Historical Detective

New York, Autumn, 1907: Former private detective Molly Murphy Sullivan is happy with her place in the world. She and her policeman husband, Daniel, have built quite a life for themselves in Greenwich Village, in their modest-yet-beautiful home in Patchin Place, filled with family, friends, and laughter. Molly and Daniel have a good marriage, a true partnership where they value each other’s opinions in all things. So when he tells her they’re moving to a fancy home on Fifth Avenue—and that he’s running for the sheriff of New York—Molly is left reeling.

As commander of the powerful Special Branch, Thomas Pitt has the job of keeping Britain safe from spies and traitors. So there' s no obvious reason why he is suddenly ordered to investigate two minor incidents: the blood, hair, and shards of glass discovered outside the home of naval weapons expert Dudley Kynaston, and the simultaneous disappearance of Mrs. Kynaston' s beautiful lady's maid. But weeks later, when the mutilated body of an unidentified young woman is found near Kynaston' s home, Pitt realizes that this is no ordinary police investigation.

Cantankerous and vinegar-tongued Grandmama, from Anne Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series, is the leading character in this Christmas novel, which unfolds in the chilly, windswept Romney Marshes off the English Channel. Grandmama arrives on a holiday visit to the home of Charlotte's parents, where a fellow guest--an outcast from her own family--is subsequently murdered. Like the heroes before her in Anne Perry's Christmas novels, Grandmama is called upon to play the role of amateur detective.

Childbirth can be dangerous even for the wealthy. So when opera singer Claire Buchanan shows Prudence and Geoffrey a postmortem cabinet photograph of her deceased twin sister and newborn niece, they express sadness but not surprise. The popular black-bordered portraits are the era's way of coping with the devastating losses that plague every family. What makes this death different is that Claire is convinced Catherine and her child were murdered.

A woman dies in a burglary in Fitzrovia. A man is murdered in an opium den in Limehouse. Gutsy Fleet Street reporter Penny Green suspects the two deaths are connected, but how can she prove it? The answer may lie in Whitehall where the India Office reaps the benefits of Britain's opium trade. But when Inspector James Blakely of Scotland Yard begins investigating, an unforeseen danger looms. Soon Penny is forced to act alone and is put to the ultimate test when her quest becomes personal.

Charlotte Pitt’s mother, Caroline, travels with her young husband, Joshua Fielding, and his theatrical troupe to Whitby, where Dracula first touched English soil. Joshua has arranged to produce a stage adaptation of Dracula by the daughter of Whitby millionaire Charles Netheridge, but the amateurish script produces a disastrous first read-through. As tempers flare and wind and snow swirl around Netheridge’s lonely hilltop mansion, a black-cloaked stranger emerges from the storm - an eerily opportune arrival, for this enigmatic figure, one Anton Ballin, turns out to be a theatrical genius.

Some say the Hotel Tempesta is cursed, but its owner, Mr. Gallo, refuses to believe it. When he's brutally murdered one night, the suspicion falls on his guests. Ten suspects in total. And Penny Green is one of them. Does Mr Gallo's murder have anything to do with the criminal mastermind on the run from America? Penny and Inspector James Blakely must negotiate a world of courtesans, stolen paintings, and secret codes to prove Penny's innocence and uncover the truth.

London, 1925. With their band the Dizzy Heights, jazz musicians Ivor ‘Skins’ Maloney and Bartholomew ‘Barty’ Dunn are used to improvising as they play the Charleston for flappers and toffs, but things are about to take a surprising turn.

When Tommy and Tuppence visit an elderly aunt in her gothic nursing home, they think nothing of her mistrust of the doctors; after all, Ada is a very difficult old lady. But when Mrs. Lockett mentions a poisoned mushroom stew and Mrs. Lancaster talks about "something behind the fireplace," Tommy and Tuppence find themselves caught up in a spine-chilling adventure that could spell death for either of them....

London, summer 1920. An unidentified body appears to have been run down by a motorcar and Ian Rutledge is leading the investigation to uncover what happened. While the signs point to murder, vital questions remain: Who is the victim? And where, exactly, was he killed? One small clue leads Rutledge to a firm built by two families, famous for producing and selling the world's best Madeira wine. Lewis French, the current head of the English enterprise, is missing. But is he the dead man? And does either his fiancée or his jilted former lover have anything to do with his disappearance - or possible death?

Called out by Scotland Yard into the teeth of a violent blizzard, Inspector Ian Rutledge finds himself confronted with one of the most savage murders he has ever encountered. Rutledge might have expected such unspeakable carnage on the World War I battlefields, where he’d lost much of his soul - and his sanity - but not in an otherwise peaceful farm kitchen in remote Urskdale. Someone has murdered the Elcott family at their table without the least sign of struggle.

When a Hungarian immigrant is dismembered near London's River Thames, Commander Monk is called to the eerie scene, where 16 candles surround the corpse. As identical murders pop up around the city, Monk confronts the unsettling options: could it be the work of a secret society? A serial madman? Or is a xenophobic Brit targeting foreigners? A local doctor who speaks Hungarian from his days on the battlefield may be able to help, but his own struggles with post-traumatic stress have left his memory in shambles.

On a fine summer's day in June, 1914, Ian Rutledge pays little notice to the assassination of an archduke in Sarajevo. An Inspector at Scotland Yard, he is planning to propose to the woman whom he deeply loves, despite intimations from friends and family that she may not be the wisest choice.

San Francisco, 1952. Detective Evander “Andy” Mills has started a new life for himself as a private detective—but his business hasn’t exactly taken off. It turns out that word spreads fast when you have a bad reputation, and no one in the queer community trusts him enough to ask an ex-cop for help. When James, an old flame from the war who had mysteriously disappeared, arrives in his offices above the Ruby, Andy wants to kick him out. But the job seems to be a simple case of blackmail, and Andy’s debts are piling up. He agrees to investigate, despite everything it stirs up.

There's a new man in charge at Bow Street Magistrates' Court and all is not well. His ambition is to split up Lavender and Woods—and to add to Lavender's woes, someone is leaking exaggerated stories about his investigations to The Times. Lavender is tasked with solving the theft of an aristocrat's precious jewels, while Woods is instructed to track down a libeler. But after a series of vicious murders and surprising coincidences, they discover that these apparently unconnected crimes have more in common than they could ever have imagined.

The letter came in secret, with a pearl eardrop from an aunt long thought dead, resurrecting the forbidden past. Banished by her spiteful half sister, Queen Mary, to Hatfield House in the English countryside, 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth cannot refuse the summons. The Boleyns are in grave danger. And Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, is marked for death by a master poisoner whose reign of terror may have royal sanction.

Breathless and painstakingly researched, this is a stunning debut mystery in which Sherlock Holmes unmasks Jack the Ripper. Lyndsay Faye perfectly captures all the color and syntax of Conan Doyle’s distinctive nineteenth-century London.

The joyful tranquility of a snowbound estate in the Lake District of England is overturned in a moment by a shocking murder. Renowned mathematician and inventor Henry Rathbone - long known to listeners of Perry's bestselling Victorian series featuring William Monk - must put his analytical and creative capacities to the test as he assumes the role of an amateur investigator. In this delightful Christmas tale, he rescues the holiday with a grace that would impress William Monk himself.

London, 1815. Amateur sleuth Atlas Catesby is about to discover the dark side of the bright lights. His long-awaited night at the opera with Lady Lilliana ends abruptly when a notorious courtesan is shot to death in Covent Garden. The infamous victim was the mistress of the powerful Marquess of Vessey. Atlas believes that the marquess - his former brother in law - is responsible for the long-ago death of Atlas' sister, Phoebe. Atlas seizes the opportunity to potentially avenge his sister's death.

Quebec, 1994. Sergeant-Detective Émile Cinq-Mars is summoned from Montreal to investigate the murder of a prisoner in an experimental women's jail. He knows the prime suspect - he arrested her. But darker forces are interested in Abigail, and Émile interferes at his own peril. For as he'll soon discover, in Lady Jail, nothing is as it seems.