Historical Detective Mystery

A winter wedding. Venice, 1923. Posie Parker, London’s premier female private detective, is getting married. But on arrival in Venice, Posie finds she is walking into a nightmare. Her lodgings on the Grand Canal are consumed by fire, her famous fiancé is preoccupied, and most bizarrely of all, her hostess, the Countess Romagnoli, confesses she has a stalker and fears for her life.

When the engines finally met, there was a deafening clash and the Brighton Express twisted and buckled, tipping its carriages on to the other line. It was a scene of utter devastation. October 1854. As crowds of passengers rush to make the departure of the London to Brighton Express, a man watches from the shadows nearby, grimly satisfied as the train pulls out of the station. Chaos, fatalities and unbelievable destruction are the scene soon after when the train derails on the last leg of its journey.

An explosion and fire at the Ashton Gunpowder Mill in Kent has killed over a hundred men. It's called an appalling tragedy - until suspicion and rumor raise the specter of murder. While visiting the Ashton family, Bess Crawford finds herself caught up in a venomous show of hostility that doesn't stop with Philip Ashton's arrest. Indeed, someone is out for blood, and the household is all but under siege.

Some years ago, Cyrus Barker matched wits with Sebastian Nightwine, an aristocrat and sociopath, and in exposing his evil, sent Nightwine fleeing to hide from justice somewhere in the far corners of the earth. The last thing Barker ever expected was to encounter Nightwine again - but the British government, believing they need Nightwine's help, has granted him immunity for his past crimes, and brought him back to London.

At the request of Her Majesty's government, private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker agrees to take on his least favorite kind of assignment - he's to provide security for a secret conference with the French government. But shortly after the parties land at the island, Lord Hargrave is killed by a sniper shot, and the French ambassador's head of security is found stabbed to death. The only means of egress from the island - a boat - has been sent away, and the means of signaling for help has been destroyed.

Revered mystery writer Josephine Tey is traveling from Scotland to London for the final week of her play Richard of Bordeaux, the surprise hit of the season, with pacifist themes that resonate in a world still haunted by war. But joy turns to horror when her arrival coincides with the murder of a young woman she had befriended on the train ride - and Tey is plunged into a mystery as puzzling as any in her own works.

Cambridge University, 1888. The world of Miss Vanessa Duncan, a young schoolmistress, is shattered when a Fellow of Mathematics, Mr Akers, is found dead. Another death occurs and Vanessa's new love becomes a suspect. Convinced of his innocence, Vanessa sets about to clear his name.

On a spring morning in London, 1875, Charles Lenox agrees to take time away from his busy schedule as a Member of Parliament to meet an old protege's client at Charing Cross. But when their cryptic encounter seems to lead, days later, to the murder of an innocuous country squire, this fast favor draws Lenox inexorably back into his old profession. Soon he realizes that, far from concluding the murderer's business, this body is only the first step in a cruel plan, many years in the plotting. Where will he strike next?

Jane discovers holiday cheer is fleeting. One of the Yuletide gathering dies in a tragic accident whose circumstances Jane immediately views with suspicion. If the accident was in fact murder, the killer is one of Jane's fellow snowbound guests. With clues scattered amid cleverly crafted charades, dark secrets coming to light during parlor games, and old friendships returning to haunt the Christmas parties, whom can Jane trust to help her discover the truth and stop the killer from striking again?

Inspector Rudge does not encounter many cases of murder in the sleepy seaside town of Whynmouth. But when an old sailor lands a rowing boat containing a fresh corpse with a stab wound to the chest, the Inspector's investigation immediately comes up against several obstacles. The vicar, whose boat the body was found in, is clearly withholding information, and the victim's niece has disappeared. There is clearly more to this case than meets the eye - even the identity of the victim is called into doubt.

It is 1887, and Alma Rosales is on the hunt for stolen opium. Trained in espionage by the Pinkerton Detective Agency - but dismissed for bad behavior and a penchant for going undercover as a man - Alma now works for Delphine Beaumond, the seductive mastermind of a West Coast smuggling ring. When product goes missing at their Washington Territory outpost, Alma is tasked with tracking the thief and recovering the drugs. In disguise as the scrappy dockworker Jack Camp, this should be easy.

On a cold night in February, the popular Lighterman's ball festivities are cut short when a guest of honor, Stephen Bremmer, goes into spasms and abruptly collapses. Once again Inspector Witherspoon returns to the Wrexley Hotel to investigate a murder. The victim was considered a boorish snob who felt entitled to anything and anyone he wanted. Yet despite his Oxford education, he was barely literate, lazy, and prone to make stupid mistakes - his last mistake turned out to be crossing a killer.

London, 1890. 221B Baker St. A fine-art dealer named Edmund Carstairs visits Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson to beg for their help. He is being menaced by a strange man in a flat cap - a wanted criminal who seems to have followed him all the way from America. In the days that follow, his home is robbed, his family is threatened. And then the first murder takes place.

Posie Parker once failed a client. And now that client is dead. Elsie Moncreiff, a housekeeper, has fallen from the White Cliffs of England in a howling storm. But the question is, was it bad luck, or was it murder?Armed with just her guilty conscience and a less-than-helpful Sergeant Rainbird for company, Posie vows to get to the bottom of things. But what she finds is not at all what she was expecting.

In this thrilling selection of stories, a young porter is found dead in a coal tub; Colbeck devises a trap to catch a thief; and a burnt train carriage holds a gruesome secret in a small coastal village. As Colbeck and his trusty aide Sergeant Victor Leeming begin to piece together clues and motives for each crime, it becomes clear the pair must stay a step ahead of the culprits to solve the cases. With a new suspect at every turn, can the duo unearth the real villains?

About to depart on his first vacation in years, Edward Wozny, a hotshot young investment banker, is sent to help one of his firm's most important and mysterious clients. His task is to search their library stacks for a precious medieval codex, a treasure kept sealed away for many years and for many reasons.

Harry Exeter doesn't want the aid of the Thames River Police in tracking down the men who kidnapped his wife, Kate. He only asks them to help him navigate Jacob's Island, a creepy mass of decrepit buildings where he will hand off a large sum of money in exchange for her life. But when they arrive at the meeting place, Commander Monk and five of his best men are attacked from all sides, and Monk is left wondering who could have given away their plans. As Monk follows leads, it seems inevitable one of his own men has betrayed him.

It is AD 81. The Roman emperor Domitian seizes power. Afflicted by classic paranoia, the self-styled Master and God sees enemies everywhere - and he is right. The Senate loathes him, his advisers are terrified, he cannot trust his wife, and barbarians menace the frontiers. As he vents his suspicions, no one is safe.

Emperor Domitian is hosting a banquet for the senators in honour of fallen soldiers, and it's an invitation Aelianus and Justinus Camillus dare not refuse. On arrival, they enter a black-painted room furnished with couches resembling those found in mausoleums, complete with a tombstone bearing each of the senators' names. As the evening progresses the brothers conclude that Domitian has finally turned against them for their uncle's part in a plot to oust his father and start to wonder if they'll ever see the light of day again....

In the spring of 1918, the Spanish flu epidemic spreads, killing millions of soldiers and civilians across the globe. Overwhelmed by the constant flow of wounded soldiers coming from the French front, battlefield nurse Bess Crawford must now contend with hundreds of influenza patients as well. However, war and disease are not the only killers to strike. Bess discovers, concealed among the dead waiting for burial, the body of an officer who has been murdered.