhausted with the responsibilities of making everything work on an island where nothing ever does, and truth be told she's beginning to miss London. And then the Trehearnes come to stay. The strange and mysterious story they tell, about an unfortunate murder that took place on the same day and in the same hotel in which their daughter was married—a picturesque inn on the Suffolk coast named Farlingaye Hall—fascinates Susan and piques her editor’s instincts.  One of her former writers, the late Alan Conway, author of the fictional Magpie Murders, knew the murder victim—an advertising executive named Frank Parris—and once visited Farlingaye Hall. Conway based the third book in his detective series, Atticus Pund Takes the Cake, on that very crime.  The Trehearne’s, daughter, Cecily, read Conway’s mystery and believed the book proves that the man convicted of Parris’s murder—a Romanian immigrant who was the hotel’s handyman—is innocent. When the Trehearnes reveal that Cecily is now missing, Susan knows that she must return to England and find out what really happened. Brilliantly clever, relentlessly suspenseful, full of twists that will keep readers guessing with each revelation and clue, Moonflower Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage English crime fiction from one of its greatest masterminds.  

 The Blackbird sisters are back--and as witty and wonderful as ever! For richer, for poorer...                                                               Nora Blackbird, the Bucks County ex-debutante with a haute couture wardrobe, a hot job as a glamorous society columnist and a stone cold bank account, might finally have her own life just right, but everyone around her is going down in flames. Her sister Libby seems destined to be the lead character in a tabloid sex scandal.  Her sister Emma is expecting a mysterious love child.  Her best friend, Lexie Paine, is serving time in the slammer.  And now her mobbed-up boyfriend, Mick Abruzzo--who might actually be her husband--is conducting clandestine capers from Blackbird Farm while under house arrest. What's a good girl to do?  Find a killer, that's what!  Word arrives that the sisters' great aunt, Madeleine Blackbird, has died in a volcanic eruption on an Indonesian island and left her fabulous country estate, worth millions, to the three of them.  But when the Blackbird sisters show up to claim their windfall, they find the house in a state of disheartening decay and all of Madeleine's to-die-for treasures gone. Worse, the mansion has been hiding a grisly secret: the body of a woman who died there many years ago.  All the evidence points to a high society murder... Nora's special bond with flamboyant Aunt Madeleine compels her to seek out the truth.  With her aunt's amorous stepson dogging her footsteps, her unscrupulous lawyer acting like a skunk, and her devoted housekeeper not to be found, Nora's investigation is going nowhere.  Good thing Mick's close by to offer Nora distractions both dark and delightful.  And, as ever, her irrepressible sisters provide some unexpected... and highly unorthodox... assistance when she most needs it.

She’s found peace living alongside the Amish… But she can’t escape her past. Artist Liana Mann is stunned to learn her husband, missing for ten years, has been found murdered. Now Officer Kent Olson seeks to solve the cold case—with Liana’s help. The faster he unravels the mystery, the sooner he can return to regular duties. Liana wants nothing to do with the police, yet Kent intrigues her. But will digging into the past create new problems? New York Times Bestselling Author

Spring has sprung in Briar Creek, but it is not all sunshine and roses, in the newest Library Lover's Mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of One for the Books. Spring is livening up Briar Creek after a long, cold winter, and newlyweds Lindsey and Sully could not be happier. Even though the upcoming mayoral election is getting heated, everything else in town is coming up daffodils...until a body is found. Ms. Cole, a librarian and current candidate for town mayor, is shocked when she opens her trunk to discover a murder victim who just so happens to be a guy she dated forty years ago and the founder of the baking empire Nana's Cookies. As the town gossip mill turns, a batch of rumors begins to circulate about Ms. Cole's rebellious youth, which--along with being a murder suspect--threatens to ruin her life and her budding political career. But Ms. Cole is one tough cookie who will not go down without a fight. Has the campaign for mayor turned deadly? It is up to Lindsey, Sully, and the rest of the crafternoon pals to see how the cookie crumbles and figure out who is trying to frame Ms. Cole for murder and why.

Kathleen Paulson is snowed under running her library and caring for her extraordinary felines, Owen and Hercules. But when a holiday fund-raiser turns deadly, she’ll have to add sleuthing to her already full schedule...Winter in Mayville Heights is busy and not just because of the holidays. Kathleen is hard at work organizing a benefit to raise money for the library’s popular Reading Buddies program. She has her hands full hosting the event. And when a guest at the gala drops dead, her magical cats, Owen and Hercules, will have their paws full helping her solve a murder.The victim is the ex of town rascal Burtis Chapman, but she hasn’t lived in the area in years. And though everybody is denying knowledge of why she was back in town, as Kathleen and her detective boyfriend, Marcus, begin nosing around, they discover more people are connected to the deceased than claimed to be. Now Marcus, Kathleen, and her uncanny cats have to unravel this midwinter tale before the case gets cold.

In this Gaslight Mystery from the national bestselling author of Murder in Murray Hill, midwife Sarah Brandt and Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy investigate foul play in the secretive high-society world of nineteenth-century New York City… In the midst of Sarah and Frank’s wedding preparations, Sarah accompanies her mother on a condolence call to the Upper West Side, where Charles Fairfax, the son of family friends, has died unexpectedly after suffering from a mysterious disease. It is a tragic and all too common story—or so it seems. Charles’s father asks to speak with Sarah privately. He believes his son was poisoned and would like Sarah and Frank to look into the matter with the utmost discretion. Putting their own personal affairs on hold, Sarah and Frank soon learn that not everyone wants to know more about Charles’s death, particularly if he was murdered. As they unravel secrets that reach back to the War Between the States, they also discover that they are in the company of a very present danger…

Beloved heroine Maisie Dobbs, “one of the great fictional heroines” (Parade), investigates the mysterious murder of an American war correspondent in London during the Blitz in a page-turning tale of love and war, terror and survival. When Catherine Saxon, an American correspondent reporting on the war in Europe, is found murdered in her London digs, news of her death is concealed by British authorities. Serving as a linchpin between Scotland Yard and the Secret Service, Robert MacFarlane pays a visit to Maisie Dobbs, seeking her help. He is accompanied by an agent from the US Department of Justice—Mark Scott, the American who helped Maisie escape Hitler’s Munich in 1938. MacFarlane asks Maisie to work with Scott to uncover the truth about Saxon’s death. As the Germans unleash the full terror of their blitzkrieg upon the British Isles, raining death and destruction from the skies, Maisie must balance the demands of solving this dangerous case with her need to protect Anna, the young evacuee she has grown to love and wants to adopt. Entangled in an investigation linked to the power of wartime propaganda and American political intrigue being played out in Britain, Maisie will face losing her dearest friend—and the possibility that she might be falling in love again.

In the latest installment of the New York Times bestselling series, a series of possible attacks on British pilots leads Jacqueline Winspear's beloved heroine Maisie Dobbs into a mystery involving First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Late September, 1942. Jo Hardy, a 22-year-old ferry pilot, is delivering a Spitfire to Biggin Hill Aerodrome when she realizes someone is shooting at her aircraft. When she returns to the location on foot, she finds an American serviceman in a barn, tied up and gagged. Jo hurries away, but can't shake the image of the serviceman from her mind. Several days later, when Jo recounts the story to several other women, she receives the news that Erica, another ferry pilot--flying the same route she had--has been killed in a crash near Kent. Erica's death is attributed to "pilot error," but Jo is convinced there is a link between her own experience and Erica's--and that of Jo's dead fiancé, who was killed over a year earlier under inexplicable circumstances in the same area. At the suggestion of an Australian colleague, Jo takes her suspicions to Maisie Dobbs, along with two pages of coded notes she found in the barn. If someone is trying to take down much-needed pilots, Maisie wants to find out why--and what happened to the bound American serviceman. But before she can even begin to investigate, her new husband, Mark Scott, finds the documents and demands to know how they came to be in her possession: The papers pertain to an upcoming diplomatic mission by Eleanor Roosevelt on behalf of the United States' president--and now the First Lady's safety has been compromised. To protect Eleanor's life--and possibly the safety of all of London--Maisie must quickly uncover the connection between the pilot deaths, the mysterious American soldier, and the top-secret documents.