Historical Detective

The year is 1929. As the world teeters on the brink of a global recession, Bletchley Park plays host to a rather special event. MI5 is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and a select band of former and current employees are gathering for a weekend of music, dance, and heavy drinking. Among them is Sir Hilary Manningham Butler, a middle-aged woman whose entire adult life has been spent masquerading as a man. She doesn't know why she has been invited, but it is clear she is not the only one with things to hide.

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, 1942. Flight Lieutenant David Heron, home on convalescent leave, awakes to the news that a murder victim has been discovered in the garden of his boardinghouse. With a week until his service resumes, David sets out to solve the murder. Drawn into a world of mystery and double-dealing, he soon realises that there is more to the inhabitants of the boardinghouse than meets the eye and that wartime London is a place where opportunism and the black market are able to thrive. Can he solve the mystery before his return to the skies?

Staten Island would be forgettable were it not for the gleaming Tabernacle of the Silver Spire, where thousands of congregants come every Sunday to hear the sermons of Barnabas Bay. Millions more tune in on television, giving the good Reverend international fame, and a chance to spread the gospel from New York City’s harbor all the way to South Korea. But threatening notes have been appearing in the collection bag, suggesting that one of the faithful has decided it’s time this good shepherd get the hook.

In 1921, the bloodied bodies of Colonel Fletcher, his wife and two staff are found in a manor house in Surrey. The police have put the murders down to a violent robbery, but Detective Inspector Madden from Scotland Yard has his own suspicions. In the meantime the killer is plotting his second strike.

The year is 1901, and the death of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch has sent the entire British Empire into mourning. But for Lady Emily and her dashing husband, Colin, the grieving is cut short as another death takes center stage. A body has been found in the Tower of London, posed to look like the murdered medieval king Henry VI. When a second dead man turns up in London's exclusive Berkeley Square, his mutilated remains staged to evoke the violent demise of Edward II, it becomes evident that the mastermind behind the crimes plans to strike again.

Captain Harry Cathcart and Lady Rose Summer got engaged so Rose can avoid being sent to India with all the other failed debutantes. Bored with endless parties, teas, and balls, Rose befriends Dolly Tremaine, a beautiful young girl newly arrived from the country. Rose is delighted to have a protégé, but their friendship is cut tragically short when Dolly is found floating in a river. Now Harry must solve the mystery of Dolly's death, and keep Rose from being the murderer's next victim.

Ohio, 1926: For many years, the railroad track in Moonvale Tunnel has been used as a shortcut through the Appalachian hills. When an elderly woman is killed walking along the tracks, the brakeman tells tales of seeing a ghostly female figure dressed all in white. Newly elected Sheriff Lily Ross is called on to the case to dispel the myths. With the help of her friends Marvena Whitcomb and Hildy Cooper, Lily follows the woman’s trail to The Hollows - a notorious asylum - and they begin to expose dark secrets long hidden by time and the mountains.

Kinship, Ohio, 1924: When Lily Ross learns that her husband, Daniel Ross, the town’s respected sheriff, is killed while transporting a prisoner, she is devastated and vows to avenge his death. Hours after his funeral, a stranger appears at her door. Marvena Whitcomb, a coal miner’s widow, is unaware Daniel has died and begs to speak with him about her missing daughter. From miles away but worlds apart, Lily and Marvena’s lives collide as they realize Daniel was not the man that either of them believed him to be - and that his murder is far more complex than they imagined.

An artist's model never shows up at Neville Grant's house...or so he claims. But when one of Mr. Grant's houseguests suddenly dies, the Inspector and Mrs. Jeffries have to work double-time to find both the missing model and the killer!

1930: Miss Clara Vale, chemistry major turned detective, is taking a night off from sleuthing to attend the launch party of a new exhibition at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle. But when the piece de resistance, a rare ornate sarcophagus, is finally opened and it turns out the mummy inside it is a fake it looks like there is no rest for Clara after all... Later that night, she is summoned back to the museum and asked to investigate a series of stolen Egyptian artefacts.

When Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn are hired to find a girl from the upper classes who has gone missing in the East End, they assume her kidnapping is the work of white slavers. But when they discover five girls have been murdered in Bethnal Green, taunting letters begin to arrive in Craig's Court from a killer calling himself Mr. Miacca. Barker fears that Miacca might be part of the Hellfire Club, a group of powerful, hedonistic aristocrats performing satanic rituals.

When 17-year-old Rowan Chase finds a skeleton on her family's property, she has no idea that investigating the brutal century-old murder will lead to a summer of painful discoveries about the present and the past. Nearly 100 years earlier, a misguided violent encounter propels 17-year-old Will Tillman into a racial firestorm. In a country rife with violence against blacks and a hometown segregated by Jim Crow, Will must make hard choices on a painful journey towards self-discovery and face his inner demons in order to do what's right the night Tulsa burns.

The winter of 1578, four years prior to the Honno-ji Incident. Araki Murashige has betrayed his ally Oda Nobunaga and holed himself up in Arioka Castle—but a string of unsettling incidents within the castle walls has him at his wit’s end. The desperate warlord’s only hope for solving these mysteries is imprisoned in the castle’s dungeon: a man named Kuroda Kanbei, one of Oda’s most gifted strategists. When all the conflict and intrigue come to a close, what will these two men have gained…and lost?

Lady Ottilia and Lord Francis Fanshawe are holidaying in Tunbridge Wells when they stumble across the scene of a horrific accident. While visiting the High Rocks, a local tourist spot, a young woman falls to her death from the top of the climb. It soon becomes clear that the woman is linked to the infamous Dowager Viscountess Lady Wem - an indomitable matriarch visiting Tunbridge with her extended family. The young woman was at the center of a scandal - Lady Wem's grandson, Daniel, eloped with her three years prior.

Private Enquiry agent Cyrus Barker has just about seen it all—he's been attacked by assassins, his office has been bombed, and evil-doers have even nearly killed his dog. But never before has a potential client dropped dead in his office. When Roland Fitzhugh, Member of Parliament arrives to consult Barker and his partner Thomas Llewelyn, he falls to the floor, dead, upon entering.

High Ambo, in England, is the setting. It is winter, and Caroline West - a very human, placid, and unexcitable person - has gone there to escape her late husband's relatives. Like so many good-hearted people, she is immediately put upon. Caroline's sister Iris comes first, full of impulse and determination to be a reporter - an ambition abruptly deflected by a handsome young schoolmaster - an authority on birds. Then comes Robert, with his sweet, ingenuous fiancée Polly, and thus making the three-ring circus of a genuine Cadell household.

February 1355: Oxford explodes in one of the most serious riots of its history. Fearing for their lives, the scholars flee, and some choose the University at Cambridge as their temporary refuge. But they don't remain safe for long. Within hours of their arrival, the first of their number dies, followed quickly by a second. When Matthew Bartholomew begins to investigate the deaths, he uncovers evidence that the Oxford riot was not a case of random violence, but part of a carefully orchestrated plot.

Shrewsbury, 1866. Julian Lockyer is an imposing gentleman in his late fifties. Having reserved a room for the night at the Station Hotel, he asks to be called early in the morning because he has a train to catch. Repeated attempts are made to wake him but there is no response. After forcing the door, the horrified hotel staff discover the bloodied corpse but with the knife still in his hand ... could he have killed himself in such a brutal manner?

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.