The Dead Come to Stay: A Novel

by Brandy Schillace Narrated by Imogen Church

Overview

An amateur autistic sleuth. A wry English detective. A murder case that thrusts them both into the wealthy world of the rare artifacts trade...

Jo Jones can't seem to catch a break. Trading in city life for the cozy, peaceful hills of the English countryside to take over her family estate should have been a chance for a “fresh start.” Instead, she's been driven further into the past than she thought possible-and not just her own. The estate is littered with traces of ancestors that Jo never knew existed, including a mysterious woman depicted in a half-destroyed painting. Then there's the gossipy town politics Jo must constantly navigate as a neurodivergent transplanted American... And of course, the whole murder business.

When prickly town detective James MacAdams discovers a body in the moors with coincidental ties to Jo Jones, they're forced to team up on the case. The clues will lead them into the wealthiest locales of Yorkshire, from sparkling glass hotels to luxury property sites to elite country clubs.

But below the glittering surfaces, Jo and MacAdams discover darker schemes brewing. Local teens, many of them international refugees, are disappearing left and right. What begins as a bizarre murder case quickly plunges them both into the world of rare artifacts and antique trading...and a murderer who will do anything to cover it up.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for The Dead Come to Stay

“It feels like a particularly tense time to be autistic in the United States, so it’s a little counterintuitive to say a cozy mystery set in the United Kingdom captures the zeitgeist for neuroatypical people. And yet that’s exactly what Brandy Schillace has done with The Dead Come to Stay.” –The Washington Post

“A whopper likely to fool readers for as long as it fools the endearing detectives… a superior puzzle.” –Kirkus

“Engaging and full of twists, with a neurodivergent heroine who is both charismatic and relatable.” –Booklist

“Schillace’s characters remain a pleasure to spend time with.” –Publishers Weekly


Praise for The Framed Women of Ardemore House

"The book is more than just a mystery: It’s an autistic woman’s journey of self-discovery." –THE WASHINGTON POST

"A delight.”–THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

"A thoughtful mystery that does justice to generations of women who see life differently." –THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

"Brandy Schillace’s cozy murder mystery is supplemented with equally fun characters." –HUFFPOST

“Twisty, engaging, and thoroughly unexpected... a must-read for any mystery lover. Featuring a unique cast of characters and a village full of dirty little secrets, this book delivers a fresh take on the English cozy.”
– DEANNA RAYBOURN, New York Times bestselling author of KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE

“Intricately plotted and thematically rich, with characters I grew to really care about. I’ll be recommending it to every mystery reader I know.”
–ALEX GRECIAN, New York Times bestselling author of THE YARD

"A New York editor on the spectrum clashing with a dogged British detective. Makes a mystery like an English garden: wild, masterly crafted and full of secrets, beauty and marvels.“
—MARIO GIORDANO, author of The Auntie Poldi Adventure series

Kirkus Reviews

2025-07-04
Josephine Jones—an autistic American editor transplanted to Yorkshire—finds her stint as a landlady getting off to a rocky start, more or less literally.

The morning after her very first lodger, real estate developer Ronan Foley, checks into Netherleigh Cottage, the building that’s become the choicest remnant of the Ardemore estate ever since a fire destroyed the principal dwelling in Jo’s inheritance (The Framed Women of Ardemore House, 2024), she gets a shocking piece of news from the Abington police: Her inaugural guest has been found bashed to death. DCI James MacAdams’ inquiries into Foley’s background produce frustratingly little information. Jo’s friend Tula Byrne, innkeeper of the much more desirable Red Lion, reports that Ronan never tried to make a reservation there. Stanley Burnhope, Ronan’s employer in Gallowgate, maintains that he didn’t know the man well at all, and Stanley’s wife, classical musician Ava Burnhope, insists that she’s never heard of him despite repeated calls Ronan placed to their home from a burner phone. Ava and Sophie Wagner, Stanley’s partner in Fresh Start, an agency that settles refugees from abroad, can talk of nothing but their charitable work. And someone evidently packed the corpse in ice for at least part of the few hours it took to find it. As Jo and her sounding board, Gwilym Morgan, who plays “neurodivergent Watson to Jo’s Sherlock,” labor to unpack the many echoes of her troubled family past in the present mystery, MacAdams puzzles over the few facts he knows, which seem logically inconsistent with each other. Somebody, he reasons, must be lying about something important. Indeed, somebody is, and it’s a whopper likely to fool readers for as long as it fools the endearing detectives.

Less original than the heroine’s striking debut, but still a superior puzzle.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940193459941
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/05/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

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