Jane Jeffry, suburban sleuth extraordinare, and her friend, Detective Mel VanDyne, have braved a blizzard to join her friend Shelley at a Colorado ski resort. In spite of having all their kids along, Jane and Shelley imagine a few mindless days of relaxation. But their hopes are dashed on their first attempt to ski when Jane careens into a snowman that hides a very real — and every dead — body. The slopes are littered with suspects — a convention of genealogists led by a political fruitcake who thinks she's going to put her hand-picked Tsar on the Russian throne, a mysterious crimson-clad skier who's always on the horizon, and ex-stockbroker who's hiding from his investors, and an irate tribe of Native Americans. Jane has to take a census of the suspects and make some grave assumptions about who was vacationing with malicious intent.
Ramona wasn't much of a cleaning woman-some say she wouldn't know a dust bunny from a Doberman — but that's no reason to bump the old girl off, is it? Someone must think so: poor Ramona is found strangled to death with a vacuum chord. Jane Jeffry — mother of three, chairperson of more committees than you can shake a stick at, and part-time sleuth — sets out to find the killer and tie up the loose ends in this irresistible mystery. Grime and Punishment, winner of both Agatha and Macavity Awards for best first mystery book and nominated for an Anthony Award for the same honor, is the first in a series of seven books featuring Jane Jeffry.
When Jane and neighbor Shelley Nowack sign up for a gardening class at their local community center, they end up with a substitute, the pompous Dr. Stewart Eastman, after an unknown intruder sneaks into the home of the regular teacher, Julie Jackson, and knocks her out, leaving her in a coma. Suspects in the attack include everyone taking the gardening class: fastidious computer programmer Charles Jones, persnickety librarian Martha Winstead, lonely widower Arnie Waring and loony aging hippie Ursula Appledorn. But in this leisurely, talky tale, Jane is less concerned with crime solving than with visiting the gardens of her classmates, tending to her injured foot, worrying about her teenage son's unsuitable girlfriend and buying herself a new TV for her bedroom. Only near the end does a murder occur. Dr. Eastman is found strangled with green twine in a compost pile, after which Churchill brings the plot to a tidy conclusion, with the killer's motive turning on Dr. Eastman's patented pink marigolds.
When loathed attorney Robert Stonecipher is felled by a rack of hams at the opening of a neighborhood deli where Jane's son works, she and her friend, Shelley, begin snooping. With reluctant help from her boyfriend, homicide detective Mel VanDyne, Jane uncovers plenty of skeletons in closets, all the while trying to find time to restock her own pantry, chaperone the school's grand night party and make peace with her teenage daughter. Complicated by plenty of twists and seasoned with wit, the investigation of Stonecipher's death should build reader appeal for Churchill's first hardcover, War and Peas, scheduled for release in November.
Suburban supersleuth Jane Jeffry and her detective beau Mel VanDyne have finally decided to tie the knot. While Jane's planning the wedding of her dreams — with no overbearing mother-in-law to steamroll the entire event and tell her what to wear — Mel convinces her and her best friend Shelley to take a women's self-defense class. But before Jane and Shelley can learn the karate kicks and mean moves to fight off even the perfect purse-snatcher, their class is cut brutally short. . when two participants are murdered. Between her new writing project, an addition to the house, and battling mothers-in-law, she's got her hands full. But she'll have to make time to help Mel find the killer if she wants to walk happily — and safely — down the aisle.
What surprises can await a suburban housewife, going to a class reunion? Some get older, some get balder, some get… deader? A challenge for Jane Jeffry, who is a cross between Miss Marple and Erma Bombeck.
Homemaking is about to take on a whole new meaning for Jane Jeffry now that she's agreed to help restore and redecorate a decrepit old neighborhood mansion. The home's owner, the prosperously divorced Bitsy Burnside, considers herself to be a feminist to the max and wants an almost all-female crew to do the dirty work — prompting the quick-witted Shelley Nowack to dub the project "the House of Seven Mabels." With her best friend and decorating whiz Shelley on the estrogen-heavy team, Jane thinks this exhausting, plaster-dusty job may not be as unpleasant as it initially appeared to be.Until, of course, things start to get very messy. It begins with a series of mean-spirited "pranks" — strange odors, mysterious electrical shorts, a myriad of petty annoyances designed to impede the progress of the fixer-uppers. And then the pranks turn deadly, leaving one of the workers lying lifeless at the foot of a staircase.Tragic, yes, but an accident? Jane thinks not. And with the able assistance of Shelley, not to mention a little help from her best beau, Chicago detective Mel VanDyne, Jane's hoping she can construct a solid case and nail the assassin. Suspects are certainly in abundant supply.
Quintessential mom in tennis shoes Jane Jeffrey is once again thrust into a murder investigation, but this time the murderer is very close to home indeed. She finds herself in the midst of the Christmas rush and hosting two celebrations back-to-back: neighborhood caroling party one evening and a cookie exchange the following day. The two gatherings are meant to bring the community together, but when a TV reporter is found dead during the singing, it becomes obvious that at least one of the neighbors is harboring something besides goodwill towards men. As Jane and her coconspirator Shelly explore just who might have reason to shove someone off a roof, their sleepy suburb (Chicago is the ostensible nearby city, but the setting could be anywhere there is snow in December) suddenly steams with secrets.
Regina Palmer, director of the Snellen Museum (dedicated to the study of rural history and founded by pea king Auguste Snellen) near Chicago, has been shot with an antique derringer during the Civil War reenactment that is a highlight of the small town's annual pea festival. Jane Jeffry, who was one of the reenactors and who has her hands full as a single mother of three teenagers, utilizes her volunteer hours at the Snellen Museum to relentlessly pry beneath the surface of small-town respectability in hopes of finding Regina's killer. Was the murderer a rejected suitor? Was the insufferably arrogant Snellen family enraged that the museum took most of their inheritance? Was the killer (who strikes again in a particularly grisly fashion) seeking an heirloom pea? A slew of suspects?smarmy, lecherous, devious and greedy, but never dull?are queried by Jane and her equally nosy friend Shelley, with relevant information passed on to Mel.
Abigail Rosen, nicknamed Appassionata, was the sexiest, most flamboyant violinist in classical music, but she was also the loneliest and the most exploited girl in the world. When a dramatic suicide attempt destroyed her violin career, she set her sights on the male-dominated heights of the conductor's rostrum.
Given the chance to take over the Rutminster Symphony Orchestra, Abby is ecstatic, not realising the RSO is in hock up to its neck and is composed of the wildest bunch of musicians ever to blow a horn or caress a fiddle. Abby finds it increasingly difficult to control her undisciplined rabble and pretend she is not madly attracted to the fatally glamorous horn player, Viking O’Neill, who claims over every pretty woman joining the orchestra. And then Rannaldini, arch-fiend and international maestro, rolls up with Machiavellian plans of his own to sabotage the RSO.
Effervescent as champagne, Jilly Cooper's novel brings back old favourites like Rupert and Taggie Campbell-Black, but also ends triumphantly with a rampageous orchestral tour of Spain and the high drama of an international piano competition.
There was no doubt about it — Bella Parkinson was the most promising actress and a success. Rupert Henriques was rich enough to buy her every theatre in London if she wanted it and couldn’t wait to marry her. But Bella had a secret in her past and the one man who knew it was about to come into her life again. Soon she found herself in real danger. .
Shy, dreamy, and incurably romantic, Harriet Poole was shattered when her brief affair with Simon Villiers, Oxford’s leading playboy undergraduate, ended abruptly, leaving her penniless, alone and pregnant. She becomes a nanny to the children of an eccentric scriptwriter and a whole host of visitors begin to arrive to disrupt her routine including of all people, Simon.
As a librarian, Imogen read a lot of books, but none of them covered real life on the Riveria. Her holiday included a glamourous group; a tennis ace, a journalist, a playboy and a photographer who were all full of revelations – and so was she. A prize worth winning – a wild Yorkshire rose among the thorny model girls. Imogen began to wonder if virtue really was its own reward.
As soon as Octavia caught a glimpse of Jeremy in the nightclub, she knew she just had to have him. It didn’t matter that he was engaged to an old school friend of hers, Gussie. An invitation to join them on a cozy weekend is the perfect opportunity. But the the whizz-kid business tycoon Gareth Llewellyn come along too and manages to thwart her plans…
In Jilly Cooper's third Rutshire chronicle we meet Ricky France-Lynch, who is moody, macho, and magnificent. He had a large crumbling estate, a nine-goal polo handicap, and a beautiful wife who was fair game for anyone with a cheque book. He also had the adoration of fourteen-year-old Perdita MacLeod. Perdita couldn't wait to leave her dreary school and become a polo player. The polo set were ritzy, wild, and gloriously promiscuous. Perdita thought she'd get along with them very well.
But before she had time to grow up, Ricky's life exploded into tragedy, and Perdita turned into a brat who loved only her horses - and Ricky France-Lynch.
Ricky's obsession to win back his wife, and Perdita's to win both Ricky and a place as a top class polo player, take the reader on a wildly exciting journey – to the estancias of Argentina, to Palm Beach and Deauville, and on to the royal polo fields of England and the glamorous pitches of California where the most heroic battle of all is destined to be fought – a match that is about far more than just the winning of a huge silver cup...
The trouble with the Mulholland family, Prudence decided, was that they were all in love with the wrong people. She'd been overjoyed when Pendle, her super-cool barrister boyfriend, invited her home for the weekend to meet his family. At least she might get some reaction out of him - so far he hadn't so much as made a pass at her, after the first night when he'd nearly raped her. But home turned out to be a decaying mansion in the Lake District, and family were his glamorous, scatty mother who forgot the mounting bills by throwing wild parties, and brothers, Ace, dark and forbidding, and Jack, handsome, married and only too ready to take over with Pru if Pendle didn't get a move on. It was only when she noticed the way Pendle looked at Jack's wife Maggie that it began to dawn on Pru that there was more to this weekend than met the eye. It looked like a non-stop game of changing partners...
Jake Lovell, under whose magic hands the most difficult horse or woman becomes biddable, is driven to the top by his loathing of the beautiful bounder, Rupert Campbell-Black. Having filched each other's horses, and fought and fornicated their way around the capitals of Europe, the feud between two men finally erupts with devastating consequences.