Historical Fiction Cozy Mystery

Sarah Brandt is shattered when she learns that a woman has inquired at Hope’s Daughters Mission for Catherine, the abandoned child she has taken as her daughter. The woman claims she was Catherine’s nursemaid, now acting on behalf of the girl’s mother to reunite them. Unwilling to simply hand Catherine over to a complete stranger, Sarah asks Malloy to investigate. But when he goes to interview the woman at her tenement in Chelsea, he finds she has been murdered. Though her death leaves Sarah’s claim to Catherine unchallenged, her sense of justice compels her to work with Malloy to find the killer.

Harriet Andover had no intention of dying young like her silly siblings had. She intended to outlive them and outdo them as she always had. But Harriet discovers that the best intentions can lead to murder when she is strangled inside her mansion with a house full of holiday guests. As much as Inspector Witherspoon enjoys his job delivering justice, the last thing he wanted was a complicated murder case just a week before Christmas. He soon discovers that Harriet's own husband and grown stepchildren are not overcome with grief and neither are most of her friends.

1945. Fen Churche follows her dreams and sails for New York. She books passage on a steam ship from France to America, excited to dance the night away in the glamorous ballroom and play games on deck. Nothing will stand in the way of her trip, not even when an eccentric heiress’s diamond tiara goes missing....

When Kat's employer asks for help in clearing her friend's name, Kat trades her kitchen for the homes of Mayfair's wealthiest families. Soon antiquities are disappearing not only from the extravagant households of connoisseurs and collectors but also from the illustrious British Museum. As the thefts increase in frequency, Kat calls upon her friend Daniel McAdam, who has already set himself up in a pawnshop on the Strand as a seedy receiver of stolen goods. When a man is murdered in the shop, Kat must use all of her wits to see that the thieves are caught and justice is done.

With Molly Murphy’s wedding to NYPD Captain Daniel Sullivan quickly approaching, the Irish P.I. heads to the Westchester County countryside,where Daniel’s mother can counsel her on a bride’s proper place. Surprisingly, Molly seems to be agreeing with her future mother-in-law’s advice. Molly promises to leave her detective work behind and settle down after becoming Daniel’s wife…but she isn’t married yet. So when she gets word of a possible case, Molly sneaks back into the city to squeeze in a little more sleuthing before the wedding bells can ring.

In 1851, private detective Laetitia Rodd is enjoying a well-earned holiday when she gets an urgent request for her services. Mrs. Rodd’s neighbor Jacob Welland is a reclusive rich gentleman dying of consumption, and he wants Mrs. Rodd to find his brother, who has been missing for 15 years. Joshua Welland was a scholar at Oxford, brilliant, eccentric, and desperately poor when he disappeared from the university. Friends claim to have seen him since, in gypsy camps and wandering around the countryside.

Mrs. Ginger Reed - the former Lady Gold - thought her past was dead and buried, but when the mysterious death of a British secret service agent threatens to expose her own Great War secrets, she’s faced with an unimaginable dilemma: break her legal vow to the Official Secrets Act or join the agency again, something she’s loath to do. Because, once they own your soul, there’s no getting it back.

A professor shows a colleague a painting that he has kept secret for decades. The professor swears it is a Vermeer - but why has he hidden this important work for so long? The reasons unfold in a series of stories that trace ownership of the painting back to World War II and Amsterdam, and still further back to the moment of the work's inspiration.

Normally dead bodies in a graveyard are buried - but not this one. When a woman is found strangled in a North London cemetery with an old newspaper clipping clutched in her hand, Inspector Witherspoon is surprised to find that he and the victim have crossed paths before. Alice Robinson was a respectable widow who ran a quiet Islington lodging house. None of her lodgers have any apparent motive to murder their landlady.

When Ellison Russell, reluctant finder of bodies, chairs a gala in conjunction with the museum's Chinese funerary exhibit, she expects disaster. So, she's not remotely surprised when a body turns up. Ellison is willing to leave the investigation to the police till an attempt is made on her life. Now she's juggling evading a killer, her aunt's overly-amorous beau, her dog's new love interest, and Mother's displeasure. With bodies piling up, if Ellison's not careful, staying alive might be impossible.

In the beautiful North Yorkshire countryside of the 1960s, Constable Nick’s roles are as varied as the eccentric villagers. He handles every encounter with his characteristic humor, humanity, and professionalism. His investigations include the case of a clever pony who keeps escaping, a woman running through town naked, and a pack of Canadian timber wolves hanging out in a bus shelter. He soon gets to know all the characters on his beat, from his superior officer, Sergeant Blaketon, to Claude Jeremiah Greengrass, whose lurcher, Alfred, lands him with a summons.

When amateur sleuth Augusta Peel receives a mysterious letter about a missing young woman, she can’t resist helping with the search. But the case takes a turn when an art student is found dead in a Bloomsbury square. Could the murder have something to do with Augusta’s investigation? The more questions she asks, the fewer answers she receives. Someone’s hiding something.

Clive Pippins, Lady Ginger Gold’s beloved, elderly butler is apparently Christmas shopping when a body is found. To the shock of everyone in Ginger’s household, the victim is the spinster cousin Pippins worked for during the years surrounding the Great War.

After a perfectly decent local woman is killed during a robbery, the Witherspoon household receives a surprising visit from a stranger named Blimpey Groggins. He claims his best buddy was convicted of the crime. He also claims the peaceable chap didn't even know how to fire a gun. And considering he's to be hanged in three weeks, Blimpey's desperate to find the real killer. With the trail cold, the crime allegedly solved, and the evidence mucked up, Mrs. Jeffries and her belowstairs cohorts have their work cut out for them if they want to save an innocent man from the gallows.

Cressida Fawcett is heading to the English countryside for a weekend of cocktails and partying at her friend’s glamorous mansion, the location of a recent diamond heist. But just hours after her arrival, Cressida is woken by an almighty scream. Rushing to the landing, she looks down into the great hall to find a trembling maid standing next to the body of Harry, the friendly young chandelier cleaner. Everyone believes Harry’s death was an accident. But as Cressida examines the opulent hall and the beautiful grounds, she thinks something darker is afoot.

Frank Malloy has never known any life other than that of a cop, but his newfound inheritance threatens his position within his department. While trying to keep both his relationship with Sarah and his fortune under wraps, he' s assigned to a new case - finding a missing young woman for her worried father, Henry Livingston. It seems the girl had been responding to "lonely hearts" ads in the paper for months before she disappeared.

Kitchen maid Joan Hart and lady's maid Verity Hunter intend to enjoy their trip to the theater, especially as Verity's uncle Tommy is one of the leading men in the play. Act two of the play is curtailed when the lights come up in the interval, and the girls realize a man has been stabbed to death almost under their very noses. The case reunites the servant sleuths with their old ally, Detective Inspector Marks, and while the girls do their best to solve the case while keeping their jobs, the glitter and glamor of the theater may prove to be as dangerous as any battlefield.

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.

Unregistered corpses are showing up among the cadavers in the mortuary of the London School of Medicine for Women. Unnatural deaths. Murders. The first known victim is recognized by Haley Higgins, a third-year pathology student. War-widow fashionista Ginger Gold feels a responsibility for the man's death and is determined to find his killer.

There's a damsel in distress and accusations of attempted murder flying around, but it's not in the comfortable confines of the English countryside; it's in the very distant city of Damascus. Lennox must go and investigate, although he's not too keen on exotic locations, and his old retainer Greggs is distinctly averse to the very idea. Nevertheless, ex-Chief Inspector Swift persuades them, and they reach the ancient city to discover a movie crew, a spy, and a couple of mysterious ladies.