Ann Purser draws inspiration for her novels about country life from her charming village setting. Before turning to fiction, she explored various careers, including journalism and running an art gallery, where she gained insights into human relationships and stories. Her passion for detective fiction inspired her to create the Lois Meade Mysteries series, with each title reflecting a day of the week. Her diligent studies and engagement with community life provide rich material for her stories, which often resonate with the real experiences and feelings of rural dwellers.
Frustration brews among the tenants of a terrace house in Tresham due to a noisy pet cockerel named Satan, owned by the stubborn Clem Fitch. As tensions rise and tenants decide to leave, Lois Meade's son Douglas steps in to rent the house, potentially changing the dynamics of the situation. This narrative explores themes of community conflict and family ties amidst the chaos of an unruly pet.
She’s had her hands full sorting out both clues and clutter in the village of Long Farnden. But a mother’s work is never done, and Lois Meade is discovering detective work is both dirty and dangerous… A wedding is always a happy occasion, even if Lois Meade must remind herself she isn’t losing a daughter, but gaining a policeman. Her new son-in-law is in the Tresham force—and happens to be Inspector Cowgill’s nephew—so now Lois has another link to the law. But when her youngest son invites a mysterious woman, Akiko, as a guest, Lois wonders why she refuses to talk about her past. And when a thief waltzes off with the young woman’s cello, Lois enlists the inspector’s help to find the valuable instrument. When Akiko herself goes missing, Lois discovers that this could be another in a string of murderous musical thefts. Now she must pull out all the stops to find the girl and protect her son…before the music stops permanently…
Set in the village of Long Farnden, the story follows Lois, who has tackled various challenges, including crime, as she cleans up the community. When her daughter's boyfriend is found critically injured, Lois embarks on a perilous investigation that uncovers a web of arson, local troublemakers, hidden agendas, and blackmail. As she navigates these dangers, she seeks to unravel the truth behind the crime that threatens her family and the village.
When the Long Farden village hall is in danger of being destroyed, the citizens form a committee to save it, with the usual grumps and curmudgeons included. But it seems someone opposes the preservation enough to set the historic building on fire. When a dead body turns up in the canal, Inspector Cowgill fears the dispute is only going to get uglier-and deadlier. Naturally, he turns to Lois Meade to sort out the culprit before the village hall becomes a funeral hall...
It's all smiles for the series that sweeps up sales-every day of the week. Working mum and owner of a cleaning business, Lois has just hired on the daughter of the Abrahams, an eccentric, reclusive family. But when strange letters and omens put everyone on edge, Lois wonders if the rumors about the Abrahams are the key to a terrible secret.
A friend has asked working-class mother and housecleaner Lois Meade to help crack a case. It looks like the handsome new choirmaster may have been poisoned. Soon, Lois finds herself untangling a web of secrets, bigotry, and intrigue-and can't let the culprits get away clean.
It may be the day of rest, but Lois Meade finds that not everyone believes in keeping it holy. A rash of strange occurrences in and around Long Farnden has Lois unsettled. Someone's been stealing valuable tack from the equestrian set, and then a local n'er-do-well is killed when a horse bolts in front of his van. With a new employee on her hands who may or may not be trustworthy, Lois hardly knows what to make of the disturbances, but it soon becomes clear that she'd better figure it out post-haste, or she herself may take a nasty tumble.
To her own credit, Lois’s cleaning business is really starting to clean up. So much that she decides to open up a new office in the neighboring town of Tresham, where she takes note of an unusually busy—and slightly sinister—storefront across the street. But business quickly mixes with Lois’s nose for sleuthing when she’s hired to clean the house of the pompous mayor, and then witnesses his honor’s limo picking up a dubious-looking package from the mysterious shop. There’s a filthy underside to Tresham, and when bloody murder starts staining the quaint town, Lois has to put her own life on the line to straighten things out…
From the moment his car stopped outside her door, Lois Meade didn't like the look of Reg Abthorpe who asked her to clean Uncle Herbert Everitt's house now that the old man had moved into an old folks' home. But no-one in the closely knit village of Long Farnden thought Mr Everitt to be that frail or infirm.
Working-class mum and housecleaner Lois Meade plies her sleuthing skills once again after discovering a dead body--dressed in a suit of armor--in a chapel.