Devon Mysteries

In the Dartmoor town of Ashburton, reluctant antique shop owner and accidental amateur sleuth Juno Browne has cash-flow problems. So, when the mild and gentlemanly bookbinder Frank Tinkler rents a room above the shop, he seems like the answer to a prayer. At home, Juno accidentally disturbs intruders and shortly afterwards, one of them falls to his death from a viaduct. Was it accident, suicide or murder? When Juno recognises his accomplice as Frank’s nephew, Scott, she decides to investigate.

When Juno Browne purchases a wardrobe to stock in her fledgling antiques store, she doesn’t expect to find a dead body inside. And when the man she bought it from, rascally farmer Fred Crick, is found battered to death in his blazing cottage, the hunt for a double murderer is on. Despite the police struggling to connect the two deaths, this time Juno is resolved to ignore her impulse to investigate.

When Juno Browne returns to the picturesque Dartmoor town of Ashburton after a brief holiday, she’s relieved to find that no one has been murdered while she was away. Though uncharitable friends suggest the quiet was simply due to her absence. Just as she’s settling back into her routine at the antiques shop and as domestic helper and dog walker, the brutal killing of local journalist Sandy Thomas shocks the town.

With the festive season fast approaching, amateur sleuth Juno Browne helps organise a Christmas Fair to raise funds for Ashburton’s local animal sanctuary. The event is a success, but whilst Santa is handing out presents in the fairy-lit grotto, a murder is being committed in a dark corner of the garden. Juno discovers the body of Bob the Blacksmith, found clutching a horseshoe decorated with a sprig of elder. Suspicion falls on Bob’s longsuffering wife, Jackie, and on Don Drummond, with whom Bob violently quarrelled in the past