Historical House Mysteries

At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army.

It is the Year of the Wood Dragon, and the ingenious Mike Brink has been invited to Tokyo, Japan, to open the legendary Dragon Box. The box was constructed during one of Japan’s most tumultuous periods, when the samurai class was disbanded and the shogun lost power. In this moment of crisis, Emperor Meiji locked a priceless Imperial secret in the Dragon Box. Only two people knew how to open the box—Meiji and the box’s sadistic constructor—and both died without telling a soul what was inside or how to open it.

A punto de incorporarse a su antiguo tercio en Flandes, Diego Alatriste se ve envuelto por mediación de su amigo don Francisco de Quevedo en otra peligrosa aventura. Una mujer ha aparecido estrangulada en una silla de manos frente a la iglesia de San Ginés, con una bolsa de dinero y una nota manuscrita: «Para misas por su alma». El enigma se complica con los sucesos misteriosos que ocurren tras las paredes de un convento, cuando Alatriste es contratado para rescatar de allí a una joven novicia.

For more than a century, one of the world's great treasures, a 600-year-old copy of Dante's The Divine Comedy, has been safely housed at Bombay's Asiatic Society. But when it vanishes, together with the man charged with its care, British scholar and war hero John Healy, the case lands on Inspector Persis Wadia's desk. Uncovering a series of complex riddles written in verse, Persis - together with English forensic scientist Archie Blackfinch - is soon on the trail. But then they discover the first body.

James Lionel Falconer has risen quickly from a mere shop worker to being the right-hand man of Henry Malvern, head of the most prestigious shipping company in London. With Malvern's daughter Alexis running away to the country after a terrible tragedy and refusing to return, James' ascent to head of the company seems inevitable. But even a charmed life like James' is not without its setbacks. A terrible fire threatens to end his merchant career before it's had a chance to truly begin. Mrs. Ward, James' former paramour, has a secret that could change his life forever.

Chief Jim Hopper reveals long-awaited secrets to Eleven about his old life as a police detective in New York City, confronting his past before the events of the hit show Stranger Things.

German intelligence officer Captain Gregor Reinhardt has just been reassigned to the Feldjaegerkorps - a new branch of the military police with far-reaching powers. His position separates him from the friends and allies he has made in the last two years. And he needs them now more than ever. While retreating through Yugoslavia with the rest of the army, Reinhardt witnesses a massacre of civilians by the dreaded Ustaše - only to discover that there is more to the incident than anyone believes.

The 18th century novelist-of-manners-turned-sleuth returns to delight readers with another nimble-witted investigation of mayhem in the pastoral landscape of rural England. When Jane's gentleman friend Lord Trowbridge sends her, in the utmost secrecy, to retrieve a parcel hidden amidst the ruins of Netley Abbey, Jane finds not only the parcel but also a dying man. When events take a regrettably sinister turn, only Jane is clever enough to pursue the miscreant.

Freddy Otash was the man in the know and the man to know in '50s LA. He was a rogue cop, a sleazoid private eye, a shakedown artist, a pimp - and, most notably, the head strong-arm goon for Confidential magazine. Confidential presaged the idiot internet - and delivered the dirt, the dish, the insidious ink, and the scurrilous skank.

London, 1893: High up in a house on a dark, snowy night, a lone seamstress stands by a window. So begins the swirling, serpentine world of Paraic O'Donnell's Victorian-inspired mystery, the story of a city cloaked in shadow but burning with questions: Why does the seamstress choose to jump out of that window? Why is there a cryptic message sewn into her skin? And how is she connected to a rash of missing girls, all of whom seem to have disappeared under similar circumstances?

Carlos Ruiz Zafón concibió está obra como un reconocimiento a sus lectores, que le habían seguido a lo largo de la saga iniciada con La Sombra del Viento. Puedo conjurar rostros de chiquillos del barrio de la Ribera con los que a veces jugaba o peleaba en la calle, pero ninguno que quisiera rescatar del país de la indiferencia. Ninguno excepto el de Blanca. Un muchacho decide hacerse escritor al descubrir que sus invenciones le regalan un rato más de interés por parte de la niña rica que le ha robado el corazón.

For young mother Fosca Sentino, accepting refuge from ex-British soldier Richard - in Tuscany to escape his tragic past - is the only way to keep her little family safe. She once risked everything to spy on Nazi commanders and pass secret information to the resistenza. But after a heartbreaking betrayal, Fosca’s best friend, Simonetta, disappeared without trace. The whole community was torn apart, and now Fosca and her son are outcasts.

In his electrifying first novel Joe Buff instantly established himself as the ultimate chronicler of 21st-century warfare by taking military fiction and submarine combat to a new level of authenticity, vision, and power. Thunder in the Deep picks up where Deep Sound Channel left off, bringing to life a frightening seascape where technology pushes warriors to new extremes, and warriors push technology to the max. This time the difference between victory and defeat hinges on the two most advanced nuclear attack submarines in the world.

Mexico in the 1970s is a dangerous country, even for Maite, a secretary who spends her life seeking the romance found in cheap comic books and ignoring the activists protesting around the city. When her next-door neighbor, the beautiful art student Leonora, disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman—and journeying deeper into Leonora’s secret life of student radicals and dissidents.

For years, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch have ridden roughshod over rabble-rousers and gun hands in troubled towns like Appaloosa, Resolution, and Brimstone. Now, newly appointed as Territorial Marshalls, they find themselves traveling by train through the Indian Territories.

All the world is a puzzle, and Mike Brink—a celebrated and ingenious puzzle constructor—understands its patterns like no one else. Once a promising Midwestern football star, Brink was transformed by a traumatic brain injury that caused a rare medical condition: acquired savant syndrome. The injury left him with a mental superpower—he can solve puzzles in ways ordinary people can’t. But it also left him deeply isolated, unable to fully connect with other people.

November 1816. Restless but naive Emeline Fitzpatrick is desperate to escape her stifling life in foggy Halifax. Her guardian is lining up repugnant suitors, but Emeline has her eyes set on a handsome lieutenant in the British navy. She just needs to persuade him to propose, or her one chance at happiness will be gone forever. But when Emeline’s hopes end in scandal, she finds herself with only one suitor left: the wealthy and enigmatic Captain Graves. Having already lost two wives to tragic circumstances, the unfortunate widower is seeking a new companion in his cloistered seaside manor.

On a cold January night in 1817, former cavalry officer Captain Gabriel Lacey is summoned to the banks of the Thames to identify the body of a young woman. When Lacey looks at the pretty, dead young woman, cut down too soon, he vows to find her murderer.

Followers of the series will notice in this volume some personality changes in the odd assortment of retainers who keep the infamous house at 67 Clarges Street, in London’s Mayfair, at the ready for whatever entrepreneur will rent it as a launching pad into the London social season. This time the renters are an unlikely couple, the Goodenoughs, apparently father and daughter; she a great beauty, he silent and mysterious. Their secrets eventually become known to the downstairs troupe, but the indomitable butler Rainberd rallies the support forces.

He's back. Everyone's favorite globe-trotting, tomb-raiding, wisecracking archaeologist is finally at it again. Now it's 1957, the atomic age is in full swing, and McCarthy-era paranoia has the nation on edge. But for Indiana Jones, the Cold War really heats up when his latest expedition is crashed by a ruthless squad of Russian soldiers.