The case is an unexpected bother for Inspector Witherspoon's household, already abuzz with plans for the holidays, but Scotland Yard wants this crime solved before Christmas. Now the busy sleuths must rally in support of their Inspector -- especially since the clues are harder to find than a silver sixpence in a plum pudding.

Train enthusiast Francis Humphreys was drawing his last breath while his relatives and neighbors were over for tea. But Inspector Witherspoon wonders: If everyone was downstairs, who could have stolen into Uncle Francis' second-story study, killed him, and escaped? Mrs. Jeffries will have to lend her downstairs common sense to this upstairs murder mystery - and hope that she and the Inspector don't get derailed...

The eccentric Olive Kettering swore someone was trying to harm her. Too bad no one listened, though plenty wanted her dead. When Olive is shot and killed, Mrs. Jeffries has no problem speaking her mind to see justice served.

All the upper crust marriageable daughters are outraged when rich, handsome Lewis Banfield marries an artist's model. But Arlette Montrose Banfield is an intelligent, free-spirited modern woman. However, not everyone approves. At the Banfield ball, someone poisons the new bride's champagne. Inspector Witherspoon is on the case. Luckily, Mrs. Jeffries - his housekeeper and crimesolver - doesn't mind getting her hands a little dirty.

Mrs. Jeffries, housekeeper to Scotland Yard Inspector Witherspoon, helps solve three murder cases, including one in which a theater critic known for his harsh reviews turns up dead in a canal.

"Old sins cast long shadows. Normally dead bodies in a graveyard are buried--but not this one. When a woman is found strangled in a North London cemetery with an old newspaper clipping clutched in her hand, Inspector Witherspoon is surprised to find that he and the victim have crossed paths before. Mrs. Robinson was a respectable widow who ran a quiet Islington lodging house. None of her lodgers have any apparent motive to murder their landlady. But...

"As the holidays approach, all is merry and bright for Inspector Witherspoon, Mrs. Jeffries, and the staff at Upper Edmonton Gardens...but murder knows no season. MURDER UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR Christopher Gilhaney isn't a popular man, and he proves why once again when he insults every guest at Abigail Chase's Guy Fawkes Night dinner party. When Gilhaney is shot dead under the cover of the night's fireworks, his murder is deemed a robbery gone wrong....

"Miss Sarah Bain, a photographer in Whitechapel, is an independent woman with dark secrets. In the privacy of her studio, she supplements her meager income by taking illicit "boudoir photographs" of the town's local ladies of the night. But when two of her models are found gruesomely murdered within weeks of one another, Sarah begins to suspect it's more than mere coincidence. Teamed with a motley crew of friends--including a street urchin, a gay...

A photographer in 1889 London, Miss Sarah Bain runs a private detective agency with her friends, Lord Hugh Staunton and former street urchin Mick O'Reilly. Their sole credential is that they solved the Jack the Ripper case, a secret they can never tell because they did it outside the boundaries of the law. Their new big case arises when a wealthy banker, Sir Gerald Mariner, posts a handsome reward for finding his missing infant. All of London joins...