The Beeler Large Print mystery series

A village in north Wales is split over a project to turn the ruins of a castle into a tourist attraction. The argument between economists and environmentalists leads to murders and Constable Evan Evans has work to do.

Father Roger Dowling is a busy man. He's got the ambitious and all-encompassing task of running St. Hilary's Parish, dealing with his busybody housekeeper, Mrs. Murkin, and counseling his flock with his characteristic blend of faith and compassion. He's not complaining, but it's no surprise that even a superior priest like Father Dowling needs a break now and again. So off he heads for a week-long retreat in Indiana on the quiet grounds of an old Catholic religious order, where he can meditate, reflect, and pray for a quick recharge of his waning energy. Unfortunately, Father Dowling's spiritual retreat turns into a baffling murder investigation when a dead man is found in a grotto on the grounds with the handle of an axe protruding from his back. Complicating matters is a long-running real-estate dispute that has pitted the brothers of the order against the previous owners of the huge and valuable piece of land on which their sanctuary sits. Who could have killed the man and why, and does it have something to do with the high-stakes mind games being played out between the parties vying for the land? No one's too sure, but what is clear is that Father Dowling is once again at the center of it all in another winning entry in a mystery series that's become an institution.

Caterer and small-town minister's wife Faith Fairchild might never have accepted the job teaching a course on Cooking for Idiots at Mansfield Academy had it not been for Daryl Martin. An African-American student at the prestigious prep school, Daryl has lately become the target of a series of vicious and anonymous racial attacks -- and Faith is determined to put an end to the injustice. But Mansfield, she finds, is a seething cauldron of secrets, academic in-fighting, and unspoken rules that complicate her task. When someone tampers with her classroom cooking ingredients -- and then the remains of her prime suspect are discovered smoldering in a campus bonfire -- she realizes that a monstrous evil is stalking both Daryl and the school. And suddenly Faith's own life is in serious jeopardy as well!

t's So hard to Kill Good Help These Days. . . With three kids to raise on her own, Jane Jeffry sometimes needs a hand with the housework. But many of her complaining neighbors believe that the Happy Helper cleaning lady they all share wouldn't know a dustball if she was choking on it. That hardly seems reason enough, however, to do the disreputable domestic in. So when the charwoman in question is discovered strangled to death with a vacuum cleaner cord, Jane decides to dig up the real dirt--if the tenacious single mom can find any time to spare between her PTA meetings and car-pooling duties. But despite her busy schedule, Jane is determined to tidy up the whole murderous mess--even if it means provoking a killer who may live as close as next door.

A dead woman returns to life as guardian angel for Mary Murphy in order to sort her life. Mary is in a state, her fiancé dropped her for another woman, she lost her job, and her adoptive mother died in mysterious circumstances.

A refugee from city life, Constable Evan Evans hardly gets a chance to settle down in Llanfair, a secluded Welsh village with plenty of local color, before he must investigate the murder of two hikers on a mountain.

Things are finally looking up for Annie Swann, illustrator of children's books and niece of local sleuth Homer Kelly. After years of dead-end romances and broken dreams, one of Annie's favorite wishes is coming true at last. All she wanted was a new wing on the east end of her house, complete with a blank wall, thirty-five feet long. Here she could begin her most treasured work yet: a painting rich and complex, thick with fairy stories, honoring her lifelong obsession. And now she has it - an enormous empty canvas upon which she has finally begun her masterpiece. But without warning, her luck begins to run dry. There appears on her new wall, over and over again, a mysterious face, no matter how often she paints it out. Is someone trying to send Annie a message? If so, what is it, and who would do such a thing? As if the wicked face were a portent of things to come, Annie's dreams soon come crashing down. She finds her tenants' eight-year-old son, Eddy Gast, dead beneath her beautiful wall. Eddy's parents blame Annie for his death and decide to sue her for all she's worth. It becomes a case for Homer Kelly as Annie enlists his aid in a deadly showdown.

In Wales, constable Evan Evans investigates the murder of a famous opera singer who came to the area for a rest. Suspects abound, including his wife, his lover and a dissatisfied son.

Mary Alice has spared nothing for her only daughter's wedding -- from seventy-five yards of bridal train to gourmet food for over three hundred guests and enough glittering elegance to make Mary Alice think about finding herself a fourth rich husband to pay for it all. Practical Patricia Anne has put away her aunt-of-the-bride blue chiffon and settled back into domesticity when fun-loving Mary Alice calls to say they have a post-wedding date with a genealogist from the groom's side of the family. Lunch is a fascinating lesson on the hazards of finding dirty linens in ancestral boudoirs that ends abruptly when their guest scurries off with the local judge, leaving the sisters with their mouths open -- and finishing their luncheon companion's cheesecake -- when the police arrive. Their mysterious guest has taken a plunge from the ninth floor of the courthouse building -- an apparent suicide. But given the scandals a nosy genealogist might have uncovered, the sisters are betting that some proud Southern family is making sure their shameful secrets stay buried. . .along with anyone who tries to dig them up.

Patricia Anne can't imagine why Mary Alice is in such an uproar over her son Ray's new bride. Sunshine Dabbs is Ucute as can be," even if she is a bit unconventional, which should hardly come as a shock to Mary Alicc given that she's the one who raised her boy. But with all her motherly instincts, Mary Alice is sure that this sweet little blonde Barbie doll--who met her son in Bora Bora after she won the trip on Wheel of Fortune--thinks she's found herself a fortune in Ray's hefty wallet. The sisters can't wait to get a look at Sunshine's family, and quite a look it turns out to be. As soon as Meemaw Turkett invites Mary Alice and Patricia Anne into her cozy trailer on the family compound they stumble over a corpse, and Meemaw's best hog butchering knife is stuck in its chest. Meemaw, a Cabbage Patch look-alike and Sunshine's grandmother, guardian, and the family matriarch is shocked to pieces and immediately summons the family to her trailer. Pawpaw, a lovable bearded grump has his own trailer, and their grown kids each enjoy a private home-away-from-home on the five-trailer compound. The discovery of the mysterious body brings in Mary Alice's nemesis, good ol' boy Sheriff Reuse, who, she knows from her experience at the Skoot 'n' Boot, is nothing but trouble. Within minutes, the compound is strewn with a weird collection of friends, neighbors and relatives. There's Meemaw's spooky channeler, ready to give guidance as needed; Sunshine's jilted boyfriend skulking around; a bunch of dogs ready to attack...and Kerrigan, Sunshine's mostly absentee mama, who stars in the kind of video flicks that might even shock Mary Alice. Patricia Anne can't imagine why Mary Alice is in such an uproar over her son Ray's new bride. Sunshine Dabbs is Ucute as can be," even if she is a bit unconventional, which should hardly come as a shock to Mary Alicc given that she's the one who raised her boy. But with all her motherly instincts, Mary Alice is sure that this sweet little blonde Barbie doll--who met her son in Bora Bora after she won the trip on Wheel of Fortune--thinks she's found herself a fortune in Ray's hefty wallet. The sisters can't wait to get a look at Sunshine's family, and quite a look it turns out to be. As soon as Meemaw Turkett invites Mary Alice and Patricia Anne into her cozy trailer on the family compound they stumble over a corpse, and Meemaw's best hog butchering knife is stuck in its chest. Meemaw, a Cabbage Patch look-alike and Sunshine's grandmother, guardian, and the family matriarch is shocked to pieces and immediately summons the family to her trailer. Pawpaw, a lovable bearded grump has his own trailer, and their grown kids each enjoy a private home-away-from-home on the five-trailer compound. The discovery of the mysterious body brings in Mary Alice's nemesis, good ol' boy Sheriff Reuse, who, she knows from her experience at the Skoot 'n' Boot, is nothing but trouble. Within minutes, the compound is strewn with a weird collection of friends, neighbors and relatives. There's Meemaw's spooky channeler, ready to give guidance as needed; Sunshine's jilted boyfriend skulking around; a bunch of dogs ready to attack...and Kerrigan, Sunshine's mostly absentee mama, who stars in the kind of video flicks that might even shock Mary Alice.

Murder on a Bad Hair DayIt's hard to believe practical, petite ex-schoolteacher Patricia Anne and amiable, ample-bodied, and outrageous Mary Alice are sisters, yet sibling rivalry has survived decades of good-natured disagreement about everything from husbands to hair color. No sooner do the Southern sisters discover a common interest in some local art, when they're arguing the artistic merits of some well-coiffured heads at a gallery opening. A few hours later, one of those pretty ladies ends up dead -- with not a hair out of place. The other shows up on Patricia Anne's doorstep dazed, disheveled, and telling a wild tale of a narrow escape from some deadly cuts. Now the sisters are once again combing for clues to catch a killer with a bizarre style in art -- and murder.

Caterer Faith Sibley becomes embroiled in her first mystery after Emma Stanstead, a former high-school classmate is threatened by an anonymous blackmailer.

In Gillian Roberts's captivating novels of Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, with its narrow streets and venerable architecture, can suddenly shiver in the icy winds of menace. Then it becomes a startlingly deceptive place, where evildoers masquerade as Old Philadelphians and law-abiding folk stand accused of unspeakable crimes.Philly Prep English teacher Amanda Pepper isn't sure what category her bright senior student Adam Evans falls into, but she fears for him. Increasingly erratic, unkempt, and isolated, Adam is an accident waiting to happen. So when a young woman is murdered at the landmark Free Library while Amanda and her class are touring the premises, Adam--now mysteriously missing--becomes the prime suspect.But unlike the police--including her detective boyfriend--Amanda is dead certain that Adam is both innocent and in terrible danger. And he's not alone. For the more Amanda sifts through the layers of the victim's life, the closer she comes to losing her own.Stylish, literate, darkly humorous, with a matchless feeling for characters and locale, the novels of Gillian Roberts always deliver the goods. Her sparkling ninth Amanda Pepper mystery proves yet again that she is indeed "the Dorothy Parker of mystery writers . . . giving more wit per page than most writers give per book."Nancy PickardFrom the Hardcover edition.

Oversized, outrageous Mary Alice and her prim sister Patricia Anne have been looking forward to the gala benefit being staged to raise money for the restoration of Vulcan, Birmingham's ever-tarnishing unnatural wonder. And what a show it is, with a grand finale that has thirty sequined Elvis impersonators high-kicking in unison! From the front row, "Mouse" and "Sister" have a perfect view of the action when one of the dancing Kings keels over dead into the bandstand. This Elvis clone has not only left the building ... he's left this life, courtesy of a switchblade knife in the back. And when the murder weapon turns up in Patricia Anne's very sensible purse, the perennially law-abiding "Mouse" is understandably all shook up. Suspicious minds have her pegged as the prime suspect in this bizarre case of Elvis elimination. And if she doesn't do some serious sleuthing, she could end up doing the Jailhouse Rock!

Abigail Timberlake Washburn would rather be anywhere else on a muggy Charleston summer evening — even putting in extra hours at her antiques shop — than at a seance. But her best friend, "Calamity Jane," thinks a spirit — or "Apparition American," as ectoplasmically-correct Abby puts it — lurks in the eighteenth-century Georgian mansion, complete with priceless, seventeenth-century Portuguese kitchen tiles, that C.J. just bought as a fixer-upper. Luckily, Abby's mama located a psychic in the yellow pages — a certain Madame Woo-Woo — and, together with a motley group of feisty retirees known as the "Heavenly Hustlers," they all get down to give an unwanted spook the heave-ho. But, for all her extrasensory abilities, the Madame didn't foresee that she, herself, would be forced over to the other side prematurely. Suddenly Abby fears there's more than a specter haunting C.J. And they'd better exorcise a flesh-and-blood killer fast before the recently departed Woo-Woo gets company.

A hike in the woods has memorable consequences for dog writer Holly Winter in this latest of Susan Conant's Dog Lover's Mysteries.When Holly Winter awakens, battered and bruised, clinging to a boulder on the side of a cliff, she doesn't even recognize her own beloved malamutes, Rowdy and Kimi, much less remember their names--or her own. She does, however, realize they're her dogs, and that she is--to put it mildly--a "dog person." And she vaguely remembers hearing a sinister voice from above.Putting clues together, she discovers that she is in Acadia National Park, on Mount Desert Island, Maine, and that she's the guest of one Gabrielle Beamon, a most attractive and charming woman, whom Holly doesn't recognize at all. When it is discovered that there was another fall, this one fatal, at approximately the same time and close to the same place as Holly's, she begins to fear for her own safety. In fact, she has all she can do to figure out what's going on without giving away her own loss of memory.You'll be licking your chops with glee as the dog fanciers in Conant's eclectic and eccentric group of characters once more prove themselves smarter and more resourceful in every way than their more anthropocentric counterparts.From the Hardcover edition.

Though they'd rather be boiled in oil, Judith McMonigle Flynn and her cantankerous cousin Renie have agreed to cater a seventy-fifth birthday bash for their batty old Uncle Boo Major, the billionaire breakfast mush magnate. Luckily their culinary obligations keep them busy in the kitchen of the sprawling Major manor and away from most of their contemptible kin -- until the septuagenarian birthday boy is discovered deceased behind his locked den door. Someone slew Uncle Boo...but who? A plethora of last wills popping up all over the place makes virtually everybody a suspect -- Judith and Renie included. And that's forcing the cousins out on a limb, where they must attempt to pick the true culprit from among the many nuts on their twisted family tree.

She looks good, doesn't she, Patricia Anne, in spite of being dead," my sister, Mary Alice, whispered.

This brand new Thoroughly Southern Mystery from the author of Who Invited the Dead Man? finds Georgia magistrate MacLaren Yarbrough investigating the murder of a dear family friend-and uncovering more dark secrets about their lives than she ever wanted to know.

During her years spent in New York City. Faith Fairchild was convinced she had seen pretty much everything, but the transplanted caterer/minister's wife was unprepared for the surprises awaiting her in the sleepy Massachusetts village of Aleford. She is especially taken aback by the dead body of a pretty young thing she discovers stashed in the church's belfry. The victim, Cindy Shepherd. was well-known locally for her acid tongue and her jilted beaux, which created a lot of bad blood and more than a few possible perpetrators, including her luckless fiance, who had neither an alibi nor a better way to break off the engagement. Faith thinks it's terribly unfair that the police have zeroed in on the hapless boyfriend, and so she sets out to uncover the truth, but digging too deeply into the sordid secrets of a small New England village tends to make the natives nervous. And an overly curious big city lady can become just another small town death statistic in very short order.

Transplanted New York caterer Faith Fairchild returns as a movie crew and murder come to her adopted Massachusetts home.

Whilst in provincial France Faith Fairchild decides to throw the perfect dinner party. But after the last guest has departed she encounters something neither expected nor welcome - a dead body lying in her vestibule.

Mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance didn't really want to go to her neighbor's Valentine Day masked ball -- particularly not after the voluptuous brunette made a pass at Annie's husband, Max. So when her dizzy mother-in-law, Laurel, made a surprise visit to Broward's Rock Island, Annie thought it would be a perfect excuse to skip the party. She should have known better: True to form, Laurel accepted the invitation for all three of them. But the biggest surprise of all came at the party's end, when Annie found the amorous hostess in the gazebo--murdered.

Lady sleuth Lori Shepard, an American who is living in an English village, finds a collapsed stranger on her doorstep. She joins a handsome priest to search for the man's identity, a search which takes her from a homeless shelter to an insane asylum. By the author of Aunt Dimity Digs In.

Something was very wrong on Sanpere this summer . . .To escape the misery of a sweltering August in Aleford, Massachusetts, caterer and minister's wife Faith Fairchild and her family head for their cottage on Maine's peaceful Sanpere Island in Penobscot Bay. But things have changed since their last visit. An aggressive developer is moving forward on plans that will destroy the unique ambience of the island, infuriating residents. Tensions are running dangerously high, and soon murder rears its hideous head. Faith discovers a corpse while exploring the grounds of Sanpere's historic lighthouse. With fear running rampant and volatile emotions approaching the detonation point, the intrepid sleuth must track down a killer for the sake of a friend and the island she loves.