Picked by Kate Shackleton Mysteries fans

Here are 8 books that Kate Shackleton Mysteries fans have personally recommended once you finish the Kate Shackleton Mysteries series. Shepherd is a community of authors and super-readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

Book cover of The Postscript Murders

Katarina Bivald Author Of The Murders in Great Diddling

From my list on murder most english dangers of an English village.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up reading Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and everything British. My first novel celebrated American literature and small towns, and my first murder mystery was a love letter to England. I once spent twenty days visiting almost thirty bookshops and reading my way all over England, and let me tell you, I learned a thing or two about murders.

Katarina's book list on murder most english dangers of an English village

Katarina Bivald Why Katarina loves this book

Harbinder Kaur, the lead detective in Elly Griffiths's charming series, describes herself as “the best gay sikh detective in West Sussex,” and together with a few amateur sleuths, she forms a delightful cast in a sort of modern-day Miss Marple-romp.

It begins with an old lady using her binoculars to take careful note of what’s happening in her sleepy seaside village, and as all fans of British cozy crime know, where there are nosy neighbors, dead bodies will soon turn up. I loved Elly Griffiths's series about archeologist Ruth Galloway, and this new series does not disappoint. In fact, Elly Griffiths herself makes a small and entirely involuntary cameo in my book. 

By Elly Griffiths ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Postscript Murders as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

INVENTING CRIME STORIES CAN GET YOU KILLED

'A LOVE LETTER TO MURDER MYSTERIES' SUNDAY MIRROR

The ultimate gripping murder mystery to curl up with, from the bestselling author of The Stranger Diaries and the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries

The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should absolutely not be suspicious. DS Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing to concern her in carer Natalka's account of Peggy Smith's death.

But when Natalka reveals that Peggy lied about her heart condition and that she had been sure someone was following her...

And that Peggy Smith had been a 'murder consultant'…


Book cover of A Murder Is Announced

Katarina Bivald Author Of The Murders in Great Diddling

From my list on murder most english dangers of an English village.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up reading Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and everything British. My first novel celebrated American literature and small towns, and my first murder mystery was a love letter to England. I once spent twenty days visiting almost thirty bookshops and reading my way all over England, and let me tell you, I learned a thing or two about murders.

Katarina's book list on murder most english dangers of an English village

Katarina Bivald Why Katarina loves this book

A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30. It’s impossible to talk about British crime without mentioning the queen of crime herself: Agatha Christie. My own personal favorite is Miss Marple, the unimposing old lady who solves crimes by noticing parallels to the people she knows in St Mary Mead.

If you love cozy English villagers, you will love the opening of this book, which follows several different villagers as they read the local paper and a mysterious ad that invites them all to witness a murder at Little Paddock. Fortunately, Miss Marple is at hand to solve the mystery. 

By Agatha Christie ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked A Murder Is Announced as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, including Jane Marple, are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which read: 'A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6:30 p.m.' Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, a crowd begins to gather at Little Paddocks at the pointed time when, without warning, the lights go out ...


Book cover of The Killings at Badger's Drift

Katarina Bivald Author Of The Murders in Great Diddling

From my list on murder most english dangers of an English village.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up reading Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and everything British. My first novel celebrated American literature and small towns, and my first murder mystery was a love letter to England. I once spent twenty days visiting almost thirty bookshops and reading my way all over England, and let me tell you, I learned a thing or two about murders.

Katarina's book list on murder most english dangers of an English village

Katarina Bivald Why Katarina loves this book

Everyone has probably seen an episode (or two hundred) of that favorite British detective series, Midsomer Murders. But not everyone knows that the series about what has to be the most depleted part of England is, in fact, based on seven novels by Caroline Grahams.

This is the first book, but they are all definitely worth a read. It’s easy to see how the books turned into a beloved TV series, with its unique blend of cozy English villages and twisted English villagers. 

By Caroline Graham ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Killings at Badger's Drift as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Badger's Drift is an ideal English village, complete with vicar, bumbling local doctor, and kindly spinster with a nice line in homemade cookies. But when the spinster dies suddenly, her best friend kicks up an unseemly fuss, loud enough to attract the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby. And when Barnaby and his eager-beaver deputy start poking around, they uncover a swamp of ugly scandals and long-suppressed resentments seething below the picture-postcard prettiness. In the grand tradition of the quietly intelligent copper, Barnaby has both an irresistibly dry sense of humor and a keen insight into what makes people…


Book cover of The Windsor Knot

Katarina Bivald Author Of The Murders in Great Diddling

From my list on murder most english dangers of an English village.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up reading Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and everything British. My first novel celebrated American literature and small towns, and my first murder mystery was a love letter to England. I once spent twenty days visiting almost thirty bookshops and reading my way all over England, and let me tell you, I learned a thing or two about murders.

Katarina's book list on murder most english dangers of an English village

Katarina Bivald Why Katarina loves this book

What could be more quintessentially British than Her Majesty, the Queen, solving murders at her different castles? Her Majesty The Queen Investigates is a charming series based on meticulous research. It offers fascinating insights into the large organization surrounding the palace and a convincing portrait of the Queen herself.

With just the right amount of corgis and murders, Her Majesty the Queen Investigates is a cozy murder series to delight all anglophiles. Fans of The Crown will be especially pleased—the fourth book in the series, A Death in Diamonds, is the start of a historical trilogy.

By SJ Bennett ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Windsor Knot as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For fans of The Crown and The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.
On a perfect Spring morning at Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth II will enjoy a cup of tea, carry out all her royal duties . . . and solve a murder.

'Like an episode of The Crown - but with a spicy dish of murder on the side' (DAILY MAIL)
______________________

The morning after a dinner party at Windsor Castle, eighty-nine-year-old Queen Elizabeth is shocked to discover that one of her guests has been found murdered in his room, with a rope around his neck.

When the police…


Book cover of Long Way Home

Nick Quantrill Author Of Sound of the Sinners

From my list on crime set in the North of England.

Why am I passionate about this?

The North of England is home. I was born here, I work here and it’s where I will see out my days. It’s a place with its own character, a place largely forged on hard industrial work and one trying to find a new purpose after decades of financial neglect. My home city of Hull captures this in miniature as we’ve shared a journey over the last decade via my novels from 'UK Crap Town of the Year’ to ‘UK City of Culture.’ Tied in with my background in studying Social Policy and Criminology, I’ll continue to map the city and the region’s trials and tribulations.

Nick's book list on crime set in the North of England

Nick Quantrill Why Nick loves this book

Stretching the geographical boundary a little, Dolan’s police series takes us to Peterborough, another location scared by political and financial neglect. It’s the terrain I tread in the Joe Geraghty series, our cities are not too different. Beyond that, Dolan also makes giving the police series a fresh shot of adrenaline looks easy. Based in the Hate Crimes Units, DI Zigic and DS Ferreira, give voice to those who are marginalised and without voice, a welcome rebalancing and one that questions the power and position of the police.

By Eva Dolan ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Long Way Home as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A man is burnt alive in a shed.

No witnesses, no fingerprints - only a positive ID of the victim as an immigrant with a long list of enemies.

Detectives Zigic and Ferreira are called in from the Hate Crimes Unit to track the killer, and are met with silence in a Fenland community ruled by slum racketeers, people-trafficking gangs and fear.

Tensions rise.
The clock is ticking.
But nobody wants to talk.


Book cover of No More Heroes

Nick Quantrill Author Of Sound of the Sinners

From my list on crime set in the North of England.

Why am I passionate about this?

The North of England is home. I was born here, I work here and it’s where I will see out my days. It’s a place with its own character, a place largely forged on hard industrial work and one trying to find a new purpose after decades of financial neglect. My home city of Hull captures this in miniature as we’ve shared a journey over the last decade via my novels from 'UK Crap Town of the Year’ to ‘UK City of Culture.’ Tied in with my background in studying Social Policy and Criminology, I’ll continue to map the city and the region’s trials and tribulations.

Nick's book list on crime set in the North of England

Nick Quantrill Why Nick loves this book

Set in Manchester, Ray Banks’s gift to us is a razor-sharp contemporary Private Investigator series, a relative rarity within the UK crime writing scene. His surly PI, Cal Innes, may be battered and bruised, but his big heart continues to beat. Finding himself in the centre of a racist uprising in the city, it’s a place that needs a hero and he’s going to be the man who rises to the occasion. Using the classic PI template created by the great US writers, it showed me that I could also adapt the format and apply it to my own writing and PI, Joe Geraghty.

By Ray Banks ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked No More Heroes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It's Manchester's hottest summer on record and while Callum Innes evicts families on behalf of local slum lord Donald Plummer, the English National Socialists stir up racial tensions to breaking point. A firebomb attack at a Plummer property thrusts Innes into the spotlight as he saves a child from the burning building. But when Plummer enlists his help to track down the arsonists, Innes finds himself dealing with more than the ENS and his rapidly overwhelming codeine addiction. Time's running out and the temperature keeps rising. Manchester needs a hero and Callum Innes is the closest it has.


Book cover of Jack's Return Home

Nick Quantrill Author Of Sound of the Sinners

From my list on crime set in the North of England.

Why am I passionate about this?

The North of England is home. I was born here, I work here and it’s where I will see out my days. It’s a place with its own character, a place largely forged on hard industrial work and one trying to find a new purpose after decades of financial neglect. My home city of Hull captures this in miniature as we’ve shared a journey over the last decade via my novels from 'UK Crap Town of the Year’ to ‘UK City of Culture.’ Tied in with my background in studying Social Policy and Criminology, I’ll continue to map the city and the region’s trials and tribulations.

Nick's book list on crime set in the North of England

Nick Quantrill Why Nick loves this book

Published in 1970, it’s a touchstone crime novel for all writers wanting to explore the small towns and cities of the industrial north. Leaving London to return home to Scunthorpe, Jack Carter is a man on a revenge mission and wants to know who murdered his brother. With a keen eye for social attitudes and lives in a one-horse town, the novel transcends the page, and under the title of Get Carter, it gives us one of the great crime films of the 20th century. More than that, the novel’s Humber setting taught me I could also write about my neglected home city of Hull.

By Ted Lewis ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Jack's Return Home as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of The Dark Winter

Nick Quantrill Author Of Sound of the Sinners

From my list on crime set in the North of England.

Why am I passionate about this?

The North of England is home. I was born here, I work here and it’s where I will see out my days. It’s a place with its own character, a place largely forged on hard industrial work and one trying to find a new purpose after decades of financial neglect. My home city of Hull captures this in miniature as we’ve shared a journey over the last decade via my novels from 'UK Crap Town of the Year’ to ‘UK City of Culture.’ Tied in with my background in studying Social Policy and Criminology, I’ll continue to map the city and the region’s trials and tribulations.

Nick's book list on crime set in the North of England

Nick Quantrill Why Nick loves this book

It’s always strange when another writer tackles the same city you’re mapping, but it’s also a reminder that we see places in fundamentally different ways. I write about Hull as an insider looking out with David taking the opposite approach, arriving in the city as a journalist. In the debut outing for DI Aector McAvoy, it may be his writing background that allows him to look the place in the eye and draw a fantastically vivid city dealing with multiple social issues, but also one in which he finds its heart packed with spirit and hope.

By David Mark ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Dark Winter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The New York Times hails David Mark's work as "in the honorable tradition of Joseph Wambaugh and Ed McBain." DARK WINTER is the first book in the internationally acclaimed Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy series.

A series of suspicious deaths have rocked Hull, a port city in England as old and mysterious as its bordering sea. They have captured the attention of Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy. He notices a pattern missed by his fellow officers, who would rather get a quick arrest than bother themselves with finding the true killer. Torn between his police duties and his aching desire to spend…