Discover the Kate Hamilton Mysteries
Book Four and a Half: Mistletoe & Murder
My upcoming Kate Hamilton Mysteries novella.
Kate Hamilton and DI Tom Mallory have finally set a date for their wedding—Christmas Eve. As Kate wraps things up at the Cabinet of Curiosities, Kate’s friend Sheila Parker brings in a coin collection for appraisal. Sadly, none are valuable. But Sheila claims to have a rare gold sovereign presented to her great-great-grandmother, a laundress at Windsor Castle, with a personal letter from Queen Victoria herself. That could literally change history—if Sheila can find the coin and letter amongst her late mother’s boxed-up possessions. When Sheila vanishes, leaving behind a single bloody fingerprint, Kate fears her friend’s life is in jeopardy—along with her wedding plans. As Shakespeare said, “the course of true love never did run smooth.”
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