Batten Down the Belfry

Batten Down the Belfry
Author: Diane Kelly
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2022-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250816041

Batten Down the Belfry is the fourth in the delightful cozy mystery series from Diane Kelly set in Nashville, Tennessee—where the real estate market is to die for. Here is the church, here is the steeple... Carpenter Whitney Whitaker and her cousin Buck have successfully flipped houses, but this is the first time they’ve attempted to renovate a house of worship. Still, the colorful stained glass in the country church has caught Whitney’s eye, and she’d love to breathe new life into the abandoned building. What’s more, the place has perfect acoustics. Could the worship hall be reborn as an entertainment venue with its parsonage repurposed as a pre-show bistro? Open the doors, and see all the trouble. The owner of the horse farm next door has asserted a legal claim to the church property, rendering their title uncertain. If that’s not bad enough, while rehabbing the church, Whitney’s cat Sawdust discovers a bombshell in the bell tower—the body of the man who’d delivered their beautiful new replacement windows. What transpired in the spire? Who rang the man’s bell and why? The steeple is keeping its secrets and, when a second body turns up, things become even less clear. Can Whitney help Detective Collin Flynn solve the crimes before someone else is sent to meet their maker?

The Body in the Cast

The Body in the Cast
Author: Katherine Hall Page
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 294
Release: 1993
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0312097557

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

Bat in the Belfry

Bat in the Belfry
Author: Sarah Graves
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2014-12-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1444793152

When it comes to home repair, Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree is a fervent wielder of power drills and paint brushes. And when catching criminals, she's been known to really bring down the hammer. But when a shocking murder rocks the small town of Eastport, Maine, Jake may be the next victim for whom the bell tolls. It is nearly midnight when the enormous bell in the belfry of All Faith Chapel - silent for decades - booms forth, startling awake the entire town of Eastport. Upon inspection of the steeple, the police uncover the body of local teenager Karen Hansen, who had climbed the belfry's dark, rickety stairs for a midnight rendezvous. But instead of the promise of an exciting new life, Karen meets her death. Meanwhile, as an epic nor'easter bears down on the idyllic island town, Jake hurries to shore up her ramshackle old house against the big blow. An amateur detective, she has sworn off chasing criminals. But when the news of Karen's murder spreads and much of the evidence points to Jake's likable houseguest, she and her sleuthing partner, Ellie White, get to work. They discover an unexpected ally in newcomer Lizzie Snow, a woman from "away" who seemed to have blown into town with the nor'easter, and who also seems to know a lot about the mind of a killer. Can Jake and Ellie trust her? As a killer roams free and the townsfolk struggle against the pounding, screaming storm, the resulting tempest of gossip and suspicion rivals anything the Atlantic could brew up - and threatens to keep Jake and Ellie from putting the final nail in this cold-blooded case.

The Body in the Belfry

The Body in the Belfry
Author: Katherine Hall Page
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 261
Release: 1990
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0312037988

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.

The Nine Tailors

The Nine Tailors
Author: Dorothy Leigh Sayers
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 424
Release: 1962
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780156658997

Bell strokes toll out the death of an unknown man, and summon Lord Wimsey to East Anglia to solve the mystery.

The Body in the Kelp

The Body in the Kelp
Author: Katherine Hall Page
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 308
Release: 1992-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0380713292

The Old Maid's Puzzle It seems as if nothing is going to liven up Faith Fairchild's deathly dull vacation on Maine's Sanpere Island -- until she buys a beautiful handmade quilt at an estate auction. Lovingly constructed by wealthy, deceased, and detested Matilda Prescott, Faith's purchase turns out to be quite a bargain indeed -- especially when she discovers it to be a map to the old woman's hidden treasure. But instead of pointing the transplanted New York caterer-turned-minister's wife toward the fabled Prescott gold, Matilda's artfully crafted clues lead Faith to a kelp-covered corpse floating in a nearby tidal pool. Once again, the resourceful amateur sleuth has become entangled in a dangerous puzzle, ensnared in twisted, lethal threads of familial greed and cold-blooded homicide. And Faith won't be satisfied until she has the whole murderous matter sewn up.

Bats in the Belfry

Bats in the Belfry
Author: E. C. R. Lorac
Publisher: Rare Treasure Editions
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-11-11T12:06:00Z
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781774644492

A mysterious disappearance is at the center of Bats in the Belfry. Shortly after waving away a telephone request from a persistent caller named Debrette, Bruce Attleton leaves his home in Regent’s Park for Paris. He never arrives, but his suitcase turns up in a sculptor’s studio slated for renovation. After Attleton’s friend Neil Rockingham takes his concerns to DCI Macdonald, Macdonald soon discovers a corpse secreted in the studio. Unfortunately, the absence of a head or hands makes it hard to tell whether Debrette killed Attleton, Attleton killed Debrette, or some unrelated parties got involved. The possibilities seem endless, and that’s just if the body is really Attleton’s. The mystery is so complex, in fact, that Lorac requires the services of some aggressively facetious suspects, a low-key lead detective who’s a welcome change of pace, and an army of nondescript and interchangeable satellite police officers. Ah, those were the days.

The Body in the Piazza

The Body in the Piazza
Author: Katherine Hall Page
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2013-04-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062065513

The twenty-first Faith Fairchild mystery takes Faith and her husband, the Reverend Tom Fairchild, to Italy, where murder and mayhem mix with pecorino, panna cotta, and prosecco. To celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary, amateur sleuth Faith Fairchild and her husband, the Reverend Tom Fairchild, leave placid New England behind for a week of romance and fine food in Italy. The bruschetta, the biscotti, the Chianti—Faith can’t wait! She’s also looking forward to seeing her former assistant Francesca, and take a class at her new cooking school in Florence. But on their very first night, a travel writer Faith meets in their Roman hotel turns up dead. Then, in their cooking class in Florence, they find themselves surrounded by a number of suspiciously familiar faces they recognize from Rome. Someone is cooking up some unsavory business, including sabotaging Francesca’s school. To save her anniversary vacation and protect her friend, Faith must follow a twisting trail of clues to unmask a killer—while learning to master a mean Spaghetti a la Foriana, too!

The Body in the Bonfire

The Body in the Bonfire
Author: Katherine Hall Page
Publisher: Robert Hale
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2008
Genre: Caterers and catering
ISBN: 9780709085911

Taking advantage of the January doldrums in the catering business, Faith goes undercover at Mansfield Academy, after learning about some racist attacks against a senior there. When a dead body turns up, Faith realises she's in a struggle to save not just the school, but her own life.

The Body at the Tower

The Body at the Tower
Author: Y. S. Lee
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2010-08-10
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0763649686

A follow-up to A Spy in the House finds mid-19th-century orphan Mary Quinn tackling a latest case in which her efforts to discover a murderer's identity force her to relive harrowing childhood experiences.