The Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries Series

A children’s book author and his wife investigate an impossible murder that’s over thirty years old in this intelligent, absorbing small-town thriller. Murphysville hasn’t seen a triple homicide since the Indian raids. But when an anonymous tip sends police investigators digging in a remote field, they find three rotting skeletons. One of them is missing an arm and another is that of a child who died with a doll clutched to her chest, the only clue to the grisly murders. Clearly, life in  Lyon Wentworth’s cozy Connecticut suburb is far darker than it once seemed.   A children’s book author and hot-air balloonist, Lyon has a personal stake in this unsolved crime: He lost a little girl long ago. With the help of his wife, Bea, a no-nonsense state senator who’s losing her hearing but not her quick wit, Lyon pursues the investigation even after the police pronounce the cold case impossible to solve. Lyon and Bea will find justice for the girl who died in the ditch—or they’ll die trying.   Richard Forrest’s thrillers are uniquely realistic, showing ordinary people grappling with horrible crimes. This gripping page-turner introduced the world to Lyon and Bea Wentworth, a husband-and-wife sleuthing team in the tradition of Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles.   A Child’s Garden of Death is the 1st book in the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Children’s book author Lyon Wentworth must solve an impossible locked-room murder with a medieval twist—or risk landing on death row. Lyon Wentworth sprints through the woods, chest heaving, dragging a broadsword behind him. He doesn’t remember why he started running, or when he picked up the sword, but he knows that if he stops, he’ll die. When he trips, his attacker is upon him within seconds, but the executioner disappears before he can deliver the final blow. He’s got the wrong man; Lyon isn’t the one he wants dead.   A mild-mannered Connecticut children’s book author, Lyon has been drugged, chased, and scared half to death, but why? When he returns to his house, clothes torn and bloody, Lyon knocks on the door of the RV parked in his driveway, where his old friend Morgan has been staying,  but there’s no answer. When he finally gets the door open, Lyon finds Morgan dead—hacked to pieces with a broadsword.   This incredible locked-room mystery is only the beginning of the incredible Death at King Arthur’s Court. The final book in the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries, it provides a fitting conclusion to the series by presenting Lyon with his most challenging choice yet: solve the mystery or die.   Death at King Arthur’s Court is the 10th book in the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Charming husband-and-wife sleuthing team Lyon and Bea Wentworth visit the estate of a power-mad manufacturer in this classic manor-house mystery. Children’s book author and occasional sleuth Lyon Wentworth arrives at the Piper estate prepared to come face to face with death. The leading manufacturer of landmines, the Piper Corporation is no stranger to casualties, but the estate is being besieged by protestors and the pressure is getting to them. Head of the family Peyton Piper has always exerted firm control over his kin, but as he prepares for a Senate bid, he’s pulling the leash even tighter. Family historian Markham Swan fears one of the Pipers’ lives is in danger—but Markham himself will catch the first two bullets.   The slugs that kill him are tiny little things, antique bullets that date back to the Civil War. Lyon will deploy every ounce of his considerable charm in trying to unravel the mystery, but that may not be enough. When the Piper family turns on itself, the results will be explosive.   Written in the style of a classic English murder mystery, The Pied Piper of Death will charm fans of Agatha Christie and Dorothy B. Sayers. Staged with Richard Forrest’s trademark wit, it’s an undeniable classic.   The Pied Piper of Death is the 8th book in the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Children’s author Lyon Wentworth races to save his abducted wife, Bea, in this intense small-town thriller. Every Thursday night, Bea Wentworth follows the same routine. She visits the bookshop, the discount store, and the supermarket, and she’s home by nine o’clock. It’s utterly innocuous, but Bea Wentworth is a state senator, one of the most powerful women in Connecticut, and for that she must be punished. The kidnapper has been tracking her routine for weeks, and soon he’ll make his move.   When Bea is abducted, she awakens in a damp, underground dungeon, tied to a table and left to die. It falls to her husband, gentle children’s book author Lyon Wentworth, to save her from a horrible fate. With the help of the local chief of police, Rocco Herbert, Lyon must rescue the woman he loves—and determine which of her many enemies is sick enough to perpetrate this horrible crime.   Few authors understand how to balance suspense and emotional realism as well as Richard Forrest does. His Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries are classic, page-turning thrillers, anchored by the genuine emotional bond between the two main characters. In all of mystery fiction, there’s absolutely nothing like them.   Death Under the Lilacs is the 6th book in the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.  

Children’s book author Lyon Wentworth fights to protect a Vietnam veteran accused of a grisly crime in this chilling psychological thriller. They find her by the river, naked, cold—and dead. Police chief Rocco Herbert recognizes her as the checkout girl at the Murphysville supermarket, an ordinary citizen of the easygoing Connecticut suburb whose death was anything but easy. In one hand, she clutches a First Cavalry Division shoulder patch, the kind handed out by Spook, a traumatized Vietnam veteran who gives the mementos of his old unit to everyone he meets. Maybe Spook killed her, maybe he didn’t, but without Lyon Wentworth’s help, he’s going to hang.   A children’s book author with a knack for solving impossible crimes, Lyon and his wife, no-nonsense state senator Bea Wentworth, are Spook’s only hope. But as the couple digs into the circumstances surrounding the girl’s murder, they’ll find that Murphysville hides as many grim secrets as the jungles of Vietnam.   There has never been an amateur sleuth quite like Lyon Wentworth, a hot-air balloonist who solves crimes between writing bestsellers. Death in the Secret Garden will push him closer to the limit than he’s ever gone before.   Death in the Secret Garden is the 9th book in the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Children’s book author Lyon Wentworth and his wife, Bea, investigate a murder from the vantage of a hot-air balloon in this charming seaside thriller. For Lyon Wentworth’s birthday, his wife, Bea, gives him something spectacular: a custom wicker basket made to fit his prized hot-air balloon. In return, Lyon gives Bea what she wants more than anything else: a promise to end his career as an amateur sleuth and stop risking his neck to solve impossible murders. But promises are hard to keep, and Lyon will be caught up in another mystery before his feet touch the ground.   Lyon is cruising over Long Island Sound when he sees his friend Tom’s private plane spewing black smoke. Before he can radio the coast guard, the plane crashes and is swallowed by the waves. Tom was an expert pilot, and Lyon is certain that he wouldn’t have made a fatal error. Perhaps the plane was tampered with . . . But when a phone call from Tom comes after his supposed death, Lyon realizes this murder has taken the leap from improbable to impossible.   Richard Forrest’s Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries are some of the most intelligent thrillers ever written. As witty and urbane as Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles, the Wentworths approach homicide with effortless style.   Death Through the Looking Glass is the 3rd book in the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

An impossible mystery takes a children’s book author and his politician wife from Connecticut to Mississippi, where death lurks around every bend of the river. Lyon Wentworth is struggling through a bout of writer’s block when a funeral comes to call. The children’s book author had no clue his old friend Dalton Turman had died, nor that his last request had been burial at Lyon’s house. And yet, here are two men of the cloth dragging a coffin through his front door, rearranging his living room for a wake, and asking Lyon where he wants them to put the snake handler’s serpents. Lyon’s patience with his old army buddy’s wishes is nearly exhausted when the “deceased” leaps out of the coffin and the trick is revealed. Dalton Turman, prankster extraordinaire, is alive and kicking.   Dalton has come north to invite Lyon and his wife, Bea, down to Mississippi for a party on his ultra-luxe new houseboat. But when Dalton and the boat disappear, it falls to Lyon and Bea to locate their far-out friend and bring him back to reality—dead or alive.   Richard Forrest’s Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries aren’t just thrilling, they’re funny, too. In this wild yarn of practical jokers and the people who kill them, the victims will all die laughing.   Death on the Mississippi is the 7th book in the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

When he learns a bullet was meant for his wife, children’s author Lyon Wentworth investigates an assassination, in this irresistible political thriller. On a sunny afternoon in Murphysville, Connecticut, the village green of the charming suburb is filled with voters who have come for a glimpse of Randolph Llewyn. Everyone’s attention is locked on the stage as state senator Bea Wentworth introduces the candidate for governor—everyone, that is, but Bea’s husband, Lyon, who is daydreaming of a title for his latest children’s book. Lyon snaps back to attention, however, when a sniper’s bullet cuts Randolph down as he takes the stage.   A second bullet misses, but the damage is done. As the crowd erupts in panic, Lyon spots the assassin fleeing on a motorcycle. With police chief Rocco Herbert, Lyon gives chase, but the killer gets away. Only then does Lyon think of Bea, who is shaken, but unharmed. But when he learns that Bea was also a target, the mild-mannered children’s book author must find the courage to hunt an assassin before he strikes again.   Written in the rough-and-tumble political climate of the late 1970s, The Wizard of Death is a small-town thriller unlike any other. Starring a delightful husband-and-wife sleuthing team, it’s as quick and shocking as an assassin’s bullet.   The Wizard of Death is the 2nd book in the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A no-nonsense politician and her children’s author husband search for answers to a retirement-home homicide in this gripping small-town murder mystery. Fabian Bunting wheels herself down the hallway of the nursing home, opera glasses clutched in her gnarled old hands. Outside, nurses on strike have formed a picket line, and Fabian wants to watch the commotion. As she peers through her binoculars, she sees something incredible: two men beating another senseless and tossing the victim into the back of a van. One of the thugs sees her, and before she can call for help, he has raced upstairs and tossed the helpless old woman into a scalding steam bath to boil alive.   In her younger days, Fabian was a brilliant scholar, and the favorite professor of Connecticut politician Bea Wentworth, who has just been defeated in a re-election campaign. Bea refuses to believe her old teacher’s death was an accident and begins investigating. With the help of her husband, Lyon, a hot-air ballooning children’s author, she’ll find the answers to Fabian’s grisly murder lie at the center of an impossible locked-room puzzle.   The Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries are unique for their blend of traditional mystery elements and hard-driving, page-turning action. “[This] is the most traditional book in the series to date,” wrote the New York Times. “It also may be the best.”   The Death at Yew Corner is the 5th book in the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order. “[Forrest] writes with a sure hand, and as always, leavens the writing with a touch of humor. . . . A neat, well-plotted, expertly written job.” —The New York Times   Praise for the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries “[A] superb novel of detection . . . An intricate plot intelligently controlled.” —Publishers Weekly on A Child’s Garden of Death   “The writing is stylish and the plotting swift and well knit: a pleasure.” —Booklist on The Pied Piper of Death  

Mild-mannered children’s book author Lyon Wentworth is caught in the middle of a bus hijacking in gritty 1970s New York in this taut psychological thriller. There are three men in the bar at the Port Authority bus terminal. Lyon Wentworth, a Connecticut children’s book author having a drink to celebrate his newest book, sits in the middle. He’s harmless. The other men aren’t. One is Willie Shep, a disgruntled supermarket employee who carries a Walther PPK and enough rage to burn Manhattan to the ground. The other is a bearded man with a .44 Magnum and a professional killer’s ruthless calm. All three men board the same bus. It’s doubtful they’ll all get off it alive.   The bus is halfway through the Lincoln Tunnel when Willie presses his gun into the driver’s neck and tells him to stop. He shoots two passengers, killing one, and sends a message to the police demanding a million dollars and a private plane. An intricate dance is about to begin, and the most dangerous man on the bus may be the one who’s not carrying a gun.   This irresistible mystery from Richard Forrest begins with a hostage situation as tense as classic films like Dog Day Afternoon or The Taking of Pelham 123. Lyon Wentworth may stare down his share of evil men, but The Death in the Willows is a mystery novel unlike any other.   The Death in the Willows is the 4th book in the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.