Lovejoy has sold many antiques to Annie Brodie, wife to one of the great pork farmers in Britain. She falls in love with a set of five satirical watercolor lithos from the 18th Century including one they both particularly like showing a sow and her piglets. Characteristically Eric clumsily drops and breaks one the paintings. While cleaning it up the mess, he discovers a beautiful Venetian bronze hidden under the couch, a statue that has been notoriously stolen from the Queen. To the Brodies, a highly anticipated royal visit from the Queen Elizabeth to their farm is worth much more to them than the beautiful statue, so they assign Eric to mailing it back to the palace. After hamhandedly getting D.I. Maggie MacDonald involved in the case and incriminating Lovejoy as a prime suspect, Eric carelessly allows his Harley to be stolen while looking for a post office along with the bronze in its saddlebag. Written by [email protected]

The teacher and one particular young student find an antique mirror used for exercises to be very sinister and intimidating. Lovejoy is asked to sell it and get them a more conventional mirror which he does with the help of former alcoholic mirror restorer Roderick Frew. To his sorrow, the problem that Jane Felsham is that her estranged husband is broke and their entire estate is in receivership and will be sacrificed to the creditors. This panics both Tink and Eric, who have always found comfort and security in her employ and now have to worry about their own futures. Written by [email protected]

Because Felsham Manor is attracting many curiosity seekers based on its impending sale, Lovejoy uses the opportunity to stock the house with antiques, both real and reproduction, to sell to well-to-do customers. Beautiful Charlotte Cavendish, the Son in Cavendish and Son objects to Lovejoy's occupation of the house prior to auction, and is relentless in her efforts to get rid of him. As a sidebar, Lady Alfreson, an octogenarian aristocrat apparently suffering from senility, is hounded by her son-in-law, a ruthless compulsive gambler, as he plots to have her institutionalized so he can take over her considerable estate. Written by duke1029

Lovejoy is visited by a well-dressed thug who coerces him to meet Sandy Litvak, a notorious and lethal loan shark who has inherited a Lovejoy IOU to a former client, which has grown from 6 to 14 thousand pounds based on a strictly enforced interest rate of 6 for 5... each week. Lovejoy has three days to come up with the money before his debt escalates to 16,800. Failing that, dire consequences await. Lovejoy employs several gambits, including sabotaging one of Charlotte's auctions to meet the deadline. As a sidebar, Eric recruits Beth Taylor as a new apprentice for Lovejoy Antiques. Written by [email protected]

Beautiful antiques dealer Valerie Endacott feigns fainting at an auction in order to divert attention while her boyfriend, a skilled ceramics forger, switches the valuable china miniature Charlie Gimbert has just won with one of his fakes. When expert Percy Broderick informs Charlie that he's in possession of a forgery, Lovejoy goes undercover, posing as Eric in order to entrap the wily Miss Endacott. Lovejoy also is on the trail of the ring of burglars that has been breaking into the homes of well-to-do collectors, Charlotte becoming their latest victim. As a sidebar, Charlotte's old boyfriend from New York shows up and tries to talk her into going to Paris with him. Written by [email protected]

When the sale of an oversized antique Welsh cupboard falls through, Lovejoy is stuck with the enormous piece of furniture and a mover's bill. After Charlie Gimbert pulls his leg about wanting it he ends up storing it with Eric's uncle Jack, a pub owner in the salty western marshlands. Tink joins Eric for a leisurely inexpensive vacation consisting of drinking and birdwatching. After attending a dinner at Charlotte's along with fellow antique dealers Ellen and Bill Palmer, Lovejoy falls under the suspicion of an ambitious and ruthless Metropolitan DCI who suspects that Lovejoy is dealing with stolen smuggled European furniture. The detective becomes convinced that Lovejoy is guilty when the supposedly collegial Ellen sics the policeman on his trail. Written by [email protected]

After promising Charlie Gimbert that he will refinish a sideboard for a lady friend by the weekend, Lovejoy allows the appropriately named Bible Joe, an eccentric Welsh antiques dealer, to browse Charlotte's antique shop. Although the Scripture-quoting Joe has an impeccable reputation for honesty, he inexplicitly steals a priceless ancient Celtic cross that she found hidden inside a cupboard she bought from a sale in Wales, a cross that may be part of a famous set of twelve. Because Joe comes from the same village as the cupboard, Lovejoy and Charlotte are off in hot pursuit to Wales. They discover that the remaining eleven crucifixes may be hidden in a coastal druidical cave with Arthurian ties that later served as a church during the Middle Ages, but they are not alone in their quest. An enigmatic group of historians who dress as monks have bought up the entire village, which will soon become a ghost town. Meanwhile Tink and Beth do whatever they can to convince an anxious Gimpert... Written by [email protected]

Lovejoy agrees to help Charlotte's friend Mary Gladden save the mental institution she maintains in an old mansion that she bought to provide placid surroundings for those in her care. Unfortunately, unless she can raise 30,000 pounds the dedicated Mary will lose the property and her patients, including the insecure Virginia, will lose their home. Although there are vintage paintings and other antiques left from when the building was a private home, Lovejoy can find nothing of sufficient value to reach the needed total. The timid Virginiia, who was jilted years earlier by an enigmatic lover and rebinds old books with great skill as therapy, is convinced that a vintage mahogany bureau in her room is worth the needed amount. Although Lovejoy tells Mary that even with its missing top bookcase the bureau would only be worth between six and seven thousand pounds, Virginia insists that its value is much more. After she inexplicitly tells Lovejoy that he will know where the missing half is, ... Written by [email protected]

Charlie Gimbert starts dating a widow with a taste for night life. She and her late husband lived for a long time in Africa, and she is anxious to get rid of all the African paraphernalia, so Charlie sends Lovejoy, Tink, and Beth to appraise her possessions. Beth spots an unusual planter in the garden which turns out to be a Ming Dynasty cannon that can be connected to a great 15th Century Chinese navigator who visited Madagascar and left it there as a gift. Lovejoy offers it to millionaire financier Philip Chang, the brother of a friend of Charlotte's, but the young tycoon is disinterested. Lovejoy and Charlotte are then kidnapped and taken to the restaurant of Tong boss Mr. Ying, who makes it clear he wants the gun. When another Tong gang shows up and starts to fight Ying's men, the couple make their escape. When their respective houses are broken into and a threatening meat cleaver is left as a warning, Lovejoy realizes he is in the middle of two competing Tong factions. Written by [email protected]

When faced with a pricey dentist bill, Lovejoy agrees to settle it by investigating the alleged drowning death of Terence Sullivan, a dodgy antiques dealer, who either fell or jumped from a ferry. The widow gives Lovejoy a key to a storage container, where he finds a matched pair of Chinese geese, which are coveted by two obsessive collectors including deranged millionaire Arnold Tape. Tape has a mania for all things geese and compulsively collects artistic representations of them. Sullivan turns up, very much alive and accompanied by a pretty stewardess, demanding his geese for a rich Belgian collector, but Lovejoy thinks the proceeds should go to his widow, who he has callously deserted. When Charlotte sees Lovejoy's seemingly altruistic devotion to the widow, she feels she's misjudged his character and finally gives in to his seductive charm. As a sidebar, Charlie Gimbert tries to cultivate a judge and his magistrate wife in order to propel his ambitions to become a ... Written by [email protected]

Charlotte is hosting an auction of carnival antiques including many beautiful antique merry-go-round horses. In order to attract additional bidders she invites a traveling carnival managed by Boswell, an aging showman who indulges liberally in nicotine and alcohol. He asks Lovejoy to help him cash in his 'pension,' a huge collection of antique brass candlesticks, largely Georgian and Elizabethan. Unfortunately an aristocratic family in the area is burgled for the third time in the past year while the fair's in town. Suspicion falls on Boswell and he's arrested. He claims he's innocent and Lovejoy, who was with him when the theft took place, believes him and works to prove his innocence. As a sidebar, Lovejoy asks Beth to bid on a seemingly pedestrian painting in the auction, but no one can figure out why. Written by [email protected]

While attending a book fair in Cambridge in order to buy rare books to stock Charlie Gimbert's library at Felsham Hall, Lovejoy answers a call from two aging spinster sisters who need money to stay in their home. The only thing of real value is a historic 16th Century Marston Bible, the first Bible translated into English. Unfortunately it is jointly owned by their younger brother, a Cambridge professor who plans to donate it to the University library upon his promotion to Master. When Lovejoy discovers the Bible is a fake, Professor Doncaster admits that he had to sell the Bible years before to support his sisters and now needs the upcoming promotion and its subsequent pay-raise to ensure their security. As a sidebar, Tink and Charlotte try unsuccessfully to convince Beth's dad that he should allow his daughter to remain an apprentice to Lovejoy. Written by [email protected]

When Lovejoy accompanies Charlotte to the Victorian estate of her friend Hattoe Horsham in Suffolk, he learns that Hattie's family, her father and 93 year old grandmother are broke. They had to sell the estate to the local historical society for tourism, and although they're allowed to live in the manor house, their financial fortunes are at a low ebb. After fending off the advances of another one of Charlotte's friends, he sets out to auction off the giant mounted pike that Hattie's grandmother caught in 1917 with a provenance that includes Isadora Duncan. Meanwhile at the Felsham Manor, Tink is handed an eviction notice by Gimbert, who secretly wants to turn Felsham Manor into a health spa. Written by [email protected]

When Lord Wakering, a descendant of Sir Walter Raleigh,sells his house and its contents,Lovejoy turns up,meeting Mary-John Lovejoy,his American cousin. Several valuable antiques from Raleigh's time disappear,along with Mary-John ,and Lovejoy tracks her to the family mansion in North Carolina. Her brother Rutherford has an interest in raising treasure from sunken ships and Lovejoy slowly comes to realise the the brother and sister are operating a scam to give the impression that their family came to the New World in Elizabetrhan times and not later in order to claim an inheritance. When Lovejoy is thrown into jail Charlotte arrives to help him and the two face a watery grave as they work to bring the guilty pair to justice. Written by don @ minifie-1