Flamboyant, wealthy, middle aged and several-times married Dodie Fanshaw is in Madeira to make a film about her early life as a Hollywood starlet. She is not amused when her son Jake, drunk and abusive, comes uninvited to a party on a yacht on New Year's Eve.
Staying with her daughter Elena in a village on the banks of the Thames, Dodie and Elena call on a neighbour, best-selling novelist Rick Wilbraham, where they find Anna, Rick's girlfriend, hysterically clinging on to Rick's lifeless body. Dodie sets out to investigate.
In the third Dodie Fanshaw mystery, there is a tragic death, but was it the right victim? While staying with her friend Christine, Dodie discovers that plenty of people have both motive and opportunity and she is determined to discover the truth.
The police investigate a murder and the many people who had grudges against the new Rector, including his family and his new parishioners. The trouble is, most of them have no alibis and not all of them tell the truth. Dodie discovers the vital clue.
Catherine, widowed, returns to her Lancashire home and goes to work for Martin, whose wife died in an accident for which he was blamed but exonerated, until the rumours start up again and his mother, a former dancer with Dodie, asks her to help.
A stolen pistol plopping into the pool beside Dodie, former starlet, announces murder. She sets out to discover who could have killed one of his neighbours and disposed of the pistol. Asking questions and testing alibis proves difficult.
In the seventh in the series, Dodie is persuaded to go to a Yorkshire health spa, but when some jewels are stolen and the owners refuse to have the police called in, she investigates. Then there is a murder and the plot thickens.
In the the eighth Dodie Fanshaw mystery farmer Harris is shot during a pheasant shoot. The police suspect Sir Hugo, owner of Comfree Abbey, but almost anyone could have done it, and a few villagers had their own quarrels with farmer Harris.
In the ninth Dodie Fanshaw mystery, she becomes involved with the ex-pat community in Barbados. But she doesn't expect murder. Tensions are high, several have motives but no one has an alibi. Dodie sets out to solve the mystery.
Dodie and her friend Felicity meet aspiring crime writers on a writing course. Susan, one of the students, has had a novel published. Tensions arise, the truth about her novel emerges, and then there is a murder.
In the eleventh and final Dodie Fanshaw mystery, a writer seeking ideas on a cruise discovers more than she expected. Where is the missing passenger? Her friend Dodie investigates.
