The deadliest secrets live in villages and families, among people who have known each other far too long, where everyone knows your business and somebody knows more than they should. A great-niece must solve a killing to claim a fortune. A Dordogne policeman distrusts an open-and-shut suicide. A Brighton detective works through Christmas beside his friend the magician. A birdwatcher trails his fellow twitchers from the Norfolk marshes to the Scilly Isles. No spies, no statesmen, no global conspiracies. Just people and long memories, which is quite enough to be going on with.
Kristen Perrin, How to Solve Your Own Murder - A fortune teller at a country fair tells seventeen-year-old Frances she will be murdered. Decades of watchful suspicion later, the prophecy comes true.
Elly Griffiths, The Vanishing Box - A young flower seller is found dead in her Brighton boarding house, posed as a recreation of the death of Lady Jane Grey, while Max Mephisto and his daughter Ruby top the bill at the Hippodrome.
Martin Walker, An Enemy in the Village - When Bruno delivers Monique's final messages to the people who mattered most to her, malicious gossip about him begins to spread and pressure builds for him to resign.
Ann Cleeves, A Bird in the Hand - Tom French, one of the best birders in England, is found dead in a Norfolk marsh with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck.
