Fiction - Mystery & Detective - Historical

In 1807, a young, Philadelphia woman of special gifts is accused by the religious authorities of practicing the black arts. Although the investigators can find no evidence that she has ever used her talents to harm anyone, they proceed to attempt to apprehend her...

Charlotte, now the Countess of Wrexford, would like nothing more than a summer of peace and quiet with her new husband and their unconventional family and friends. Still, some social obligations must be honored, especially with the grand Peace Celebrations unfolding throughout London to...

Fans of Jacqueline Winspear, Marie Benedict, Nita Prose, and of course, Julia Child, will adore this magnifique new mystery set in Paris and starring Julia Child's (fictional) best friend, confidante, and fellow American. From the acclaimed author of Murder at Mallowan Hall, this delightful...

Introducing Will Somers, the king's jester but nobody's fool inthis exuberant, intriguing and thoroughly entertaining mystery set in TudorEngland - the first in a new series from the author of the critically acclaimedCrispin Guest Medieval Noir series. 1529, London. Jester Will Somers enjoys an...

York, 1865. A passenger train stands ready to depart amid the bustle at the station. The flurry of passengers and porters, the swooping pigeons and barking dogs are thrown into a state of turmoil when an explosion rips through the brake van of the...

Turn-of-the-century archaeologist-sleuth Margaret Murray returns for the second in her captivating historical mystery series.'Famous Sensitive Found Dead. Police Baffled.'May, 1905. When one medium turns up dead, the police assume it is a robbery gone wrong, but when another is found obviously murdered, it's clear...

Midwife Sarah Malloy and her private investigator husband, Frank, must stop a killer lurking among a young family in the newest installment of the USA Today bestselling Gaslight Mysteries. Hugh Breedlove is far from the most agreeable client private investigator Frank Malloy has ever...

Madison, Wisconsin, 1996. Nineteen women on a university cross-country team embark on a routine eight-mile run. Only eighteen women finish. Days later, the police find the nineteenth, Andie Sheridan, buried in a shallow grave near the route. The police, the university, and the community...

Qing is a young naval officer in the service of Chinese Imperial Admiral Zheng He on his voyages of exploration in the fifteenth century of the Western calendar. Their travels take them to the coast of what we now call Mexico, where they chance...

The year is 1931. For the last two years, the infamous mobster, Al Capone has blackmailed Private Eye, Guy Duncan, into doing dirty work for him. Now, he's one favor away from squaring his debt: all he needs to do is bump off one...

Selburn, Virginia: A quiet backwater town nestled among the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the days before the Civil War, Sam Lock keeps the peace as the town sheriff, like his father before him.That peace is shattered during a raging winter storm when a boy...

Book sixteen in the Inspector Lestrade series. 'And death shall come on soft wings to him that touches the tomb of the Pharaoh ...' The wings that retired Chief Superintendent Lestrade came on were those of a de Havilland Hercules, named Olivia. The archaeologist,...

Set-up and on the run for his life, Inspector Sam Blackstone must uncover the truth before he is convicted for murder.December, 1916. A German traitor wants 25,000 in exchange for intelligence on U-boat locations, and 'Max' has specifically asked for Inspector Sam Blackstone to...

The Body in the Barrel is a crime novel set in 1973 San Diego, where a Harbor cop and a producer of X-rated films join forces to unearth the past, facing hard truths about their own histories despite opposition from San Diego's conservative establishment...

It takes a village to bury a child ...1 September 1939. As the mass evacuation takes place across Britain, thousands of children leave London for the countryside. But when a little girl vanishes without a trace, the reality of separation becomes more urgent and...

A novel about the magical lure of books and summoning the courage to rewrite our stories by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Keeper of Happy Endings and The Last of the Moon Girls.Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer's affinity for books extends beyond the...

London is smoking hot, and not in a good way.It's the Autumn of 1666, and the Great Fire is still burning, the ashes of hundreds of houses and shops and St. Paul's Cathedral choking the air. The people, too, are choking, raging at the...

Shona McMonagle is your ordinary, garden-variety librarian: comfortably padded, in her middle years, expert in various arcane martial arts. She also has an impressive knack for time travel ("impressive" may be overstating things: her first two forays--revolutionary Russia, 19th-century France--went less than smoothly). Her...

It's 1665 and the Black Death has London in its hideous grip. Bad news for everyone...almost. Where better, after all, to hide a dead body than among a whole city full of dead bodies? And who gets the delightful task of pawing through the...

Never underestimate a librarian.Readers learned that lesson with the Prefect's first adventure (Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Golden Samovar, which Publishers Weekly called "marvelous" and "a laugh-out-loud farce" in their starred review). Now a certain Count from Transylvania is about to learn it as...

1937. The gears of world war have begun to grind, but Inky Lautman, star point guard for the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, America's greatest basketball team, is dealing with his own problems.His coach has unwittingly incurred a massive gambling debt to the Bund, a...

Egypt, 1914. The outbreak of war in Europe casts ripples even in Cairo. Gareth Owen, Mamur Zapt and Head of the Khedive's Secret Police, is given the task of rounding up enemy aliens. But determining who counts as a German proves contentious.And then there's...

A Washington Post Best Mystery Novel of 2023 A high society amateur detective at the heart of Regency London uses her wits and invisibility as an 'old maid' to protect other women in a new and fiercely feminist historical mystery series from New York...

While investigating a man claiming to be the long-lost heir to a noble family, Veronica Speedwell gets the surprise of her life in this paperback reprint from New York Times bestselling and Edgar(R) Award-nominated author Deanna Raybourn. London, 1889. Veronica Speedwell and her natural...

An epic standalone novel of historical fiction tinged with mystery, set against the backdrop of medieval Germany's Peasant War from the best-selling author of the Hangman's Daughter series.In 1524, in what is now Germany, hundreds of thousands of peasants revolted against the harsh treatment...

Charles Palliser's work has been hailed as "so compulsively absorbing that reality disappears" (New York Times). Since his extraordinary debut, The Quincunx, his works have sold over one million copies worldwide. With his novel, Rustication, he returns to the town of Thurchester, which he...

Anty Boisjoly takes on his twistiest test to date in a tale of curses and crows, crypts and conspiracies, concealed corridors and clever killers, delivered with a generous overpour of locked room murder and bouyant Boisjoly badinage.The ancient curse of Carnaby Castle has begun...

It's 1944, and while notable scientists are working in Los Alamos on the Gadget, Nick Nishimura, PhD, and his colleagues are focused on the Trick. When he realized that his teleportation Trick kind of worked, jumping from New Mexico to Arizona but also from...

A novel about the magical lure of books and summoning the courage to rewrite our stories by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Keeper of Happy Endings and The Last of the Moon Girls.Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer's affinity for books extends beyond the...

"Pure unadulterated fun" (Publishers Weekly) for fans of Ashley Weaver, Deanna Raybourn, and Tasha Alexander, the Agatha Award-winning Countess of Harleigh Mysteries are a witty romp through the high society of Victorian England with a touch of romance, an independent female lead, and rich...

The enthralling story of two remarkable women caught up in the maelstrom of the English Civil War. February, 1642. With the King and Parliament at loggerheads, England is rushing headlong into a brutal and bloody war. Caught up in the turbulence are two formidable...

Private investigator Liberty Lane's latest case takes her to rural Gloucestershire to uncover the truth of a brutal murder July, 1840. Liberty Lane has left London for Cheltenham, where she's been hired by a local magistrate to establish the guilt or innocence of young...

This brand-new historical mystery series represents an exciting new direction for award-winning science fiction writer Eric Brown. London, 1955. When crime writer Donald Langham's literary agent asks for his help in sorting out 'a delicate matter', little does Langham realize what he's getting himself...

Richard Nottingham discovers that a new, more ruthless breed of criminal has colonised the city when he returns as Constable of Leeds. October, 1736. Lured out of retirement to serve as Constable once again, Richard Nottingham finds Leeds very different from the place he...

A festive celebration turns into a fight for survival when Mara and her clan come under attack . . . Christmas 1519 is the twentieth anniversary of King Turlough Donn's reign over the three kingdoms of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren, so Mara and her...

The key to unlocking a series of murders in 1920s' Worcestershire lies in South Africa - and a devastating 20-year-old secret February, 1927. The remains of an unidentified middle-aged man are found beneath the snow in the grounds of Maxtead Court, home of the...

DI Herbert Reardon is drawn into a world of secrets and lies when a body is discovered at a girls' boarding school. 1930. When a body is discovered on the premises of the newly-established Maxstead Court School for Girls, Detective Inspector Herbert Reardon is...

A Sir Geoffrey Mappestone mystery. March 1102 March 1102, and Robert de Belleme, the Black Earl of Shrewsbury, is summoned to appear before King Henry's Easter Court, to answer for siding with the King's older brother, the Duke of Normandy, in an attempt to...

Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend and his loyal sergeant tackle a murder with as many suspects as there are clues in this tight puzzler. Swann's Lake, 1960. When Robbie Peterson, a criminal-turned-club-owner, is found dead in his office, a six-inch nail driven deep into his...

Detective Chief Inspector Henry Johnstone is summoned to investigate the murder of a silent movie star in this compelling historical mystery. 1928. A rising star of the silent screen, Cissie Rowe had a bright future ahead of her in the new talking pictures. Not...

Leeds, 1895. After his release from prison, Henry White is found stabbed to death on Copper Street. In a neighbourhood where people are hostile to the police, DI Tom Harper finds the investigation tricky. Meanwhile, acid is thrown over a young boy in a...

"Readers who relish impeccably crafted historical mysteries will find the eighth book in the Liberty Lane series, to be an especially toothsome literary treat" - Booklist A series of anonymous letters leads to a case of cold-blooded murder for 19th-century private investigator Liberty Lane....

Introducing chef-sleuth Nell Drury in the first of a delightful series of 1920's traditional country house mysteries. 1925. The fashionable Bright Young Things from London have descended on Wychbourne Court, the Kentish stately home of Lord and Lady Ansley, for an extravagant fancy dress...

A Sir Geoffrey Mappestone mystery Southampton 1070 Sir Geoffrey Mappestone and his loyal friend Roger seek passage on one of the many ships due to sail to Normandy and then on to the Holy Land. The two knights have been away from the Crusade...

1940s, Washington DC. Government girl Louise is blackmailed into investigating the suspicious death of a missing co-worker, with sinister consequences1940s, Washington DC. Government Girl Louise Pearlie is asked to review the file usage of a missing analyst from the Office of Strategic Services -...

June, 1584. The death of Sir Walter Pendennis prompts Rosamond Jaffrey to go Cornwall, where her half-brother and mother are. There she discovers that Sir Walter was murdered and works with Sir Francis Walsingham to unmask the killer. Rosamond's investigations lead her into a...

"Clare has carefully researched the period she is writing about and offers authentic, engaging historical detail, but her real gift is as a superb storyteller whose clever, twisty plots; believable characters; and skillful writing will engross the reader from first page to last" Booklist...

When three bodies are unearthed in the front yard of a cottage, DCI Henry Johnstone is summoned. Two victims are identified, but who is the third? Johnstone's use of modern methods of detection soon ruffles feathers. Frustrated by the unhelpful local police, he fears...

Leeds, 1893. DI Tom Harper is witnessing the demonstration of a devastating new naval weapon, the torpedo, at Roundhay Park. The explosion brings up a body in the lake, a rope lashed tightly around its waist. At the same time, a woman's severed leg...

"Well-drawn characters, including a lead capable of sustaining a long series, complement the clever plot" ― Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)Reverend Mother Aquinas is asked to prove a young man's innocence in the second of this atmospheric new Irish historical mystery series.Ireland 1924. Reverend Mother...