Quirky Mysteries to Read Ahead of ‘The Sheep Detectives’
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If you’re excited for the upcoming mystery The Sheep Detectives, now is the perfect time to warm up your sleuthing instincts with a few cleverly written and delightfully unconventional mysteries (and often animal-themed).
If you’re looking to set the mood before diving into Hugh Jackman’s new film The Sheep Detectives based on the novel by Leonie Swann, these reads will get you in the perfect investigative mindset.
Every Thursday at midday Audrey Brooks cleans the Petrov house. Mr. Petrov is never home—in fact he seems to use the house purely as storage for his impressive collection of antiques—but that doesn’t affect the care with which Audrey mops, polishes, and carefully winds each of the dozens of beautiful clocks that decorate the tall, elegant, empty London mansion.
Until the morning she finds a corpse in the back bedroom, the pristine walls and floor covered in blood, and flees the house in panic. Fifteen minutes later, the police arrive … and find nothing. No body. No blood. The only thing slightly out of the ordinary is the clock in that back bedroom, which is now running four minutes slow.
With no victim, the police are convinced there was no murder, but Audrey knows better. A man has been killed, and if they won’t do anything about it, she—and her annoying friend Lewis—will. Whodunnit is one thing, but this detective duo must also wrestle with when—and where on earth is the body?
It’s not long since they solved the murder of their neighbor, so they’re not rookie sleuths, and at least this time the case has no connection to their home. Does it?
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After her divorce, Gabby never expected that she’d be this close to having it all. Spying with a hot handler who’s an expert in after-hours under-the-covers work was not on her current bingo card. But balancing romance, espionage, and school lunches is a job for a magician, not a secret agent. Gabby will just have to keep dreamy Markus at arm’s-length . . .Easier said than done. Her next mission, should she choose to accept it: Pretend to be Markus’s fiancée so they can infiltrate a Power Couples Retreat to see whether the group is selling national security secrets (in addition to questionable beauty products).
To avert a national crisis, Gabby and Markus will need to look like they’re in love, planning their wedding—and enjoying the honeymoon cottage. Faking a relationship with the perfect man without actually falling for him? Piece of calorie-free cake, right?
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Sergeant Hamish Macbeth is alarmed to receive a report from a woman in the small village of Cronish in the Scottish Highlands. She has been brutally attacked and the criminal is on the loose. But upon further investigation, Hamish discovers that she was lying about the crime. So when the same woman calls him back about an intruder, he simply marvels at her compulsion to lie. This time, though, she is telling the truth. Her body is found in her home and Hamish must sort through all of her lies to solve the crime.
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Leonie Swann; Anthea Bell (Translator); A. J. Finn (Foreword by)
Something is not right with George the shepherd. His sheep have gathered around him on a hill outside the cozy Irish village of Glennkill to assess the situation. George has cared for the sheep, reading them books every night, and now he lies pinned to the ground with a spade. His flock, far savvier about the workings of the human mind than your average sheep, set out to find George’s killer, led by Miss Maple, the smartest sheep in Glennkill (and possibly the world). Her team of investigators includes Othello, the ‘bad-boy’ of the group; Mopple the Whale, a merino who eats a lot and remembers everything; and Zora, a thoughtful, if gloomy, black-faced ewe – just to name a few. Together, the sheep engage in nightlong discussions about the crime and their speculations vary wildly.
Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, they embark on furtive missions into the village, where they encounter some likely suspects. There’s Ham, the terrifying butcher; Rebecca, the secretive village newcomer; Gabriel, the shady shepherd of a strange flock; and Father Will, a sinister priest.
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Trade Paperback
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It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favorite criminal.
But when Elizabeth meets Nick, a wedding guest asking for her help, she finds the thrill of the chase is ignited once again. And when Nick disappears without a trace, his cagey business partner becomes the gang’s next stop. It seems the duo have something valuable-something worth killing for.
Joyce’s daughter, Joanna, jumps into the fray to help the gang as they seek answers: Has someone kidnapped Nick? And what’s this uncrackable code they keep hearing about? Plunged back into action once more, can the four friends solve the puzzle and a murder in time?
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Hardcover
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Another series of murders is rocking the hamlet of Duck End. It seems like every villager and his dog is trying to make up for all of the thwarted murders of the past thirty years. Most unpleasant! The residents of Sunset Hall don’t want anything to do with the criminal activities. So when Edwina manages to sneak onto Marshall’s computer and promptly wins a stay in an exclusive coastal hotel in Cornwall, the Sunset Hall crew doesn’t waste any time in deciding to join her.
But they’ve barely unpacked their bags when Agnes sees something unsettling: two figures in hoods walk away from the hotel along the cliffs, but only one returns. Worried she’s witnessed a murder, Agnes tells the others. When the hotel ends up isolated from the outside world after a storm, it becomes clear that a murderer really is on the loose-and they’re trapped, just like the other guests!
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Trade Paperback
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Pony has been passed from owner to owner for longer than he can remember. Fed up, he busts out and goes on a cross-country mission to reunite with Penny, the little girl whom he was separated from and hasn’t seen in years. Penny, now an adult, is living an ordinary life when she gets a knock on her door and finds herself in handcuffs, accused of murder, and whisked back to the place she grew up. Her only comfort when the past comes back to haunt her is the memory of her precious, rebellious pony. Hearing of Penny’s fate, Pony knows that Penny is no murderer. So, being as smart and devious as he is cute, the pony must use his hard-won knowledge of human weakness and cruelty to try to clear Penny’s name and find the real killer. This acutely observant, feel-good mystery reveals the humanity of animals and the beastliness of humans in a rollicking escapade of epic proportions.
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Trade Paperback
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Morgan Carter, owner of the Odds and Ends bookstore in Door County, Wisconsin, has a hobby. When she’s not tending the store, she’s hunting cryptids – creatures whose existence is rumoured, but never proven to be real. It’s a hobby that cost her parents their lives, but one she’ll never give up on. So when a number of bodies turn up on the shores of Lake Michigan with injuries that look like bites from a giant unknown animal, police chief Jon Flanders turns to Morgan for help. A skeptic at heart, Morgan can’t turn down the opportunity to find proof of an entity whose existence she can’t definitively rule out. She and her beloved rescue dog, Newt, journey to the strait known as Death’s Door to hunt for a homicidal monster in the lake – but if they’re not careful, she just might be its next victim.
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Trade Paperback
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