Historical Fiction Cozy Mystery

Two people have been targeted. Shots have been fired. Who stands to inherit? Who has the most to lose? Evangeline "Evie" Parker, Countess of Woodridge, thinks it's nothing but an accident but then an attempt is made on her host's life. Suddenly, all the guests attending the Duke of Hetherington's house party think they are being targeted. Who will be next? Evie and her new chauffeur form an unlikely alliance to discover as much as they can before the killer can get it right.

Pauline Riddell has grand ambitions for her future at the armament factory. So, when her closest workmate reveals a salacious affair with a married man, Pauline refuses to risk her career by listening to the scandal. But, she’s shaken to her core when the police arrive with news of her best friend’s homicide. Desperate for justice, Pauline’s insistent poking into the investigation only makes her the prime suspect. And now, to clear her name, she must unravel a web of deadly clues entangling her in a sinister plot.

Onetime adventurer and now amateur sleuth Lady Eleanor Swift is attending the annual royal regatta with her new pal Tipsy Fitzroy. Tipsy has Eleanor trussed up like a debutante in a new dress, determined to turn her into a proper society lady. Even Eleanor’s favorite companion, Gladstone the bulldog, has a new outfit for the occasion. But the sparkling prize-giving ceremony is interrupted when the devilishly handsome host gulps his glass of champagne on stage and collapses to the floor. The victim is none other than the king’s cousin, Lord Xander Taylor-Howard.

1924. Lady Eleanor Swift and her butler Clifford are touring the great, ancient sights of Egypt on a much-anticipated extended vacation. But when the pair arrive at the docks in Cairo expecting to board the luxurious paddle steamer advertised in their brochure, they are baffled by the crumbling old cruiser waiting for them. And things only go from bad to worse as death stalks the decks of the SS Cleopatra.

Back home in the Kootenays after her Arizona honeymoon, Lane offers her assistance when neither the outgoing teacher, Rose, nor her replacement, Wendy, show up at the local schoolhouse one blizzardy Monday in December. But when she finds the teachers’ cottage ransacked with Rose unconscious and bleeding, and Wendy missing, Lane delivers Rose to the hospital in Nelson and turns the case over to her exasperated husband, Inspector Darling, and his capable colleagues, Sergeant Ames and Constable Terrell.

November 1911. Lady Emily Hardcastle is celebrating her birthday by seeing a play at the Duke’s Theatre in Bristol with her maid and confidante, the inimitable Flo. Act One is a triumph. Then Act Two opens with a body on stage—a real one. One of the cast has been brutally murdered during the interval. When other matters get in the way of Inspector Sunderland overseeing the case himself, he asks the ever-resourceful Lady H to keep a watchful eye on the suspects—and his police colleagues.

Lady Eleanor Swift and her loyal butler Clifford are busy lending a hand with preparations for the big day. The grand dining room at Henley Hall is overflowing with home-sewn flags, paint, and royal rosettes. Even Gladstone the bulldog and his new friend Tomkins the ginger cat are invited! But just days before the event, Mr. Prestwick-Peterson, the chairman of the celebrations committee, is found dead in the village hall: strangled with handmade red, white, and royal blue bunting.

In spite of being ejected from Miss Bodycote's Female Academy in Canada, 12-year-old Flavia de Luce is excited to be sailing home to England. But instead of a joyous homecoming, she is greeted on the docks with unfortunate news: Her father has fallen ill, and a hospital visit will have to wait while he rests. But with Flavia's blasted sisters and insufferable cousin underfoot, Buckshaw now seems both too empty - and not empty enough.

January 1910. A journalist has been killed in a suspicious blaze. Everything points to a group of suffragettes, but the apparent culprit insists she is innocent. When Lady Hardcastle receives a letter from a suffragette requesting her urgent help, the retired spy turned sleuth knows only she stands between an accused young woman and the gallows. Evidence at the scene makes Lizzie Worrel’s innocence difficult to believe, and with the police treating it as an open-and-shut case of arson, Lady Hardcastle faces a barrage of resistance as she tries to dig out the truth.

The Queen of England has concocted a plan in which penniless aristocrat Lady Georgie is to entertain a Bavarian princess and conveniently place her in the playboy prince's path, in the hopes that he might finally marry.

But queens never take money into account. Georgie has very little, which is why she moonlights as a maid-in-disguise.

It's 1763. Career diplomat Alec Halsey returns to London and the shocking news his estranged elder brother, the Earl of Delvin, has not only killed his friend in a duel but become engaged to the woman he had hoped to marry. When Alec reluctantly attends a weekend house party to celebrate his brother's engagement he gets more than he bargained for when a lady's maid is murdered, the bride-to-be is attacked, and a guest is shot dead.

Flavia de Luce - "part Harriet the Spy, part Violet Baudelaire from Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" ( The New York Times Book Review) - takes her remarkable sleuthing prowess to the unexpectedly unsavory world of Canadian boarding schools in the captivating new mystery from New York Times best-selling author Alan Bradley.

Winter, 1936. Kitty receives an unexpected telegram just before Christmas saying that her father in New York is seriously ill. She and her husband Matt swiftly set out for America and, after a fraught ocean crossing, they arrive to discover he is much improved. Kitty decides to make the most of her visit by taking in the sights and attending a costume party thrown by her father’s friend, Mrs Dangerfield.

Hidden beneath her British reserve, Edwina has a secret: she’s finished her novel and is bravely mailing the manuscript to a publisher. Beryl also has a secret: as thanks for solving a case, the American adventuress has been gifted an airplane. After swooping over the fields and hedgerows of Walmsley Parva, livestock scattering beneath her, she flamboyantly lands the plane on the village green, prompting a startled Edwina to consider a stiff gin fizz. Beryl’s aircraft is not the only disruption of village peace. Miss Dinsdale, a psychic medium, has started holding séances.

When London’s finest jazz musicians, the Dizzy Heights, are booked to play the glitzy Midsummer Ball at a country house in Oxfordshire, they expect a weekend filled with flappers and toffs having a roaring good time. But the festivities at Bilverton House take a turn for the worse when the group are stranded by a summer storm. And when a member of the Bilverton family turns up dead in a locked room in an apparent suicide, Skins, Dunn and Ellie realize this is going to be a much tougher gig than they thought.

At the end of her first unsuccessful season out in society, Lady Georgiana has all but given up on attracting a suitable man - until she receives an invitation to a masked Halloween ball at Broxley Manor. Georgie is uncertain why she was invited, until she learns that the royal family intends to marry her off to a foreign prince, one reputed to be mad.

It’s an early morning in May when Lane is pulled from a deep sleep by a concerning phone call from Scotland—her grandfather has had a heart attack. Lane hastily makes plans to fly overseas, and a dejected Inspector Darling prepares himself for a stint of bachelorhood. But before he can begin to dwell on it the Nelson Police learn that Ben Arden, a local cad, has gone out for a late-night boat ride and not returned, which immediately sets the town rumour mill churning.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me—well, actually, my true love, Darcy O’Mara, is spending a feliz navidad tramping around South America. Meanwhile, Mummy is holed up in a tiny village called Tiddleton-under-Lovey with that droll Noel Coward! And I’m snowed in at Castle Rannoch with my bumbling brother, Binky, and sourpuss sister-in-law, Fig.

Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, emerges from a wretched night’s sleep to discover him embracing the most beautiful woman she has ever seen. His former mistress! It is shocking, yes, but not so very alarming, for Penelope Taylor is actually there to see Bea. Her dearest friend has been brutally slain, and as Millicent Lloyd happened to be sleeping in the courtesan’s bed at the time, Mrs. Taylor is the only suspect. The magistrate is impatient to cart her off to Newgate and refuses to acknowledge the truth that is glaringly obvious to her: She was the intended victim.

July 1912. Lady Hardcastle and her tenacious lady’s maid, Florence Armstrong, are enjoying a convivial gathering at the home of their dear friends, the Farley-Strouds. The only fly in the idyllic ointment seems to be the lack of musical entertainment for the forthcoming summer party—until, that is, Lady Hardcastle’s brother Harry calls with news of a murder.