Historical Fiction Thriller

Critically acclaimed author Carrie Bebris earned a Daphne du Maurier Award for her lively mysteries starring the fictional creations of Jane Austen. Here, Mr. and Mrs. Darcy investigate a murder in the seaside village of Lyme. While on holiday, the Darcys stumble upon the body of a woman who had been at the center of a local scandal. Was it an accidental death? Or were there more sinister forces at work?

Thirty-eight year old Cassandra is lost, alone, and grieving. Her much loved grandmother, Nell, has just died and Cassandra, her life already shaken by a tragic accident 10 years ago, feels like she has lost everything known and dear to her.

The first book in a brand-new series, The Last Kingdom is set in England during the reign of King Alfred. Uhtred is an English boy, born into the aristocracy of ninth-century Northumbria. Orphaned at 10, he is captured and adopted by a Dane and taught the Viking ways. Yet Uhtred's fate is indissolubly bound up with Alfred, King of Wessex, who rules over the only English kingdom to survive the Danish assault. The struggle between the English and the Danes and the strife between christianity and paganism is the background to Uhtred's growing up.

Miss Marple encounters a compelling murder mystery in the sleepy little village of St. Mary Mead, where under the seemingly peaceful exterior of an English country village lurks intrigue, guilt, deception and death. Colonel Protheroe, local magistrate and overbearing land-owner is the most detested man in the village. Everyone—even in the vicar—wishes he were dead. And very soon he is—shot in the head in the vicar's own study. Faced with a surfeit of suspects, only the inscrutable Miss Marple can unravel the tangled web of clues that will lead to the unmasking of the killer.

Called to the peaceful wooded churchyard of St John-at-Hampstead, Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose faces one of the most audacious and unusual murders of his career. The body of the church's organist is found in an opened grave, together with a photograph of a manor house and a cryptic note. The image leads Archie to Cambridge, where the crisp autumn air has brought with it bustling life to the ancient university and town.

He's 93-years-old, in retirement in Sussex, beginning to lose his memory, and subject to emotions he has resisted all his life. His name is Sherlock Holmes.

Mr. Shaitana is famous as a flamboyant party host. Nevertheless, he is a man of whom everybody is a little afraid. So when he boasts to Hercule Poirot that he considers murder an art form, the detective has some reservations about accepting a party invitation to view Shaitana's "private collection". Indeed, what begins as an absorbing evening of bridge is to turn into a more dangerous game altogether.

The son of legendary gunman Frank Morgan, Conrad Browning goes by the name Kid Morgan - the Loner - and forged a growing reputation of his own. But in the midst of a fight for his life, the Kid discovered that he too was a father: of twins he'd never met. Now, the Kid heads back east to pierce a mystery guarded by murderous criminals for hire. Why is his ex-fiancée hiding his children from him? And why is this secret worth killing to keep?

Shady Rest, Texas, has the dubious reputation for being the deadliest town in America. Getting yourself killed is as easy as blinking and twice as quick. Sure enough, Matt Jensen hasn't swallowed his whisky before the town's marshal is gunned down.

For centuries, the Vikings have swept out of the Norse countries and fallen on whatever lands they could reach aboard their longships, and few could resist the power of their violent onslaught. They came at first to plunder and then to settle, an encroachment fiercely resisted wherever they went. Such was the case in the southern lands of Ireland. En route to the Viking longphort there, known as Dubh-linn, Thorgrim Night Wolf and Ornolf the Restless stumble across an Irish ship.

The year is A.D. 922. A refined Arab courtier, representative of the powerful Caliph of Baghdad, encounters a party of Viking warriors who are journeying to the barbaric North. He is appalled by their Viking customs - the wanton sexuality of their pale, angular women, their disregard for cleanliness...their cold-blooded human sacrifices. But it is not until they reach the depths of the Northland that the courtier learns the horrifying and inescapable truth.

In 1866, tragedy strikes the exclusive Windfield School when a young student drowns in a mysterious accident. His death and its aftermath initiate a spiraling circle of treachery that will span three decades and entwine many lives. From the exclusive men’s clubs and brothels that cater to every dark desire of London’s upper class to the dazzling ballrooms and mahogany-paneled suites of the manipulators of the world’s wealth, one family is splintered by a shared legacy.

Caressa Horvath, raised in the corrupting atmosphere of a traveling carnival, marries an anthropologist named Jacob Bowman, who takes her on a journey to North Africa. Jacob gets himself killed by a band of Bedouin who spare Caressa’s life. The only one of her party left alive, Caressa is forced to join the caravan on a harrowing journey across the African desert.

It is early in the twelfth century, and the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud rages with renewed vigor. In the battle of Lincoln, the sheriff of Shropshire is captured, and the king himself is detained by his enemies. An exchange of prisoners is arranged: the sheriff will be bartered for a young Welsh lordling who has been captured during a misguided assault on a convent.

Malcolm Theodore Puddle is a 21-year shipping clerk — from way back East. What is he doing out here? The Mountain Man’s former neighbor, Humbolt Puddle, has died and left his crumbling 600-acre ranch to his only living heir, just as a greedy and ruthless cattle baron is circling the Humbolt ranch like a ravenous vulture. Poor, unsuspecting Puddle is walking into a death trap. Smoke is the not the pitying kind. But any enemy of Smoke’s neighbor is his enemy, too.

It's the Christmas season in London, but the holiday festivities don't deter Lady Katherine from investigating a death that happened months earlier. Since the victim was a maid, investigative resources were sparse, and the police hastily wrote it off as a random killing. But Lady Katherine and her friends believe it was nothing short of premeditated murder, and they vow to seek justice.

For lovers of the supernatural and the macabre comes this collection of ghostly and chilling stories from legendary mystery writer Agatha Christie. Fantastic psychic visions, specters looming in the shadows, encounters with deities, a man who switches bodies with a cat - be sure to keep the light on whilst listening to these tales. The Last Séance gathers 20 stories, some featuring Christie’s beloved detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, in one haunting compendium that explores all things occult and paranormal, and is an essential omnibus for Christie fans.

At a summons from Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, midwife Sarah Brandt arrives at the elegant home of famed magnetic healer Edmund Blackwell to find his wife in labor - and the good doctor dead from an apparent suicide. Only Malloy sees what no one else wants to: that Blackwell was murdered in his own home. After a successful delivery, the Blackwell baby falls mysteriously ill.

With his dying breath, Bobby Lowell begs Ellison Russell, "Tell her I love her." Unable to refuse, Ellison struggles to find the girl the murdered boy loved. Too bad an epically bad blind date, a vindictive graffiti artist, and multiple trips to the emergency room keep getting in the way. Worse, a killer has Ellison in his sights, her newly rebellious daughter is missing, and there's yet another body in her hostas. Mother won't be pleased.

In England in the late 1920s, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, on a convalescent trip to the countryside, goes to visit three old school friends in the area. Daisy and her husband Alec - Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher, of Scotland Yard - go for a Sunday lunch with Daisy’s friends, where one of the women mentions a wine cellar below their house, which remains curiously locked, no key to be found. Alec offers to pick the lock, but when he opens the door, what greets them is not a cache of wine but the stench of a long-dead body.