Books to read if you love Richard Osman and Cosy Crime

Meet Conrad the cat. You’ve never met a detective like him before. Neither has Lulu Lewis when he walks into her life one summer’s day. 

Lulu had expected a gentle retirement from her career as a police detective, and while mourning the recent death of her husband, she planned to spend her days on her new canal boat and visiting her mother-in-law Emily in a nearby care home. But when Emily dies suddenly in suspicious circumstances, Lulu senses foul play and resolves to find out what really happened. And Conrad will be with her every step of the way . . .

Death is coming to Bruncliffe: its target is Samson O’Brien.

Oblivious to his impending date with fate, Samson is busy juggling a number of cases at the Dales Detective Agency. Too busy, in fact, to notice his partner behaving oddly – because Delilah Metcalfe knows what is coming. A hitman. Sent from London with one objective: to finally silence the troublesome O ’Brien before his corruption case can make it to court.

With Samson’s life in peril, and betrayal around every corner, Delilah has no choice but to call in favours from all of her Bruncliffe connections in order to counteract the menace threatening to engulf the Dales town.

The Dales Detective Agency is about to face its biggest challenge after a fatal accident at Bruncliffe's livestock auction. Detective duo Samson O’Brien and Delilah Metcalfe are called in for a simple health and safety investigation, but things take a dark turn when they discover evidence that points to murder. If you love cosy crime books set in spectacular landscapes, you'll love this intriguing murder mystery.

Escape to the Yorkshire Dales in Julia Chapman's sixth Dales Detective Agency mystery. When Samson O’Brien and Delilah Metcalfe are asked by the town Mayor's wife to investigate his potential infidelity, the duo knows they must tread carefully. Soon, what they thought would be a simple–and safe–case to investigate turns potentially deadly, and O'Brien and Metcalfe find themselves risking their lives on a stakeout. Packed with Chapman's trademark wit and bags of Yorkshire humour Date with Deceit is the perfect escapist read for anyone who loves cosy mysteries and clever whodunnits.   

In the highly anticipated final instalment of Camilleri's bestselling series, Inspector Montalbano receives a strange phone call early in the morning, from a caller by the name of Riccardino who claims to be expecting Montalbano's imminent arrival. But later that day, Montalbano learns of a brutal slaying in broad daylight, and while the assassin is unknown the victim's name is Riccardino – and the Inspector's troubles are only just beginning . . . Exquisitely crafted by one of Europe's greatest crime fiction writers, Riccardino is a series finale that is not to be missed.

The first book in the George and Molly Palmer-Jones series by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime novels, deals with a murder in a birdwatching paradise on the Norfolk coast. When elderly birdwatcher George Palmer-Jones and his wife Molly decide to quietly to look into the crime, they get more than they bargained for.

This classic small-town murder mystery from Robert Barnard has everything you could ask from from a cosy crime novel.

A radio documentary on the small village of Twytching provokes a fierce rivalry amongst the villagers. Inspector George Parrish is keen to stay out of all the fuss until the murder of one of the villagers and a rash of poison pen letters uncovering secrets about Twytching's leading citizens forces him to get involved.

Set in and around the fictional Scottish town of Levenford and village of Tannochbrae during the inter-war years, the classic tales of Dr Finlay, his senior colleague Dr Cameron, and their unruffled housekeeper Janet, remain as heart-warming, funny and touching now as they were upon first publication.

Hans Olav Lahlum is a historian, chess player, politician and Norway's answer to Agatha Christie.

This first novel in the series featuring ambitious young detective Inspector Kolbjørn Kristiansen, known as K2, and his precocious young assistant Patricia, is an intriguing murder mystery set in an apartment complex in 1960s Oslo.

There's a mystery to solve at Sunset Grove retirement home and residents Siiri and Irma are about to turn their hand to detective work.

Like a Finnish Miss Marple mystery, the first book in The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency series is perfect for fans of Alexander McCall Smith and Agatha Christie.

Agatha Christie is the undisputed queen of detective fiction and her tales of the unlikely amateur sleuth, Miss Jane Marple, are some of her most beloved mysteries.

Murder at the Vicarage marks the debut of Christie’s unflappable female detective. With her gift for sniffing out the ‘wickedness in village life’, Miss Marple is led on her first case to a crime scene at the local vicarage where Colonel Protheroe, the magistrate whom everyone in town hates, has been shot through the head.