The Haunted Season

Agatha Award-winning author G. M. Malliet has charmed mystery lovers, cozy fans, and Agatha Christie devotees everywhere with Wicked Autumn, A Fatal Winter, and Pagan Spring, the critically acclaimed mysteries featuring handsome former-spy-turned-cleric Father Max Tudor. Hailed as "wittier than Louise Penny, lighter than Tana French, smarter than Deborah Crombie" (Cleveland Plain Dealer), Malliet is a top-notch writer whose work gets better with each book.

Something sinister is stirring at Totleigh Hall, the showcase of the English village of Nether Monkslip. Usually, the Lord and Lady of the manor are absent-high tax rates, it is murmured with more than a trace of envy, force them to live on the continent for most of the year. But Lord and Lady Baaden-Boomethistle have been in residence for some weeks now, and the villagers are hoping for a return to the good old days, when the lord of the manor sprinkled benefits across the village like fairy dust. Father Max Tudor's invitation to dinner at the Hall comes as a welcome novelty; it will be his first time meeting the famous family that once held sway in the area. But before he has time to starch his clerical collar and organize a babysitter, a sudden and suspicious death intervenes, and the handsome vicar's talent for sorting through clues to a murder is once again called into play in this charming and clever novel.

G. M. MALLIET won the Agatha Award for best first novel for Death of a Cozy Writer, which initally won the Malice Domestic Grant, was nominated for both a Macavity and an Anthony Award, and was chosen as one of the Best Books of 2008 by Kirkus Reviews. Malliet's first three books in the Max Tudor series--Wicked Autumn, Fatal Winter, and Pagan Spring--were all nominated for the Agatha Award as well. She lives in the Washington, D.C., area.