The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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English / British Theme Mysteries… J, K, L, M, & N

This is a list of the mystery authors whose last names begin with J, K, L, M, and N who happen to write mysteries that take place in Great Britain. I realize that there are many more authors who write British mysteries, but I am only including the authors who are on the Cozy Mystery site. Also, as I have said before, not all of the authors who write British mysteries are actually British…

D.E. Ireland: Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins Mystery Series, based on the George Bernard Shaw Pygmalion characters.

P. D. James: Very British… Adam Dalgliesh, the Scotland Yard poet, and Cornelia Gray, the heir to a detective agency.

Morag Joss: Sara Selkirk Mystery Series – Sara is a world renown cellist.

Julie Kaewert: Her Booklovers’ series is set in London.

Diana Killian: Although her sleuth is from the USA, she goes to England to fulfill her passion for the English romantic poets.

Laurie R. King:  The Mary Russell Mystery Series features Mary, protégée of Sherlock Holmes.

Peter King: A gourmet detective series and a series that features Jack London.

Kate Kingsbury: One of her series takes place during WW II and the other during the early 1900s.

Janet Laurence: She has two series to pick from, one features a 1700s painter and the other series’ sleuth is a caterer.

John le Carré: He pens the George Smiley series, as well as many stand-alones.

Margaret Leek (aka Sara Woods, Mary Challis, & Anne Burton): Stephen Marryat is a barrister.

Gillian Linscott: Her Nell Bray series features a suffragette, and her other series has an ex-cop.

Catherine Lloyd: The Kurland St. Mary Mystery Series stars the daughter of a vicar in a small English town in the 1810s.

Marianne Macdonald: Her Dido Hoare Mystery Series used to be called the Antiquanarian Book Mystery Series.

Susan Elia MacNeal writes the Maggie Hope Mystery Series. Although Maggie is from the USA, the series takes place in London during the 1940s.

Ngaio Marsh: Her Detective Alleyn series is a long time favorite of cozy readers.

Edward Marston: Several British (as well as non-British) series to choose from.

Sarah J. Mason: The third (and as of this writing, final) author to pen the Miss Emily Seeton novels, and also, she pens another series that takes place in England.

Jill McGown: Her series involves an inspector and chief inspector in England.

Catriona McPherson: The Dandy Gilver Mystery Series is set in Scotland during the 1920s.

Gladys Mitchell (aka Malcolm Torrie): She penned many Mrs. Bradley novels.

Gilbert Morris: Lady Trent Mystery Series

John Mortimer: The Rumpole of the Bailey series

Patricia Moyes: Scotland Yard Inspector Henry Tibbett

Amy Myers: Her Auguste Didier is a chef in the mid to late 1800s London, and Peter Marsh is an ex-policeman in England.

Janet Neel: Her series takes place in London.

Other British lists:

Authors beginning with A & B

Authors beginning with C & D

Authors beginning with E, F, G, & H

Authors beginning with P, R, & S

Authors beginning with T , U, & W

***To access more Cozy Mysteries by Theme click on this link.***

Comments

  5. I just discovered Peter Lovesey’s Superintendent Diamond series which I think is spectacular. It’s a cross between a cozy and a police procedural, and would certainly qualify in this list.

    Reply

  7. Please add Anne Morice (although she is deceased), her Tessa Chrichton series is great and there are about 15 or so. Thanks for the great work and site!

    Reply

    • Thanks, Chuck, for telling us about Anne Morice. And, thank you for the kind words about the site.

      Reply

  8. Hi all, LOVE THIS SITE A GREAT WAY TO FIND NEW AUTHORS. And does anyone know of old house restoration novels and biblophile novels? I have just started mysteries and have quite a few good authors. I love descriptive books ie Maine, cottages in Scotland, and women as the main subject. I will keep watching this blog and try to add some of my authors out there. Thanks for a FANTASTIC SITE

    Reply

  9. I love your site. I check in from time to time to get new authors to read on my Kindle (R). I’m not sure the Kate Johnson series is a “Cozy Mystery” but since I enjoy reading it like so many of the books on your site I think it qualifies. Below is my review of her series.

    Move over Ian Fleming and make room for Sophie Green … Kate Johnson who lives in rural Essex, UK writes the Sophie Green Mysteries. She has a fun, breezy, sarcastic, humorous way of writing.
    Her first book in this series is I, Spy? You are introduced to Sophie Green, an Ace Airline worker, who is tall, blond, and turns heads with her clothes sense and curvy figure. Sophie is an avid fan of the “Buffy the Vampire” TV series, loves but sometimes forgets to feed her cat (who uses the cat flap to go outside and hunt her own food anyway), and has had only low paying jobs so rents a house from her mum who was left it as an inheritance by her grandmother. Sophie lives in a messy clothes-scattered way but her mind is orderly and organized. Although she is actually very smart, her looks belie this fact and most people think she is ditzy. After Sophie helps to bring down a bad guy on the luggage carrier inside the bowels of the Stansted Airport, undercover agent Luke who works for a small government spy agency recruits Sophie to work as a fellow spy.
    The next book in the series is called Ugley Business. Sophie’s good friend is Angel whose mother died 15 years ago and 6 months later her father died in a motorcycle accident. The father may have been murdered and the killer is now stalking Angel trying to find a mysterious artifact that she apparently has. Angel lives in Ugley, UK, hence the book’s name. Sophie and Luke’s developing relationship undergo problems, break ups, reconciliations, and interpersonal communication problems.
    The third book is A is for Apple. Sophie goes to New York to help with a case that ends up back in the UK where she goes undercover in a high school. Sophie & Luke’s relationship emerge from the bedroom long enough for them to consider if meeting her parents is the next step. But Sophie is not convinced she even wants that much commitment, or does she?
    By the opening chapter of Still Waters Sophie has quit her job at the airlines because it interferes with her spy duties. The group of four spies, who make up the small spy agency, have gone to Cornwall on a small vacation, but a girl is found hanged in a cave and drowned by the rising tide. The local police suspect suicide but not our intrepid Sophie. When they are unexpectedly called back to the office, they find out they have all lost their jobs in a budget cut for their small government spy agency. Sophie & Luke continue their investigation to find the person responsible for murdering the girl in Cornwall.

    Reply

  10. Thanks, Norma, for telling us about Kate Johnson’s Sophie Green Mystery Series.

    Reply

  11. Love this site!!! Another terrific cozy mystery writer is Lilian Jackson Braun – The “Cat Who..” series. She has since passed away, but wrote 28 books which were all terrific.

    Reply

  12. Hi Danna,
    I just read a great new (to me) English culinary cozy. It’s by J. A. Lang and the title is, “Chef Maurice and a Spot of Truffle”. The book has is filled with humor and very eccentric characters! I could not figure out “whodunit” until Chef Maurice solved the mystery. I’m definitely a fan of the Chef!

    Reply

  13. In the “not so cozy but brillant genre I recommend Peter James’ series about Roy Grace set in Brighton and Hove area

    Reply

  15. Recently finished Jenn McKinlay’s BURIED TO THE BRIM, in her London-located Hatshop Mystery series, and absolutely recommend it most highly as possibly the coziest cozy I’ve ever read (among hundreds!). McKinlay looks so swanky and sophisticated, you’d think she’d write high-tension novels about industrial espionage and radioactive “maguffins” or something, with stock characters resembling THE MALTESE FALCON crew– but, no, it’s cupcakes, darling doggies, whimsical hats, and really charming, lovable human characters. BURIED TO THE BRIM is centered on a different kind of dog show, not the fanatical fancy of the Crufts/AKC kind of thing seen in Laurien Berenson’s series (I like ’em, but…) of overbred beauty-parlored canines subject to innumerable human-conceit rules and rigid criteria, but something resembling FUN, and allowing mongrels and (shades of the late great Fred Willard in BEST IN SHOW!), dress-up. The whodunit revelation is worthy of Poirot– though our often-rash heroine is deflated just a tad, and the bit of bitter aftertaste that many even-cozy mysteries leave is effervesced away with the delights that follow. I hope it wins awards!

    Reply

  16. Lynda La Plante writes several mystery series, although I’m not sure if all of them take place in Brittish settings. There’s one series of hers that I read and love called the Anna Travis series which is tet in London. The first book is called Above Suspicion. The main character is a young female police officer whose trying to make it on the murder squad, and also as a policewoman in general. It’s not cozy, but still a great read for nyone who loves Brittish mysteries.

    Reply

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