Patricia Wentworth: An Introduction and Mystery Series Guide

Carthew “Car” Fairfax, a Londoner down on his luck, has just been rejected from a job he desperately needs. After he runs into his old love, the beautiful Isobel Tarrant, Car receives a note from a stranger offering an opportunity to win 500 pounds.

Before he can decide to pursue the money, the wife of Car's military buddy arrives on his doorstep, pleading for help and money. A third woman comes on the scene and offers Car the 500 pounds if he'll fake a check and spend time in prison.

On top of all of that, an American cousin Car has never known comes out of the woodwork. 

In this complicated puzzle, nothing is as it seems, and Car will have to travel into the dark world of deceit and deception, risking everything to help his friend and be with the woman he loves. 

Ann Verner starts a role as the secretary to an elderly woman, Mrs. Halliday, against the wishes of her boyfriend Charles Anstruther, whose marriage proposal she has rejected.

Ann accompanies Mrs. Halliday and her son on a cruise that lands at Loch  Dhu, a rocky and remote Scottish island. 

But Charles suspects something is not right about Mrs. Halliday. Embarking on his own investigation, Charles travels to Loch Dhu only to find that he is not allowed onto the island.

As a plot is set in motion to eliminate Ann before she can inherit the estate of an ailing great uncle, the odds are stacked against her survival and Charles' success. 

Lady Sylvia Colesborough comes to her cousin, London debutante Gay Hardwicke, with urgent pleas for help.

She claims that she is being blackmailed by someone named Mr. Zero, who is threatening to expose her gambling debts if she does not steal important government documents from her politically connected husband. 

Gay reluctantly agrees to help Sylvia, but their plan soon backfires when there is a case of murder and Gay's boyfriend becomes the prime subject.

Now Gay must work together with her high-society friends to clear her boyfriend's name and save herself. 

After getting lost on a foggy country road, James Elliot arrives at a house. Before he can ask for directions, a woman rushes to the door and tells him to run.

Immediately after, shots are fired! As they escape the shooter together, the woman tells James that someone is after her and her inheritance. 

When the two meet again at James' cousin's house, the woman goes by a different name but recounts the same story of living in terror of whoever is after her.

When someone is killed, James thinks he may have been the intended target. He must untangle the web of greed and murder before the killer gets his way. 

Penniless and orphaned, Carey Silence couldn't have been more grateful to be taken in by her very rich cousin Honoria Maquisten.

But she soon finds that the house is overrun with mysteries and scandals. Honoria shows Carey an elaborate and beautiful necklace, saying it will one day be hers. 

The next day, Honoria says she is going to write a new will, and when she sits down to write, she drops dead from a fatal dose of sleeping pills. When the police arrive, Carey is arrested for the murder. 

This classic courtroom drama alternates between Carey's murder trial and the events leading up to it, building suspense and keeping readers guessing.

Thanks to her cover as a retired governess and knitting enthusiast, Miss Silver seamlessly weaves her way through Britain's upper-crust to discover villains hiding in plain sight.

In this three-book collection, she gets to the bottom of a bizarre conspiracy, a miscarriage of justice, and threatening letters sent by an anonymous sender.

One thing is for sure: Maud's unassuming front conceals a sharp, perceptive mind that can crack whatever cases are thrown her way.

This trio of Miss Silver mysteries sees Maud at the height of her detecting powers, as she outsmarts even the boys of Scotland Yard. 

In In the Balance, a bride fears her husband may be a wife-killer—and that she'll become the next "Late Mrs. Jerningham"—while the tenants of Miss Silver Deals with Death believe that a criminal lives among them.

And when the final curtain falls on a rising starlet in The Chinese Shawl, Maud must shine a spotlight on the elusive person who killed her..

With plenty of hidden motives, fraught personal relationships, and red herrings, solving these crimes won't be easy—but Miss Maud Silver is up to the task.  

The governess-turned-sleuth is back at it again—though this may be her most gruesome case yet. According to reports coming out of the quaint village of Deeping, a girl has been brutally slain in the woods.

Naturally, Scotland Yard relies on Maud's keen intellect to see beyond the insufficient evidence and uncover the whole story.

But what she finds will lead her to more than just the murderous culprit, but to the dark underbelly of the seemingly peaceful English countryside.

During World War II, the British Foreign Office was deeply involved in all intelligence efforts. As a member of the FO himself, Frank Garrett knows nothing is black and white—but that navigating the gray area is worth every risk.

Here, a series of strange letters has convinced a spy's widow that her hubby is very much alive. But her new lover isn't so sure and, with Frank Garrett's assistance, he sets out to prove his hunch isn't merely a case of wishful thinking.

But when his mission takes an unexpected turn, he realizes that he's placed the woman he loves in the path of an enemy more dangerous than he could've ever imagined.

The second and final Frank Garrett book, Rolling Stone delivers two mysteries for the price of one: While Frank's nephew, Peter, impersonates a con man to bust a syndicate of thugs, Frank trails a thief of artistic masterpieces.

But to solve these separate riddles, uncle and nephew must join forces, as the answers lay in the cases' unexpected connection: Maud Millicent Simpson, the most evil woman in all of England (whose first name is surely a Wentworthian coincidence).

If Frank Garrett is the official face of the Foreign Office, Benbow Smith is the behind-the-scenes man who pulls the department's strings. 

In the high-stakes game of nation-building (and destroying), Smith is the 1930s James Bond—a man who knows that, in the end, you must sometimes bend the rules for the sake of justice.

Read all four novels, in which the gentleman spy takes on murder, government corruption, blackmail plots, and a madman on the lam.

In this Benbow Smith mystery, Smith must investigate the suspicious suicide of a political figure and the disappearance of a confidential letter.

Eighteen months ago, the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs Gilbert Denny suddenly committed suicide. His wife Rosalind believes someone else was at fault. 

A distinguished member of parliament visits Smith fearful that a confidential letter, which could disturb the balance of power in the West, has gone missing.

The politician is being pushed from public service as was Denny and others before him. Smith must connect the clues between the mysterious forces at work in this historical thriller.

Scotland Yard's Inspector Ernest Lamb would tell you that the most perplexing crimes are those embroiled in dark family histories. 

But whether he's investigating a fatal spat between relatives or a suspicious suicide, Lamb isn't afraid to go toe to toe with the worst parts of human nature.

The Blind Side features the former scenario, as an aunt and nephew's inheritance dispute meets a bloody end.

Leave it to Lamb to throw himself into the nefarious corners of the Craddock household, where potential suspects hide behind veneers of beauty, innocence, heroism, and more.

A crime of passion takes center stage in Who Pays the Piper: Lucas Dale may have it all, but what is success if you can't share it with the one you love?

He pines for the beautiful Susan Lenox, whose poor fiancé, Bill Carrick, is nothing but a pesky fly Lucas must swat away.

In doing so, Lucas gets himself killed, making Bill the prime suspect in Ernest Lamb's homicide investigation.

But the more information the inspector uncovers, the more he realizes that this alleged love triangle has many other points of interest—and they all could've benefited from Lucas' death.

When the Nazis and Brits think they're being duped by the same double agent, the suspect's brother—a spy named Antony Rossiter—is sent out to uncover his true loyalties.

The plot thickens when Rossiter's fiancée, Delia, receives a mysterious package that every baddie in the country seems to be after..

Can Ernest Lamb and Detective Frank Abbott manage to blow the case wide open before another innocent life is brought to a close?