It’s Valentine’s Day and whenever there’s romance in there air, a crime of passion is always a possibility. Still we thought we’d put our thinking caps on and find some crime fiction, mixed with an appropriately amorous vibe, just for the ladies out there who this wonderful genre. Our investigation was a case of love and death. The five books we’ve come up with all have very different settings, and some are cozier than others…

Death of a Valentine by MC Beaton
Gossip is circulating in Lochdubh that the village’s most eligible bachelor, Sergeant Hamish Macbeth, is about to get hitched. The bride-to-be, is none other than his new WPC, Josie McSween, and the villagers think she’s quite a catch. However, Hamish is suffering from a severe case of pre-nuptial jitters, which is made worse by the fact that he and his intended are still investigating the case that brought them together in the first place. It started with a Valentine’s Day card that was delivered to the victim the day before she died, but as the pair have now discovered, her list of admirers is still growing.
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Royal Blood by Rhys Bowen
Georgie Rannock is penniless and 34th in line to the throne. In order to get away from her loathsome brother, she agrees to accept an invitation from the Queen to attend a wedding in Transylvania on her behalf. She arrives to find that the wedding venue is a rather macabre looking castle, the bride has blood running down her chin and one of the other guests has been poisoned. Can Georgie save the festivities? This is book number four in the Royal Spyness mystery series and a rather tongue-in-cheek case for our aristocratic sleuth.
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Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear
It’s August 1914 and young American cartographer Michael Clifton joins the British Army, feeling compelled to fight for his father’s native land in The Great War. In 1917, he is declared missing in action but his body lies undiscovered in a French field until April 1932, when his devastated parents ask investigator Maisie Dobbs to find the unnamed nurse whose love letters are found amongst their son’s belongings. It’s a case that will bring back painful memories for Maisie but also the discovery that Michael may not have died in battle.
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A Mourning Wedding by Carola Dunn
Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her DCI husband, Alec, have been invited to the wedding of her friend Lucy Fotheringay. It’s a traditional society affair being hosted at her grandfather’s country estate with the usually gossipy aunt and assorted unfriendly relatives, but the nuptials are beset by several hitches. Lucy’s great aunt is found murdered in her bed, then she discovers her fiancé attempting to resuscitate her uncle who appears to have been dispatched in the conservatory. Daisy must find the killer before any more wedding guests are bumped off.
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Mr Perfect by Linda Howard
A little racier, and not quite as cozy, Mr Perfect by Linda Howard sees four female friends listing what makes the perfect man. What starts off funny and cheeky gets a little more serious after the list has been passed around their company by email, then escapes into the outside world and into the press. It turns from fun to full-on mystery when one of the four women is murdered. The prime suspect is her boyfriend, who happens to have found the list more than a little annoying. Heroine Jaine Bright and her neighbour, a police detective, set out to solve the mystery. Are the three surviving women being stalked by a deadly killer?
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