Recently retired, Carole Seddon is residing in the Fethering the cottage she purchased with her ex-husband. Theree she maintains a quiet and sensible life with the companionship of Gulliver, her Labrador retriever. But everything changes when she and Gulliver, while taking their daily constitutional, find a corpse on the beach. What's more, there are two wounds on its neck. The body mysteriously disappears and the police dismiss Carole as a befuddled...

Things are going suspiciously well for Charles Paris. He has moved back in with his ex-wife and landed a proper part in a proper production: Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. But when two members of the theatre company suddenly fall ill, Charles finds himself in trouble again - both on and off stage.

Taking on his most unlikely performing assignment yet: 'forklift-driver-for-a-day' in the Delmoleen company corporate video, Charles Paris discovers - to his horror - that a forklift can lead to death. Industrial accident - or murder? Charles decides to find out.

It's that glorious period between the two world wars, and the exiled king of Mitteleuropa is visiting the ancestral home of the Duke of Tawcester. When the ex-king's daughter is kidnapped, noblesse obliges the Duke's handsome, brave, and rather stupid son (known to all as Blotto) to drive off to the rescue. Luckily, he's aided by his brilliant sister, Twinks. Plus, he's got a really swell car.

Who killed Marcus Steen, the theatrical tycoon with a fortune to leave to his young mistress Jacqui? And who killed Bill Sweet, the shady blackmailer with a supply of compromising photographs? Charles Paris, a middle-aged actor addicted to booze and women, decides to investigate by assuming a variety of roles, among them that of the mythical Detective Sergeant McWhirter. But, as Paris is about to discover only too painfully, impersonating a police...

Blotto and Twinks travel to America! Specifically, they travel to Chicago (and this would be during the Prohibition years) in the hopes of marrying Blotto off to an American heiress and thus saving Tawcester Towers from financial ruin. Thankfully, Twinks is around to nose out the dirty undertakings of the heiress's father, a meat-packing magnate and Chicago mob associate.

Charles Paris's acting career plumbs new depths when he takes on the part of a possible murder victim in Public Enemies, a true-crime TV series. Finding himself in a bizarre world somewhere between police procedure and showbiz, Charles can't help getting involved in the investigation - especially when dismembered limbs start turning up.

As understudy to the lead in a West End play, Charles Paris's thespian and detective skills are called upon once again when the lead is shot dead on stage on the opening night. The suspects range from a jealous wife to a bitter actor who lost his part, from the playwright who heard his beautiful lines twisted to the director who saw his work ruined.

A stuffy dinner party at an English mansion is not Jude's cup of tea. But when the nearly mummified torso of a woman shows up in the cellar, Jude and her reluctant neighbor, Carole, soon find themselves embroiled in a puzzling whodunit.

"It is her characteristic generosity rather than her love of animals that finds Mrs Pargeter supporting her friend, Jasmine Angold, at a charity reception for PhiliPussies, whose worthy aim is to rehabilitate stray cats from the Greek island of Atmos into caring English homes. But the evening is to have unexpected consequences. At the event, Mrs. P is taken aback to meet a woman who claims to be the sister of her late husband, the much-missed Mr....