When a British industrialist is murdered on New Year’s Eve, his wealthy family members are the prime suspects.
  Though they share a manor house, the Paradines are not close, and their patriarch does nothing to discourage the petty jealousies that divide wealthy families. A cold figure, James Paradine prefers work to his relations, but on New Year’s Eve he convenes the household. Valuable plans have been stolen from his...

When a suicide seems suspicious, governess-turned-sleuth Miss Silver steps in to assist Scotland Yard.
  Frank Abbott’s vacations never last very long, and his trip to Field End is no exception. He has hardly enjoyed a moment of Jonathan Field’s hospitality before tragedy strikes. A niece ventures into old Jonathan’s study at night to ask him a question, and finds him stone cold with a revolver by his hand. An obvious...

During the war, the British countryside is a refuge from the Blitz—but other lethal dangers lurk there . . . “You can't go wrong with Miss Maud Silver” (The Observer).
 It is time for Judy to get out of London. Her sister and brother-in-law have just perished in an air raid, leaving her in charge of their four-year-old daughter, and Judy wants no more to do with death. She arranges for work...

When a controlling old woman is murdered, her caretaking daughter is the prime suspect: “Miss Silver is marvelous” (Daily Mail).
 Althea Graham might have had a life of her own, had it not been for her mother. But when her father died she inherited her bitter, temperamental parent along with the house, and she has borne that burden ever since. She nearly escaped once, but her engagement to Nicholas Carey caused...

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...

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...

Maud Silver, governess-turned-sleuth, investigates a case of blackmail in a once-grand London apartment house.
 Vandeleur House was great once. The home of a prominent court painter, its ballroom and parlors hosted the brightest of the Victorian era. Now divided into eight flats, it is an apartment building whose glorious façade conceals a nest of diabolical intrigue. There is Maude, a young woman who was crossing the...

A runaway groom returns—and murder ensues—in the series starring a governess-turned-sleuth: “Miss Silver is marvelous” (Daily Mail).
  Carmona is lucky not to marry Alan Field. Charming though he may be, the young man is a rascal, and though her heart breaks when he disappears on the eve of their wedding, she is surely much better off. By the time she learns that Alan has decamped for South America,...

A jilted fiancé is suspected of murder in the series that offers “some of the best examples of the British country-house murder mystery” (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine).
 Bill Waring went to America with a bright future ahead of him. In London he had a promising career and the love of a young beauty, Lila Dryden, and there were plans for marriage when he returned from overseas. But then a freak...

The “marvelous” British governess-turned-sleuth helps a new bride who fears her husband intends to murder her (Daily Mail).
Former schoolteacher Miss Maud Silver is on her way back to London when, with a violent shudder of the train, a young woman is thrust into her compartment. She’s beautiful, well dressed, newly married, and wealthy—a lethal combination.
In a state of shock, Lisle Jerningham explains...