For the third graders at Jefferson School, a field trip is always a treat. But one day at the New York Aquarium, they get much more excitement than they bargained for. A pickpocket sprints past, stolen purse in hand, and is making his way to the exit when their teacher, the prim Hildegarde Withers, knocks him down with her umbrella. By the time the police and the security guards finish arguing about what to do with Chicago Lew, he has escaped, and Miss Withers has found something far more interesting: a murdered stockbroker floating in the penguin tank. With the help of Detective Oscar Piper, this no-nonsense spinster embarks on her first of many adventures. The mystery is baffling, the killer dangerous, but for a woman who can control a gaggle of noisy third graders, murder isn't frightening at all.

Miss Withers investigates a man who appears to have hanged himself while driving As snow falls on the steps of the New York Public Library; a line of cars moves sluggishly down Fifth Avenue. Oblivious to the traffic, a blue Chrysler roadster tears down the street, hops the curb, and slams to a halt. The car is empty, its driver thrown half a block back. He is stone dead, his cigarette still burning, and a noose tied tight around his neck. First on the scene is Detective Oscar Piper, followed closely by Hildegarde Withers, a schoolmarm with more than a passing interest in crime. They are a close-knit pair, and would have been married by now if murder didn’t keep getting in the way. Piper and Miss Withers must race across New York, attempting to learn how a man can be hanged while driving, and to do whatever it takes to keep his twin from suffering the same fate. Murder on Wheels is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

While overseeing detention, Miss Withers finds a fellow schoolteacher’s corpse Anise Halloran is young to be teaching school, and much too pretty, but third-grade teacher Hildegarde Withers is not the sort to condemn a coworker just because she wears high heels. When she overhears nine-year-old Buster Jones spreading rumors about Miss Halloran being sweet on the principal, Miss Withers orders the schoolyard quarterback to write discipline on the chalkboard one hundred times. Anise Halloran stays late after school, too. In fact, she stays forever. Miss Withers finds Anise in the cloakroom, her head bashed in, and her high heels strewn across the floor. She sends Buster to fetch Inspector Piper, the hard-nosed detective whom she occasionally assists with murder inquiries, but by the time he arrives, the body has vanished. There is a killer inside the elementary school, and Buster Jones is not the only person whom Miss Withers will have to teach a lesson about discipline.

Hildegarde Withers heads for Catalina Island when a man is murdered on a passenger plane in full sight of the other passengers and yet no one saw him die. First published in 1933.

Spinster sleuth Hildegarde Withers and Inspector Oscar Piper are on the case of murder among the dog breeders, in a case reminiscent of S.S. Van Dine's "The Kennel Murder Case" (1933). "Stuart Palmer's detective tales usually feature either Hildegarde Withers, a spinster sleuth, or, less frequently, Howie Rook, the least hard boiled of all private eyes. Palmer's tales are generally comic in tone, but he is not a member of the "farce school" of Phoebe Atwood Taylor. Rather Palmer's works adhere to the classical detective paradigms of the intuitionist school, of such writers as Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen. Reading Palmer's best works show why this school is so well loved: watching Hildegarde Withers unravel "The Riddle of the Black Museum" (1946) is just plain fun. There is a detective, a mystery, and an ingenious solution, and one experiences a strong desire to read more stories like this." —A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection

Crusty schoolteacher / sleuth Hildegarde Withers can't escape mysterious deaths even on a trans-Atlantic crossing on an ocean liner. En route to England she spends part of her time (when not feeling queasy) sizing up her fellow passengers. Her intuition helps when passengers and crew start dropping over the side, or just dropping, period.

Known in the UK as "The Puzzle of the Briar Pipe". Odds for Murder—Top model Violet Feverel should be a pretty picture riding the big red thoroughbred Siwash—but the front page photo on the tabloids is ugly as death. The police dub the tragedy an unfortunate accident. But Miss Hildegarde Withers, who stumbled across the girl's body on the Central Park bridle path, knows they ... more »are, unfortunately, wrong. Just plain horse sense tells her it was murder. Who was the stranger in the too-small overcoat? What caused the spot of blood on the stallion's flank? What obvious clue at the scene of the crime was a red herring? Joining forces with New York's grumpiest homicide inspector, Oscar Piper, Miss Withers is once again off and running after a killer. Then a day at the races ends with another dead body, and Miss Withers must play a deadly game of sleuth where the stakes are high and odds are growing higher....

School teacher Hildegarde Withers and her policeman boyfriend Oscar Piper go to a bullfight in Mexico and end up in the middle of a murder.

Hired as a technical advisor for a Hollywood film, Miss Hildegarde Withers is determined to find out who murdered Stafford, one of the movie's screenwriters

To clear a veteran’s name, Miss Withers investigates a society murder The war in Europe is over, and America’s fighting men are coming home. Lieutenant Pat Montague spent the war dreaming of a return to his beloved: society princess Helen Abbott. But when Uncle Sam finally lets him go, Pat finds that Helen has become Mrs. Huntley Cairns, and he has nothing to return to at all. He goes to see Helen at the Cairns mansion, only to stumble upon his rival’s murdered corpse. The jealous soldier is the obvious suspect, but Pat’s friends know he is innocent, and entreat Hildegarde Withers—elementary school teacher and talented sleuth—to clear his name. Huntley was rumored to be involved in the black market, and Miss Withers soon discovers his killer was far more sinister than a soldier with a grudge. Miss Withers Regrets is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

A librarian who just came into money dies in a New York hotel room, and justice is overdue: “Full of fun and delightful people. A really terrific plot” ( Chicago Daily News ). With a seven-hundred-dollar inheritance in her pocket, small town librarian Harriet Bascom went to the track. By the time she left she had thousands—enough to live life the way she had always wanted: with champagne, music, and love. The champagne and music flow freely once she arrives in New York City, but it’s love that brings trouble. When she discovers her beloved has a terrible secret, she makes the mistake of being alone when she confronts him about it—and doesn’t even scream when she dies. Harriet is one of the three thousand women who disappear in New York each year—the women Hildegarde Withers wants to know more about. Unhappily retired, this former elementary school teacher is hungry for action. Investigating Harriet’s case—and the three other ladies who follow her into death—will provide all the action Miss Withers could ever want. Four Lost Ladies is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard .

Miss Withers has nine days to save a press agent from death row On a steamy day on Staten Island, a speeding car tears past a couple of beat cops and smashes into a delivery truck. In the front seat is Andy Rowan, pale and unconscious. In the back is a blonde—beautiful, naked, and dead. She was an aspiring Miss America, minted in the wilds of Brooklyn, and he was the press agent who wanted to make her a star. Now she will never walk a runway again. Police, judge, and jury all consider the case open and shut, and a year later, Andy’s awaiting his turn in the electric chair. But Hildegarde Withers, a retired schoolteacher with a zest for crime, believes the frightened little man innocent of the killing. She has nine days to save his life. It will take a miracle, but Miss Withers has worked miracles before. The Green Ace is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

A comedian is dead, a witness is missing, and only Miss Witherscan set things right In comedy, timing is everything. If Tony Fagan were a better comic, perhaps he would’ve known when to keep his mouth shut. After weeks of jokes at the expense of businessman Winston H. “Junior” Gault, the sponsor of Fagan’s television show, Fagan is found with his head bashed in, and Gault is charged with the murder. The case seems open and shut, but Gault has the money to buy himself an acquittal. The only witness against him is Ina Kell—a small-town dreamer who came to New York to find fame—and she’s disappeared. It’s up to Hildegarde Withers, a retired schoolteacher with expertise in solving crime, to find the vanished witness. Ina may have come to New York seeking excitement, but she didn’t deserve to get caught in the line of fire. Nipped in the Bud is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

Retired in Los Angeles, Miss Withers investigates a Tinseltown poisoning At Hollywood’s most renowned cartoon studio, there are a few things you simply do not draw: snakes, cows with udders, violence, and death. So when Janet Poole finds a doodle of the studio’s famous cartoon penguin with a noose around its neck, she takes the drawing as a threat. Someone at the studio has murder on the mind. The top brass reach out to Hildegarde Withers, a retired amateur sleuth who has come to Los Angeles to relieve her asthma. The obvious suspect is Larry Reed, a disturbed cartoonist with a dark sense of mischief, but on Miss Withers’s first day working the case, something happens that suggests Larry is likely innocent: He’s murdered. This studio may work in animation, but Miss Withers will find the violence on the lot anything but cartoonish.

To rescue a lost flower child, Miss Withers must learn to think like a hippie During a six-week college break, Lenore Gregory does what all the young girls are doing in the winter of 1969: She heads to Greenwich Village to protest the Vietnam War, painting flowers on her Volkswagen. And just as she’s starting to fit in, she disappears, becoming yet another missing hippie—and a problem for Detective Oscar Piper of the New York Police Department. Lenore’s last known whereabouts are New Mexico, on the road to Los Angeles, and there is only one person in California whom Piper trusts with the case. To find the missing girl, retired sleuth Hildegarde Withers is willing to go to the edge of consciousness and beyond. She has plenty of experience dealing with middle school children—can a flower child be any different? Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.