Fiction - Mystery & Detective - Historical

The Big Sleep (1939) is a hardboiled crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first in his acclaimed series about detective Philip Marlowe. The work has been adapted twice into film, once in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is noted for its complexity,...

"...Sweeping and intimate, warm and gripping. I loved it " --Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Chief Inspector Gamache novelsA single twist of fate puts a servant girl to work in Queen Victoria's royal kitchen, setting off a suspenseful, historical...

The prize-winning author of Edinburgh Twilight returns to the darkening shadows of nineteenth-century Scotland to track a killer on a profane mission of revenge.A wicked Scottish winter has just begun when pioneering female physician Sophia Jex-Blake calls on Detective Inspector Ian Hamilton to investigate...

Agatha and Silver Falchion Award Nominated AuthorNew York City, 1936. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Big Apple is defiantly striving toward an era infused with art, architecture, and economic progress under the dynamic Mayor La Guardia. But those in City Hall...

In World War II Florence, Italy, two sisters trapped by the Nazi Occupation have to make life-altering decisions that will reverberate for decades... and collide with a present day murder investigation. Florence, Italy, 1943 Two sisters, Isabella and Caterina Cammaccio, find themselves surrounded by...

From the National Book Award longlisted author of Night Watch, a spectacularly riveting novel based on a real-life crime by a con man who preyed on widows: "a brilliant fusion of fact and fiction" (Stephen King). In Chicago in 1931, Asta Eicher, a lonely...

"Elsa Hart and her protagonist, Li Du, deserve a place in every collection." --Louise PennyFollowing the enthralling 18th century Chinese mysteries Jade Dragon Mountain and White Mirror, comes the next Li Du adventure in City of Ink. Li Du was prepared to travel anywhere...

From the ballrooms and mansions of Denver's newly wealthy, to the seamy life of desperate women, Fallen Women illuminates the darkest places of the human heart. It is the spring of 1885 and wealthy New York socialite Beret Osmundsen has been estranged from her...

Master of mystery and historical intrigue Anne Perry once again transports readers to the banks of the Thames in Victorian London for her thrilling new William Monk novel. In Revenge in a Cold River, Monk faces his darkest hour ever as he spars with...

The once-prosperous town of Mauch Chunk, knocked out of prominence by the demise of King Coal, seemed ready to explode. Then the first corpse was discovered. From a state cop who rebuilds dead steam locomotives to a guy who lived his life out of...

"Kim Newman's Anno Dracula is back in print, and we must celebrate. It was the first mash-up of literature, history and vampires, and now, in a world in which vampires are everywhere, it's still the best, and its bite is just as sharp. Compulsory...

A Norwegian tourist has been found murdered on the shore of Lake Superior--right where an Ojibwe man may have been killed more than one hundred years earlier. Four months later, the official investigation is supposedly over but still not resolved, and U.S. Forest Service...

Fresh from his trip to Britain, Marcus Didius Falco needs to re-establish his presence in Rome. A minor role in the trial of a senator entangles him in the machinations of two real life lawyers at the top of their trade. The senator is...

Near Sawrey, the seat of Miss Beatrix Potter's country home, has been abuzz ever since Mr. Wickstead met his death under a tree limb. Many believe it had to do with a treasure he had dug up. And only Pickles, his dog, knows what...

'A beguiling author who interweaves past and present' The Times When builders converting Chadleigh Hall, a former school, into a luxury hotel discover a skeleton in a sealed room, DI Wesley Peterson is called in to investigate. Soon Wesley has a second suspicious death...

Anne Perry's spellbinding Victorian mysteries, especially those featuring William Monk, have enthralled readers for a generation. The Plain Dealer calls Monk "a marvelously dark, brooding creation"--and, true to form, this masterpiece is as deceptively deep and twisty as the Thames. As commander of the...

" A] magic kingdom of Victorian murder and intrigue."--The New York Times Book Review Thomas Pitt is now the powerful head of Britain's Special Branch, and some people fear that he may have been promoted beyond his abilities. His own self-doubt is fueled by...

Washington, D.C., 1972. Derek Strange has left the police department and set up shop as a private investigator. His former partner, Frank "Hound Dog" Vaughn, is still on the force. When a young woman comes to Strange asking for his help recovering a cheap...

1805. An engagement party is taking place for Mr Richard Montague, son of wealthy landowner Sir Edgar Montague, and his fiancee Catherine. During a dance with his beloved, a strange thing happens: a man appears at Richard's shoulder and appears to communicate something to...

In first century A.D. Rome, during the reign of Vespasian, Marcus Didius Falco works as a private informer, ferreting out hidden truths and bringing villains to ground. But even informers take vacations with their wives, so Falco and his wife, Helena Justina, with their...

The much awaited latest installment in this New York Times bestselling series brings Marcus Didius Falco back to the city of Rome and its deadly, convoluted intrigues In the high summer of A.D. 77, Roman informer Marcus Didius Falco is beset by personal problems....

Now a major motion picture from director Steven Soderbergh, starring George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, and Tobey Maguire. Set in Berlin just after the end of World War II, Joseph Kanon's The Good German is a brilliant thriller about the end of one war and...

Winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel At the height of the Cold War, two Americans are runnng a bar in the West German capital, called Mac's place. One of the pair, Michael Padillo, isn't around a lot; he keeps disappearing on...

It was a summer of glorious triumph for the mighty Roman Republic. Her invincible legions had brought all foreign enemies to their knees. But in Rome there was no peace. The streets were flooded with the blood of murdered citizens, and there were rumors...

Weathering critical scorn, Lady Audley's Secret quickly established Mary Elizabeth Braddon as the leading light of Victorian 'sensation' fiction, sharing the honour only with Wilkie Collins. Addictive, cunningly plotted and certainly sensational, Lady Audley's Secret draws on contemporary theories of insanity to probe mid-Victorian...

The world's most beloved detective, Hercule Poirot--the legendary star of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express and most recently The Monogram Murders and Closed Casket--returns in a stylish, diabolically clever mystery set in the London of 1930."We Agatha Christie fans read her stories--and...

Nicola Upson blends biography and fiction, excitement and menace, and a touch of Alfred Hitchcock in Fear in the Sunlight, a mystery starring real-life writer Josephine Tey.Summer, 1936: Josephine Tey joins her friends in the resort village of Portmeirion to celebrate her fortieth birthday....

"I'm glad that Rahotep, the policeman from Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead, has had a second outing. The central figure is the best known Egyptian of them all, Tutankhamun, and Nick Drake has written an engaging and convincing account of this doomed figure...

After Art in the Blood and Unquiet Spirits, Holmes and Watson are back in the third of Bonnie MacBird's critically acclaimed Sherlock Holmes Adventures, written in the tradition of Conan Doyle himself.It's 1890 and the newly famous Sherlock Holmes faces his worst adversary to...

From No.1 bestselling author Andrew Taylor comes the sequel to the phenomenally successful The Ashes of LondonOver 1 Million Andrew Taylor Novels Sold!Somewhere in the soot-stained ruins of Restoration London, a killer has gone to ground...The Great Fire has ravaged London, wreaking destruction and...

London, 1935, and the Blackshirts of the British Union of Fascists are on the march. Disgraced army officer Hugh Clifton is recruited by MI5 to infiltrate the Blackshirts, but unwittingly becomes a hero of the movement. Drawn into street battles against communists he uncovers...

Winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Best Crime Novel Set in Canada 2023-It is the summer of 1971 and Liz takes care of her four sisters while waiting to meet the fifth Murphy child: a boy. And yet, something is not right. Adults...

A glitteringly dark historical novel of love, persecution, and survival set against the backdrop of one of history's most terrifying episodes: the Bubonic Plague. It is 1665 and the women of Eyam village keep many secrets. Especially Isabel and Mae. Isabel Frith, the village...

The Lodger (1913) is a novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes. Inspired by the infamous murders committed by Jack the Ripper and Dr. Neill Cream--also known as the Lambeth Poisoner--The Lodger is a thriller that employs aspects of the popular penny dreadful novel while maintaining...

A Civil War Reenactment Reveals Dangerous SecretsCurator Chloe Ellefson is happily planning to spotlight home-front challenges and German immigrants at Old World Wisconsin's first Civil War reenactment, but her overbearing boss scorns her ideas and proposes staging a mock battle instead. And when a...

Healer Lassair returns to England and uncovers a secret that puts the lives of everyone she knows in grave danger, in the final Aelf Fen medieval mystery. It is the summer of 1100, and after seven long years away in Spain, Lassair is finally...

This all started in the fall of 2011 when my wife Joyce and I stumbled across the Napoleon Museum during our "Roaming Rome" vacation. Inside there was an art exhibit by Chiam Koppleman, the American artist known for his works of Aesthetic Realism. The...

The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1908) is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. The Perfume of the Lady in Black marked the second appearance of popular character Joseph Rouletabille, a reporter and part-time sleuth who features in several of Leroux's novels....

The boy was murdered in Auschwitz. The killer isn't a Nazi.Poland, 1944: Adam Lapid used to be a police detective. Now he's a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz.Reduced to a slave after losing his family in the gas chambers, Adam struggles to find a reason...

A queer historical murder mystery that explores notions of justice and morality, driven by compelling flawed characters.In the summer of 1912 in Northern England, sapphic couple Louisa Knight and Ada Chapman are drawn into the investigation of their neighbour's murder.The police quickly declare his...

Inspector Lestrade brings Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson an account of six murders. The only fact common to them all is that the victims had all served terms of imprisonment for serious crimes. It appears that someone believes that they should have suffered execution,...

"A very hot and perfectly paced page turner, all the way to happily ever after." -NPRWinner of the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery and Suspense & the Passionate Plume AwardHe saved her life when she was a girl. Now she is...

Jack Blackjack's search for an executioner's son ensnares him in a fiendish mesh of schemes in this lively Tudor mystery. London. May, 1556. Hal Westmecott, one of the city's most feared executioners, reckons Jack Blackjack owes him a favour - and now he's come...

Joan Lindsay's classic novel Picnic At Hanging Rock is a subtle blend of mysterious and sinister events set in a period of Australian social life drawn with loving nostalgia. The final chapter was removed at the request of her publishers, creating a mystery to...

A Study in Scarlet is the first story to feature Sherlock Holmes, and the first work of fiction to incorporate the magnifying glass as a detective tool. The story opens with Holmes and Watson meeting each other for the first time, and their decision...

The recently unearthed diaries of the young Arthur Conan Doyle provide evidence, if not proof of the that Doyle knew Sherlock Holmes as early as 1878, when Holmes was working in the laboratory of Dr. Joseph Bell at the University of Edinburgh. Holmes, a...

In the hot summer of 1597, the London playhouses are nailed shut after a seditious play penned by Ben Jonson and Thomas Nash lampoons the Queen and her Privy Council. Barred from performing in their own theatre, William Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain's Men...

The circus arrives in Durham and the whole town is excited... until the body of a Shaker girl is found beaten. The circus has arrived in Durham, Maine. Before weaver Will Rees is able to take in its spectacle, he spots Magistrate Hanson -...

The truth is stranger than fiction for Albert Campion in this gripping mystery where murder, detective novels and the supernatural collide. 1946, London. The eagerly anticipated new detective novel from Albert Campion's godsibling, bestselling author Evadne Childe, is proving to be another runaway success....

When Emily Inglethorp is poisoned the police are certain they've found the killer, but Hercule Poirot is not so easily satisfied. The sleuth digs deep into a tangled mystery in his debut appearance as the detective hero of Christie's classic crime series.Agatha Christie's first...