Mysteries Set in Western Massachusetts

Adamson, Lydia. A Cat With a Fiddle 1993

Cat-sitter Alice Nestleton investigates the murder of a pianist at a remote artists' colony in the Berkshires.

Arsenault, Emily. The Broken Teaglass (2009)

In the maze of cubicles at the Samuelson Company, located in a small, anonymous city on the banks of the Connecticut River, editors toil away in silence, studying the English language, poring over new expressions and freshly coined words -- all in preparation for the next new edition of the Samuelson Dictionary. Among them is editorial assistant Billy Webb, just out of college, struggling to stay awake and appear competent. But there are a few distractions. His intriguing coworker Mona Minot may or may not be flirting with him. And he's starting to sense something suspicious going on beneath this company's academic facade.

Boyer, Rick. Gone to Earth 1990

Motorcycle gangs and unsolved murder at Doc Adams' newly purchased farm. Doc finds, in the cellar of his Berkshire hideaway, four Harley-Davidsons that a mysterious woman claims belonged to her brother Billy, whose body is one of those found buried in Doc's backyard.

Blackmur, L.L. Love Lies Slain 1999

Working on the autobiography of a reclusive, aging painter at his home in western Massachusetts, Galen gets drawn into mysterious family affairs.

Cameron, Dana, A Fugitive Truth (2004)

Delighted to be given the opportunity to journey to the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts to study the eighteenth-century diary of accused witch and murderess Margaret Chandler, archaeologist Emma Fielding finds herself sharing a house with three decidedly odd Shrewsbury Foundation fellows, one of whom falls victim to a murderer with disturbing ties to the past.

Bloom, Elizabeth. The Mortician's Daughter (2006)

Assisting in the investigation into her best friend's son's beating death, suspended NYPD officer Ginny Lavoie returns to her childhood home in North Adams to discern the killer among suspects ranging from a homeless Vietnam vet to the victim's stepfather.

Clark, Mary Jane. Lights Out Tonight (2007)

Film and theatre critic Caroline Enright thinks her trip to a theatre festival in the beautiful Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts will be as easy as a summer breeze -- until her complicated relationship with her stepdaughter, Meg, grows even more tense, and two of Meg's friends are killed in what looks like a tragic accident. Soon a world-famous actress goes missing.

Connors-Wade, Joanne. A Thread of Evidence 2005

Based on the true story of a 1954 double homicide in the Forest Park neighborhood of Springfield.

Dobson, Joanne. Quieter Than Sleep 1997

An English professor and expert on Emily Dickinson risks life and limb to track down the killer of a flamboyant, philandering professor who expires in her arms while mumbling something about a mysterious master letter. One of the Karen Pelletier series, set in the fictitious Enfield College in western Massachusetts.

Dreher, Sarah. Shaman's Moon (1998)

Detective Stoner McTavish investigates ghosts who have appeared in the sleepy town of Shelburne Falls.

Gilman, Dorothy. Thale's Folly 1999

New York novelist Andrew Thale journeys to rural Massachusetts to look over a dilapidated family property and discovers a beautiful girl and an odd puzzle.

Goldstone, Nancy. Mommy and the Murder 1995

Wall Street trader Elizabeth Halperin is the prime suspect when her estranged husband is murdered at a Halloween party at his new girlfriend's Lenox home.

Higgins, George V. Mandeville Talent 1991

Thoroughly modern husband and corporate-law whiz Joe Corey cheerfully hops off the fast track when Mrs. Corey answers an emergency call for tenure-track help at Mount Holyoke. It's not really that big a sacrifice for Joe since corporate law, at which he is very good, has turned out to be highly paid boredom. Far more interesting is the opportunity to clear up the alleged suicide of Mrs. Corey's grandfather, who 20 years earlier fell to a shotgun shell in the office of his small-town bank.

Langton, Jane. Emily Dickinson is Dead 1984

Murder mystery set at an Emily Dickinson symposium in Amherst. When Winifred Gaw is discovered murdered in Emily Dickinson's bedroom, Horace Kelly decides to investigate the baffling crime.

MacLeod, Charlotte. The Luck Runs Out 1979.

The president of Balaclava Agricultural College enlists the help of Professor Peter Shandy when Miss Flackley, the farrier, is found dead in the pen of a prize sow and half a million dollars worth of silver is discovered stolen from the local silversmith.

Randall, Brant. Blood Harvest (2008)

In rural western Massachusetts in 1929, 13-year-old Jackie Sue MacKay and Angus DeCosta, a boy from the next county over, are caught in a compromising situation. Her cousins take the boy, beat him up, and toss him off a bridge. He survives, but Big Bill Sykes, the local prosecutor with statewide ambition, decides to charge the MacKay cousins with attempted murder. By the letter of the law, it might be the right thing to do, but he doesn't understand the forces he's unleashing. The MacKay and DeCosta families are rival bootleggers. The MacKays are also linked to the very active Ku Klux Klan; the DeCostas are Catholic immigrants and symbolize the core fears of the Klan.

Read, Cornelia. The Crazy School (2008)

Tough-talking former debutante Madeline Dare navigates the darker side of her tenure at a boarding school for emotionally disturbed teens in western Massachusetts, questioning the school head's credibility and forging an unlikely alliance with a small group of rebels.

Stephan, Leslie. Murder Most Distressing 1986

No-nonsense Mary Lou Stockbridge, runt of an old New England family, brings evidence to the Hampford, Mass., police that Great Aunt Eunice has been murdered. The various family members, suspects all, react in a typical Brahmin way: they are embarrassed at the notoriety. Chief Henderson and Sergeant Putnam, half of the small Berkshires town's police force, must deal with a houseful of eccentrics, high-priced lawyers, an aggressive state cop and a clutch of nasty family retainers.

Sturges, Karen. Death of a Pooh-Bah 1999

An invitation from a long-lost aunt takes musician Phoebe Mullins to Northampton, Massachusetts, where she takes on the job of stage manager for a community production of The Mikado , but the murder of the pompous actor playing Lord Pooh-Bah soon forces Phoebe to draw on all her sleuthing skills to find a killer.

White, Michael C. The Garden of Martyrs (2004)

A story based on actual events from 1806 traces the arrests and executions of two innocent Irish immigrants, one a simple family man and the other a heartbroken man with a checkered past, who are falsely accused of murder and who face their deaths with the help of a tormented French Catholic priest. Based on the Dominic Daley - James Halligan trial in Northampton in 1806.

Woodworth, Deborah. Killing Gifts (2001)

When the body of a disreputable woman turns up in the summerhouse of the Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts, Eldress Rose Callahan braves the harsh Depression-era winter to journey from Kentucky to New England to investigate the death and to unmask a killer before he or she can strike again.

5/10

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