Patricia Wentworth

An orphaned young woman discovers some long-lost relatives—and a murder—in this mystery from “a first-rate storyteller” (The Daily Telegraph).
  An orphan of the Second World War, Candida Sayle has gotten so used to life with her guardian that she never considered that she might have a family somewhere. When her guardian dies, a letter appears from an unheard-of aunt, informing Candida that it...

A family fortune may be motive for murder: “Miss Silver has her place in detective fiction as surely as Lord Peter Wimsey or Hercule Poirot” (Manchester Evening News).
 Jenny has never been one to feel sorry for herself. The illegitimate child of a wealthy man and a statureless woman, she has been an orphan since before she can remember. It is a hard life made bearable only by the kindness of her guardian, an old...

No one has seen Allegra Trent since she got married. Her husband, Geoffrey, swept her off her feet and out of London to a faraway town called Bleake, consumed with the dream of owning a ramshackle medieval estate known as "Ladies' Bane." Why he's so determined to live there no one knows, but Allegra postpones visits from family again and again, and then stops writing letters at all. Her family has begun to worry when suddenly her sister, Ione, finds...

A series of cruel letters upends life in a small village, and Miss Silver searches for the anonymous scribe It is through her friend Frank Abbott, of Scotland Yard, that Miss Silver first learns of the anonymous letters. A widowed cousin of his, living in a small country village, is being tortured by an unknown author who insinuates that the young woman's husband may not have died of natural causes. It is a case of the kind of cruelty that is all...

The governess-turned-sleuth looks into the dark secrets of a wealthy murder victim—"You can't go wrong with Miss Maud Silver" (The Observer).
Dorinda Brown takes a job working for the wealthy Porlock family on a whim, and quickly finds it to be the hardest position she has ever had. The father, Gregory, is a charming tyrant—just the sort of man her aunt always warned her about. His wife is an overfed fool, entirely...

In the English countryside, a man is caught up in an intricate web of greed and murder, in this mystery from the creator of Miss Silver
 
The nightmare begins when James Elliot gets lost on a dark, foggy country road. When he stops at a house to ask for directions, a woman rushes out and tells him to run. Seconds later, shots are fired.
 
After they escape the unknown shooter, Aspidistra Aspinall says she’s...

A high society house party in the country sets the stage for blackmail, sabotage, illicit passion, and murder in this witty, classic British mystery with a touch of political intrigue
 
The last thing London debutante Gay Hardwicke wants is to become involved in another one of her cousin’s messy jams. But Lady Sylvia Colesborough is in over her head this time: She claims she’s being blackmailed by the mysterious...

The British governess-turned-sleuth visits a small village hiding big secrets in this “timelessly charming” cozy mystery series (Charlotte MacLeod).
 The citizens of Melling are perfectly ordinary. Some might even consider them boring, but not Miss Maud Silver. It’s been some years since she gave up work as a governess to become a detective, and her fascination with people has served her well during that time. Now,...

When trouble starts at a newly inherited estate, Miss Silver must intervene Uncle Martin always had a dark sense of humor. Trapped for years in his manor taking care of relatives he despised, he looked forward to the day when, dead and buried, he would no longer have to concern himself with them. As a last joke, he willed his entire fortune away to a poor relation, and went to his grave a smiling man.   After years of toil, Marion Brand is shocked...

An entire family falls under suspicion when the prospect of an inheritance stirs up passions in this novel in the beloved British mystery series.
 An advertisement appears in the newspaper, asking for genealogical information from descendants of a certain Jeremiah Taverner, who died in long-ago 1888. It looks like an ordinary notice by a curious scholar, but the question is not nearly as simple as that. The man behind the ad is a...