Letter to Readers

May, 2025

Hello, dear readers! Since I've last updated my letters, a bit has happened! MARRIAGE AND MURDER has been out and about for all of you to read. I do hope you have enjoyed catching up with Barnaby Adair and his team. If you haven't yet caught up, MARRIAGE AND MURDER is the 10th volume of The Casebook of Barnaby Adair Series.

Henry, Lord Glossup, arrives on Barnaby and Penelope Adairs’ doorstep and begs their aid—and that of Stokes—in identifying the murderer of Viola Huntingdon, a middle-aged spinster who lived a largely blameless life in a country cottage in a tiny village close to Henry’s home. As Stokes has already been tapped to take the case, the investigators travel to Salisbury and thence to Ashmore village and throw themselves into the case.

While initially Henry was touted as a suspect, he is quickly eliminated, and with the help of the victim’s sister, Madeline, the investigators set out to discover all they can about the victim and who might have wished her ill. In such a small village, with a commensurately small population, the list of possible suspects is short, but the existence of Viola’s ‘secret admirer, H’ has everyone stumped. First, how could Viola, living in such a small community, have had a secret visitor, a man no one saw except at a distance? And who on earth is he, this H?

As the investigators piece together the clues of missing jewelry and sightings of H and follow the leads generated by opportunistic thieves, dodgy jewelers, and local moneylenders, a picture emerges that points to only one conclusion. But in small villages, things are rarely as they seem. Have the investigators got the right man in their sights, or have they been led astray?

MARRIAGE AND MURDER is available in all formats. Click on the cover below for details

If you've caught up with MARRIAGE AND MURDER, then it's time to get yourself ready for the next installment of The Casebook of Barnaby Adair Series - THE MURDER OF THOMAS CARDWELL! In the 11th volume in the series, we catch up with Jordan Draper.

Dispatched by Roscoe, London’s gambling king, to learn what “nefarious activity” an upstanding man-of-business has stumbled upon, Jordan Draper—Roscoe’s own man-of-business—arrives at Thomas Cardwell’s office to discover Cardwell very recently murdered.

Soon, Jordan finds himself working alongside the Adairs and Inspector Stokes as they search for clues as to why anyone would kill a man as unthreatening as Cardwell. Unexpectedly, Jordan finds himself drawn to Cardwell’s family, especially Thomas’s sister, Ruth, and as the investigation progresses, the greater Jordan’s compulsion to find the murderer and bring the family resolution and respite grows.

Clue by clue, motive by surprising motive, the investigators seek to identify Cardwell’s murderer and, along the way, uncover the “nefarious activity” he’d sought to bring to the authorities’ attention. But in a case cluttered with intertwined motives and a web of potential suspects related to each other as well as the victim, finding the kernel of truth amid the chaff is no easy matter. Only through enlisting the help of the investigators’ wider circle of supporters do they make any headway, and on the heels of uncovering a cascade of crimes, they finally—finally—close in on the man who murdered Thomas Cardwell.

THE MURDER OF THOMAS CARDWELL is due to be released on July 17, 2025. We currently have preorders available in all formats - digital, audio and print. If you’d like some more information on the novel and where to purchase it, click on the cover for full detai

I’ve also opened up our competition vault once again. Entries are now open for our current competition, celebrating the upcoming release of THE MURDER OF THOMAS CARDWELL. Get your chance to win one of five of the novels, in your preferred format! Click HERE for details. Entries close on July 10, 2025. Don’t miss out!

As always, stay safe, and if all else fails, sit down and read a good book!

Looking Ahead:

July 17, 2025 - THE MURDER OF THOMAS CARDWELL, Volume 11 in the Casebook of Barnaby Adair series.

As ever, I truly appreciate your wonderful support. As long as you are there, wanting to read my stories, I'm happy to keep writing them!

Stephanie