An excellent introduction, this sampler of country house murder mysteries sets up the rules of the game and entertains with almost two dozen classic stories.

As the camera peers through the trees at an opulent English country estate, director Robert Altman presents a rich visual context for this cinematic version of a 1930s weekend shooting party, replete with aristocrats, servants, intrigue, multiple motives, and the traditionally ill-fated host.

When a very surprised tourist discovers a body in a suit of armor on display at a country estate, suspicion rather naturally falls on the aristocratic owners and Inspector Sloan has a mystery on his hands.

The Earl of Burford reluctantly invites his extended family to stay for the funeral of an elderly relative.  One of the guests claims to know damaging secrets about some of them.  Oddly enough, she turns up dead.  The beleaguered Earl, who’s been through something like this before (The Affair of the Blood-Stained Egg Cozy) once again calls in the police, even though his daughter, Lady Geraldine, is determined to solve the crime before they do.

Lori Shepherd enlists the help of “Aunt Dimity” – a blithe spirit who reveals her thoughts to Lori via the seemingly blank pages of a precious journal – to unravel the motives for mayhem and revenge at an Earl’s country estate.

Caroline is a retired TV actress now living with her two teen children at Alderley, an elegant mansion in a charming village in Yorkshire.  The murder of her married lover and the unexpected appearance of a young man who might be his son bring police Sergeant Peace into a plot full of twists and illusions.

Series sleuth Agatha Raisin is bored.  Her detective agency in the Cotswolds is thriving, but not exciting.  When Agatha is hired by a wealthy widow who’s convinced someone in her family is trying to kill her – and she then drops dead after high tea – things get much more challenging.

In an American take on our theme, burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr has his sights set on a romantic getaway in the Berkshires at the oh-so-English Cuttleford House, and an eye on a valuable book in their library he expects to return home with.  When his invited companion can’t make it (she’s getting married to someone else), he brings his friend Caroline.  But a major snowstorm and a corpse in the library cool his plans. Then the phone lines are cut…

Americans on holiday, Judith and her cantankerous cousin Renie are looking forward to a relaxing weekend at a real English country manor while their husbands take a fishing trip to Scotland.  The owner of the estate is a 90-year-old, controlling dowager – who is poisoned to death with chocolate candy.  So much for relaxing…

Folk singer Ringan Laine and his group have been invited to perform at the prestigious Arts Festival at Callowen House in Hampshire.  Accompanied by his longtime lover, actress Penelope Wintercraft-Hawkes, he gets embroiled with strange and chilling nightmares, ghostly presences, and an evil spirit seeking revenge.  Grabien weaves folklore, history, and mystery into an involving tale with a supernatural tinge.

In 1920s Australia, independent Phryne Fisher, on holiday with her handsome lover Lin Chung at Cave House in mountain country, wants to find out who’s sending death threats to her host, who’s setting unexpected lethal traps, and who murdered the parlor maid and might very well kill everyone else in the house.

Who will be the seventh Duke of Beauville, heir to the breathtaking estate known as Justice Hall?  Certainly not Maurice “Marsh” Hughenfort, if he has a choice.  When Sherlock Holmes and his wife Mary Russell first met him, they knew him as Mahmoud Hazr; he and his cousin Ali, now revealed as Alistair, were guides – and spies – in Palestine.  Becoming a duke would be a serious hindrance to Marsh in his chosen profession, so he asks Holmes and Russell to track through dangerous family entanglements in search of another rightful heir.

Lovesey, Peter – Bertie and the Seven Bodies

When death stalks a weekend shooting party, high-living Albert Edward, Prince of Wales and future King Edward VII, fumbles his amateur way through a rapidly dwindling list of glittering guests to nab a murderer.

The Berkshire countryside lies wrapped in winter, but the well-born guests at Applecross are surrounded by cozy fires and candlelight, holly and mistletoe, good food and wine.  Not even the clever young aristocrat Vespasia Cumming-Gould anticipates the tragedy about to strike…

When a family gathers for a much-anticipated reunion in the tranquility of a snow-covered Lake District, what at first appears to be an accidental death roils the waters as the distraught new widow summons her godfather for support and the death is now whispered to be a murder…

Just after Ellery’s father, Inspector Queen, remarries, Jessie, his new bride, receives a mysterious invitation from a complete stranger to come to a house party at his upstate New York country home.  Wealthy Hendrick Brass has included half of a $1000 bill in each invitation as an inducement to six oddly assorted guests.  Is it only a joke, or will murder be the punchline?

At Wentwater Court, her first assignment, Daisy is with old friends and one new face, the sinister Lord Stephen Astwith.  When he’s found dead, a link is made to jewel thefts, but the house is chock full of secrets and likely suspects, and attractive Chief inspector Alec Fletcher enlists Daisy’s help.

Researching for her next article, Daisy has inveigled an invitation to Occles Hall and discovers the body of a housemaid in the garden.

Now engaged to Chief Inspector Fletcher, Daisy is visiting the Henley-on-Thames country house of her aunt Lady Cheringham and writing about intercollegiate rowing races, when one of the rowers, nasty Basil DeLancy, falls overboard and drowns.  Accident…or murder?

Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher has been invited, with her mother the Viscountess and her husband the police inspector, to spend Christmas at Brockdene, in Cornwall.  Their host, Lord Westmoor, however, abandons them to a house full of his poor relations and, once again, a murder has Daisy and her husband plunging into action.

When a wedding at the estate of the charming Earl of Haverhill is interrupted by the dual murders of the bride’s great aunt and uncle, Daisy and Alec must find out who among the horde of wedding guests is the culprit.

While visiting Edge Manor, the home of an old school friend, for the family’s annual elaborate Guy Fawkes celebration, Daisy is stunned by the apparent suicide of the overbearing head of the family, who may also have killed a guest before he died.

On the day of the Royal Wedding in 1981 at a house party on the banks of the Thames, a little girl wandered off on her own.  Her doll was found floating in the river, but of the girl there was no trace.  Twenty years later one of the party’s attendees, Antonia Darcy, divorcee, librarian, and aspiring mystery novel writer, still puzzles over the child’s disappearance and the strange behavior of her awful father, his exotic wife, and the odd absence of the girl’s nanny.

Antonia and her new husband, Major Payne, are spending the last days of their honeymoon at Chalfont Park, the home of the Major’s aunt, Lady Grylls.  French songstress Corinne Coreille has asked to visit anonymously to escape threats she’s been receiving, and a bereaved (and deranged) mother’s internal monologue is interspersed in the tale, as she seeks vengeance on a certain famous French singer…

On the morning he and his oppressed wife, Gerda, are due to travel to the country for a weekend with friends, John Christow allows his small daughter to tell his fortune with cards.  When the death card is drawn, he pays no attention…

The quiet lives of an Egyptian family in 2000 BC are disturbed when the father, Imhotep, returns to his estate with a new concubine, Nofret, who begins to sow discord amongst the inhabitants. Once the deaths begin, there is fear of a curse on the household, but the killer is all too human.

This is the classic of country house mysteries, even though it may be the least “typical” of the lot. On an island off the coast of Devon in the 1930s, eight people of different social classes have been invited to Soldier Island mansion.  Upon arrival, they’re told by the butler and his wife that their hosts are currently away, but to settle in anyway.  During dinner, the guests notice ten little figurines of soldiers on the table and later hear a song on the gramophone informing all ten people present that each is guilty of getting away with murder. Then they begin to die…