The Verity Long Mysteries Series

The estate agent's details listed two reception rooms, kitchen and bath. What they failed to mention was the dead celebrity in the master bedroom. Personal assistant Verity Long's house hunt is about to turn into a hunt for a killer. It will take some fancy footwork to navigate the bitchy world of dance shows, television studios, and dangerously gorgeous male co-stars. And, when Verity looks like the killer's next tango partner, she discovers that this dance is ... Strictly Murder.

When Verity Long agrees to take a friend's daughter to Brownies, what she expects is to drop the child off and spend a quiet evening in her favourite wine bar. Instead she finds a hysterical Brown Owl and a corpse in the Scout hut. But Verity, researcher for a best-selling crime novelist, has made a career out of being curious. Determined to investigate, she seizes the chance to cook for the Brownies' imminent holiday at a nearby Scout campsite in her search for the truth. Sacrificing her customary gourmet diet to serve up sausages and pizzas might be tough for the amateur sleuth with a fondness for murder, men, and Merlot; it is child's play compared to unravelling the dark secrets of the Scout group. With dead Scout leaders piling up around her and a killer still keen to earn their Murder badge, Verity will need to be prepared - or risk becoming the next victim of a madman Scouting For Murder.

Verity Long's search for Ernie Rutland ends when she finds him dead — hanging from the organ in St Isidores's church. Curious about the victim and determined to hunt down the killer, Verity becomes involved with a waspish group of thespians, and all the murky muck-raking of small-town gossip. Verity's burgeoning romance with Detective Inspector Jerry Farish is threatened by the arrival of a ghost from her past, further complicating the search for the killer. With a spate of major burglaries and bank robberies keeping her detective busy and the killer closing in on her, Verity must decide whether to live up to her name - or to follow her heart.

She wanted a quiet affair with just a few close friends, but a death at the wedding agency put paid to that. Now, instead of planning a wedding, Verity Long — the amateur sleuth with a fondness for murder, men, and Merlot — is planning to catch a killer. Putting aside the paraphernalia of dresses, bouquets, guest lists, and the all-important seating plan, Verity soon finds herself up to her veil in trouble. With a murderer hot on her wedding heels, determined to make her his next victim, and a fiancé telling her to stay out of it, Verity is no longer sure there will be any wedding. How can she get married — when she's already married to murder.

A race against time. A rookie assistant. What could possibly go wrong? For twenty years the unidentified body in the blazing car had baffled police. Researcher Verity Long, of the Cold Case Squad, isn't having much luck solving the puzzle, either. Hindered by holding down two jobs and the rookie officer assigned as her unwanted helper, Verity is getting nowhere fast. With the constable trying to prove that everyone involved is a murderer, Verity will have to call on all her research skills before the real killer slips through their grasp - and strikes again!

There are cold cases and then there are cold cases. The body in the freezer was about as frigid as it gets. Researcher Verity Long is sent back to school to solve the year-old mystery of the murdered Food Technology teacher, and discovers that the victim got all she deserved. Feeling sympathy for the murderer, for the first time in her career Verity considers quitting and returning to her researcher's job full-time. But secrets and murder still lurk at the heart of the prestigious Crofterton Girls' College. When another teacher is attacked and left for dead, Verity must learn her own hard lesson. If she quits now, the killer will strike again, and this time it could be Verity facing a...Long Cold Death.

Dragged off to spend Christmas in a rambling old house full of her new in-laws, amateur sleuth Verity Long is bored and isolated, but keen to make a good impression. When Thor, the eight-year-old son of the house, tells her a fantastic tale, Verity thinks he's imagined it. But then, a mysterious woman is seen walking around the house on Christmas Eve, the family heirloom is stolen, and the children's tutor vanishes. Verity's determination to solve the puzzle leads to a third disappearance. Now she must act fast, before something far more priceless than her relative's good opinion is lost to her - forever.

Merlot-loving researcher Verity Long was happily sipping her way through a wine tasting weekend with her crime-writer boss — until the corpse of a fellow guest turned up in the winery. When a storm isolates them and brings down power and phone lines, Verity forgets bouquets, acidity, and floral top notes to concentrate on catching a killer. Unable to contact the police, and with no internet for researching her suspects' motives or backgrounds, the amateur sleuth will need to sniff out the killer soon, before the next dead body is her own.

Holding down one job is hard enough. Working at two can be deadly! Investigating the murder of a wealthy widow, Verity Long is faced with two suspects, two perfect motives, and two unbreakable alibis. A witness claimed to have seen a tramp, but the vagrant vanished and in the ten years since has never come forward. All her enquiries lead to dead ends. Then, the boss at her other job stumbles upon a body at the local garden centre. Verity leaves the second murder well alone – until her boss has a series of near-fatal traffic accidents. Now, Verity must decide where her priorities lie – before she has another murder on her hands.

Police researcher Verity Long loves fine food and wine, so she's the perfect person to re-open the case of a murdered restaurant critic. The original investigation found no motive and no suspects, so solving the mystery of Crompton Carmichael's death will not be a piece of cake. With his colleagues at the Midshires Gourmet magazine proving less than helpful and saddled with an assistant whose idea of a gourmet meal is meat pie and chips, Verity begins to roux the day she agreed to take on the case. Then, when she has the sauce to ask probing questions, her own life is threatened. Will Verity live to taste Death by Chocolate again? Or will the killer make mincemeat of her?

"Fancy a weekend in the country? I can offer you murder, mayhem, poison, and possibly a little sex." Clearly not an opportunity to be missed. So, when Verity Long's boss invites her to attend a crime writers' workshop, she looks forward to a relaxing stay at a country house hotel, doing nothing more challenging than exploring the Elizabethan manor and changing the slides of a PowerPoint presentation. But the body in the library is no fiction. And there are plenty of clever writers around, all with motive, all capable of plotting the perfect murder. Soon Verity must call on all her sleuthing skills to solve the case before the police step in and arrest the wrong person. A Novel Way to Die is a novella (approx 100 paperback pages) in the Verity Long series of funny whodunits.