Discover the Kate Hamilton Mysteries
Book Six: A Grave Deception
Antiques expert Kate Hamilton dives into the past to solve a 14th century mystery with disturbing similarities to a modern-day murder in the sixth installment of the Kate Hamilton mystery series.
Kate Hamilton and her husband, Detective Inspector Tom Mallory, have settled into married life in Long Barston. When archaeologists excavating the ruins of a nearby plague village discover the miraculously preserved body of a 14th century woman, Kate and her colleague, Ivor Tweedy, are asked to appraise the grave goods, including a valuable pearl. When tests reveal the woman was pregnant and murdered, the owner of the estate on which the body was found, an amateur historian, asks Kate to identify her and, if possible, her killer. Surprised, Kate agrees to try.
Meanwhile, tensions within the archaeological team erupt when the body of the lead archaeologist turns up at the dig site with fake pearls in his mouth and stomach. Then a third body is found in the excavations. Meanwhile, Kate’s husband Tom is tracking the movements of a killer of his own.
The modern cases are a treat, and there’s an added bonus of the 14th-century murder.
Kirkus Reviews
Berry’s intriguing new book featuring her antiques dealer/amateur sleuth… adeptly weaves the past and the present together into a complex plot.
Library Journal
Nominated for Best Contemporary Novel in the 2025 Agatha Awards
Book Five: A Collection of Lies
In USA Today bestselling author Connie Berry’s fifth Kate Hamilton mystery, American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton follows bloodstained clues to discover the truth about the murder of a modern-day Victorian gentleman.
As Kate Hamilton and her new husband, DI Tom Mallory, honeymoon in Devon, a local history museum asks them to trace the provenance of a bloodstained dress said to belong to a Victorian lacemaker accused of murder. If genuine, the dress and its puzzling connections to a nineteenth-century Romani family who camped on Dartmoor will be the centerpiece of a new historic crimes exhibit—exactly Kate’s kind of mystery. But matters turn deadly when a shot is fired during a fundraising gala, injuring the man who donated the dress.
The injured donor, Gideon Littlejohn, is a cyber-security expert who lives and dresses as a Victorian gentleman, but everyone believes the real target of the attack to be another attendee—a controversial politician intent on rooting out local corruption. This belief is overturned when Gideon is found dead in a pool of blood. But then the politician receives a death threat.
Who was the real target? Who would want to kill both a man with an obsession for history and a tough-on-crime politician? When asked to assist in the investigation, Kate races to discover the truth as it becomes clear the killer isn’t going to come quietly.
Get a sneak peek and listen to me read the first chapter of The House of Mystery Radio Show on NBC! with Al Warren.
A Collection of Lies doesn’t fail to entertain. I can’t wait to see what’s next! Fresh from finishing it, I’ve already suggested the entire series to two fellow readers.
Linda H.
Connie Berry’s fifth Kate Hamilton mystery, A Collection of Lies, combines some of my favorite elements, a cold case, a contemporary murder investigation, and a drowned village. Kate Hamilton and her new husband, Tom Mallory, aren’t on the usual honeymoon as they’re plunged into a fascinating case. A terrific addition to the traditional mystery series.
Lesa H.
Connie Berry had me at “Devon,” but then added a history museum, a blood-stained dress, and an antiques dealer sleuth—and I realized I had a page-turner of a story on my hands. A Collection of Lies is a welcome addition to the traditional mystery genre. More, please.
G.M. Malliet
Book Four and a Half: Mistletoe & Murder
In Connie Berry’s festive holiday novella Mistletoe and Murder, American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton has a long way to go before she gets down the aisle, but will someone stand in the way of her happily ever after?
Five days before her wedding to Detective Inspector Tom Mallory, Kate Hamilton finds her friend Sheila in need of her help. Sheila, a soon-to-be bride herself, needs Kate’s help to get Carl Curtis, her fiancé, out of Venezuela. His passport was taken from him by the authorities, and they say he owes them money. Carl says it’s a bribe, but he’s unable to leave unless it’s paid.
Sheila decides to sell her grandfather’s coin collection, including a valuable gold coin presented by Queen Victoria to her great-grandmother. Among her grandfather’s stored possessions is a letter from the Queen. When someone breaks into Sheila’s house, all signs point to even more foul play. As Kate deals with a disturbing number of wedding-plan hitches, a fire in town reveals a body. Unfortunately, the burned-out flat is next to the bridal salon where Kate’s dress is being altered. Can the cleaners really eliminate the odor of smoke?
As the clock ticks down to Kate and Tom’s I do’s, Kate goes to Sheila’s house to help her search for the royal letter, but she’s nowhere to be found. The house has been torn apart, and Sheila is missing. Could Sheila’s disappearance be connected to the death in town? Kate will have to piece together the clues.
… a good, quick, holiday mystery. It has all the good stuff: Christmas in an English village; a wedding; a mystery; families both found and born.I loved it. A great, short addition to a great series.
Netgalley Reviewer, Susan W.
Berry deftly weaves the missing person case into the broader canvas of Christmas preparations, blending the cozy traditions of the season with the tense unraveling of a mystery.
Lost in Bookland
Berry skillfully blends cozy holiday traditions with suspense, creating a captivating tale where Kate’s determination to solve the mystery competes with her own wedding preparations.
Netgalley Reviewer, Anna D.
Book Four: The Shadow of Memory
In my fourth Kate Hamilton mystery, American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton uncovers a dark secret buried in Victorian England.
Now a 2023 Edgar Award Nominee for the Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award!
As Kate Hamilton plans her upcoming wedding to Detective Inspector Tom Mallory, she is also assisting her colleague Ivor Tweedy with a project at the Netherfield Sanatorium, which is being converted into luxury townhouses. Kate and Ivor must appraise a fifteenth-century painting and verify that its provenance is the Dutch master Jan Van Eyck. But when retired criminal inspector Will Parker is found dead, Kate learns that the halls of the sanatorium housed much more than priceless art.
Kate is surprised to learn that Will had been the first boyfriend of her friend Vivian Bunn, who hasn’t seen him in fifty-eight years. At a seaside holiday camp over sixty years ago, Will, Vivian, and three other teens broke into an abandoned house where a doctor and his wife had died under bizarre circumstances two years earlier. Now, when a second member of the childhood gang dies unexpectedly—and then a third—it becomes clear that the teens had discovered more in the house than they had realized.
Had Will returned to warn his old love? When Kate makes a shocking connection between a sixty-year-old murder and the long-buried secrets of the sanatorium, she suddenly understands that time is running out for Vivian—and anyone connected to her.
Intriguing …New and faithful fans alike will appreciate the tying together of present and past, as well as the poignancy in the long effects of unfortunate choices.
Publishers Weekly
Deftly crafted, inherently compelling, a real page-turner of a read from cover to cover, The Shadow of Memory is unreservedly recommended.
Wisconsin Bookwatch
A seamlessly plotted mystery for fans of English puzzles.
Library Journal, starred review
Book Three: The Art of Betrayal
In my third Kate Hamilton mystery, American antique dealer Kate Hamilton’s spring is cut short when a body turns up at the May Fair pageant.
American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton is spending the month of May in the Suffolk village of Long Barston, filling in at the antiquities shop owned by Ivor Tweedy. Kate is thrilled when a reclusive widow consigns a Chinese pottery jar dating from the Han dynasty. Ivor’s bank account needs an infusion of cash.
That evening Kate and Detective Inspector Tom Mallory gather with the villagers at the annual May Fair on the green. The final event, a pageant celebrating the legendary Green Maiden of Suffolk, is drawing to an end when a body turns up in the middle of medieval England. If that’s not shocking enough, the police find blood in Ivor’s shop and the valuable Chinese jar has gone missing.
As DI Mallory leads the investigation, Kate begins to see puzzling parallels between the crimes and the Green Maiden legend. The more she learns, the more convinced she becomes that the solution to the mystery lies in the murky depths of Anglo-Saxon history and a generations-old pattern of betrayal.
A delight for lovers of antiques and complicated mysteries with a uotetouch of romance.
Kirkus Reviews
…a meaty traditional mystery that combines British legend with a contemporary story of crime and betrayal.
Library Journal Starred Review
An engaging cast of characters that will appeal to fans of Jane K. Cleland’s Josie Prescott novels.
Booklist
Book Two: A Legacy of Murder
American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton’s Christmastime jaunt to an English village turns into an investigation of a missing ruby and a series of baffling murders.
It’s Christmastime and antiques dealer Kate Hamilton is off to visit her daughter, Christine, in the quaint English village of Long Barston. Christine and her boyfriend, Tristan, work at stately-but-crumbling Finchley Hall. Touring the Elizabethan house and grounds, Kate is intrigued by the docent’s tales of the Finchley Hoard, and the strange deaths surrounding the renowned treasure trove. But next to a small lake, Kate spies the body of a young woman, killed by a garden spade.
Nearly blind Lady Barbara, who lives at Finchley with her loyal butler, Mugg, persuades Kate to take over the murdered woman’s work. Kate finds that a Burmese ruby has vanished from the legendary Blood-Red Ring, replaced by a lesser garnet. Were the theft and the woman’s death connected?
Kate learns that Lady Barbara’s son fled to Venezuela years before, suspected of murdering another young woman. The murder weapon belonged to an old gardener, who becomes the leading suspect. But is Lady Barbara’s son back to kill again? When another body is found, the clues point toward Christine. It’s up to Kate to clear her daughter’s name in Connie Berry’s second Kate Hamilton mystery, a treasure for fans of traditional British mysteries.
Berry takes her protagonist down the path to discovery… a very satisfying ending… This one is a keeper.
New York Journal of Books
Readers will appreciate Kate’s growth as a character in this atmospheric story. Fans of Jane K. Cleland’s books… will want to try this series.
Library Journal
…a well-realized cast and a beautifully described setting.
Booklist
Book One: A Dream of Death
On a remote Scottish island, American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton investigates a brutal killing, staged to recreate a centuries-old unsolved murder
Autumn has come and gone on Scotland’s Isle of Glenroth, and the islanders gather for the Tartan Ball, the annual end-of-tourist-season gala. Spirits are high until an unexpected turn of events takes the floor.
A recently published novel about island history has brought hordes of tourists to the small Hebridean resort community. On the guest list is American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton. Kate returns reluctantly to the island where her husband died, determined to repair her relationship with his sister, proprietor of the island’s luxe country house hotel, famous for its connection with Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Kate has hardly unpacked when the next morning a body is found, murdered in a reenactment of an infamous unsolved murder described in the novel—and the only clue to the killer’s identity lies in a curiously embellished antique casket. The Scottish police discount the historical connection, but when a much-loved local handyman is arrested, Kate teams up with a vacationing detective inspector from Suffolk, England, to unmask a killer determined to rewrite island history—and Kate’s future.
I loved this book! The plot is deliciously twisty and unexpectedly romantic.
Jane Cleland, award-winning author of the Josie Prescott Antiques mysteries
What a treat! A modern day Outlander…Charming, authentic, surprising―and completely irresistible.
Hank Phillippi Ryan, national bestselling and Agatha award-winning author of Trust Me