Helen Cox

Librarian Kitt Hartley thought her life had gone back to normal after the shocking events of Murder by the Minster. Then her friend Evie Bowes breaks some bad news: DS Charlotte Banks has been suspended from duty, on suspicion of assaulting a suspect in a string of antique bookshop robberies. Evie wants justice for Charlotte, who she is sure was not the attacker, and how could any self-respecting librarian turn down the chance to find missing rare books? The two friends team up once again to investigate the rarefied world of York's bookshops and antiques dealers and find out just who has framed their friend. But Kitt and Evie will soon learn that there are some books people will kill for - will this story have a happy ending?

Former investment banker Johan Golding - Joe to his friends - is the newest member of the Hartley and Edwards Investigations team. And he's thrilled to be shadowing Kitt Hartley, librarian-turned-top sleuth, and her right-hand woman Grace Edwards; even if it means adjusting to the low-level madness that seems to reign in the Hartley and Edwards offices.

But Joe finds himself thrown in at the deep end when a man known as Ralph Holmes goes missing on the outskirts of Carlisle. Police are refusing to investigate, as his disappearance seems voluntary, but his niece, Carly Lewis, is determined to find out what really happened.

As Kitt, Grace and Joe begin to investigate, they deduce there might be more to this disappearance than meets the eye.

Book 8 in the Kitt Hartley series.

When librarian and budding private investigator Kitt Hartley visits her ex-assistant Grace Edwards in Durham, she soon learns of an unsolved murder.

A year ago Jodie Perkins, a Mechanics student, disappeared after her student-radio broadcast was cut short with a deafening scream. The police suspect Jodie was murdered although her body was never found.

Keen to be on the front line of one of Kitt's investigations, Grace convinces Kit to use her recent private investigator training to solve the mystery. Can Kitt and Grace uncover the truth?

Book 4 in the Kitt Hartley mysteries.

Meet Kitt Hartley: librarian, trilby-wearer, Lady Grey tea-drinker, taker of no nonsense...detective? It's a perfectly normal day for Kitt Hartley at her job at the University of the Vale of York library, until Detective Inspector Halloran arrives at her desk to tell her that her best friend, Evie Bowes, is under suspicion of murder. Horrified that the police could have got it so wrong, Kitt decides there's only one thing to do: she's going to investigate herself. She's read hundreds of mystery novels - how hard can it be? With the help of her assistant Grace, and the occasional hindrance of the library's eccentric regulars, Kitt summons up all her investigative powers (absorbed over years of reading everything from Agatha Christie to Ian Rankin) and gets to work. She soon discovers that down the quaint streets and snickelways of York lie darker doings than she'd ever dreamed, but she needs to watch her step: the murderer is watching her. And they haven't finished killing yet....

Kitt Hartley wakes to the news that a murder has been committed in Irendale, a village high on the wild Yorkshire moors where her boyfriend, DI Malcolm Halloran, lived with his ex-wife until she too, was murdered. The MO of the two crimes is identical, right down to the runic symbols carved into the victims' hands.

Unable to leave it to the local police to solve, Kitt and Halloran travel to Irendale, where a literary mystery awaits. A line of Anglo-Saxon poetry found on the victim leads to a hiding place, and another cryptic clue. What is the connection to the murder of Halloran's wife all those years ago?

Book 3 in the Kitt Hartley series.