Historical House Mysteries

1927: Mary Rourke—a Hollywood studio fixer—is called urgently to the palatial home of Norma Carlton, one of the most recognizable stars in American silent film. Norma has been working on the secret film everyone is openly talking about…a terrifying horror picture called The Devil’s Playground that is rumored to have unleashed a curse on everyone involved in the production. Mary finds Norma’s cold, dead body, and she wonders for just a moment if these dark rumors could be true.

England, 1585. In Kit Marlowe's last year at Cambridge, he is approached by Queen Elizabeth's spymaster offering an unorthodox career opportunity: going undercover to intercept a Catholic plot to put Mary, Queen of Scots on Elizabeth's throne. Spying on Queen Mary turns out to be more than Kit bargained for, but his salary allows him to mount his first play, and over the following years he becomes the toast of London's raucous theater scene.

It’s 1933, and Ivor Castle, Oxford-educated and Jewish, arrives in Palestine to take up a position as assistant to the defense counsel in the trial of the two men accused of murdering Haim Arlosoroff, a leader of the Jewish community in Palestine whose efforts to get Jews out of Hitler’s Germany and into Palestine may have been controversial enough to get him killed.

In 1721, when the most notorious pirates are either dead or on the run, Jimmy Kavanagh, who sailed with Blackbeard, decides to pull together a "Company of Gentleman of Fortune" for one last "Adventuring Cruise" that will set them all up for life. All begins well: the pirates sail across the Atlantic and sack Cape Coast Castle, looting it of chests of gold ill-gotten from the slave trade. But before Kavanagh can lead them on, he sickens, unleashing a drastic series of power struggles among the company.

La riqueza de los Pilaster se basaba en el banco de la familia, una de las más sólidas y respetables instituciones financieras del Londres victoriano. En torno al consejo de administración, que preside el anciano Seth Pilaster, giran las ambiciones de la familia, sobre todo las de Augusta, su maliciosa nuera, y las de Hugh, nieto de Seth.

Augusta, junto a su falta de escrúpulos, cuenta con la alianza de Miguel Miranda, vástago de una brutal familia de caciques sudamericanos que desea contar con el apoyo del banco para sus proyectos de dominio.

¿Puede ser una coincidencia que una muchacha muera a latigazos donde acaba de caer una bomba? ¿Puede jugarse una partida de ajedrez usando como escenario una ciudad sitiada? El asedio es la novela más enigmática de Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Cádiz, 1811. España lucha por su independencia mientras América lo hace por la suya. En las calles de la ciudad más liberal de Europa se libran batallas de otra índole. Mujeres jóvenes aparecen desolladas a latigazos. En cada lugar, antes del hallazgo del cadáver, ha caído una bomba francesa.

The City of London, 1678. New Year’s Day. Twelve years have passed since the Great Fire ripped through the City. Eighteen since the fall of Oliver Cromwell and the restoration of a King. London is gripped by hysteria, and rumors of Catholic plots and sinister foreign assassins abound. When the body of a young boy drained of his blood is discovered on the snowy bank of the Fleet River, Robert Hooke, the Curator of Experiments at the just-formed Royal Society for Improving Natural Knowledge, and his assistant Harry Hunt, are called in to explain such a ghastly finding.

After a year of grand adventures touring the classical ruins of Italy and Greece, Iphiginia Bright returned to England to discover that the real excitement was at home. It seems that her Aunt Zoe has fallen victim to a sinister blackmailer and only Iphiginia can hope to stop the culprit before he can do more harm. Her plan is inspired: Imitating history's most legendary beauties--Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Aphrodite--the former schoolmistress will remake herself, and descend upon London Society as the dazzling mistress of Marcus Valerius Cloud, the infamous Earl of Masters.

Karen Hollander is a celebrated attorney who recently removed herself from consideration for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her reasons have their roots in 1968 - an episode she’s managed to keep secret for more than 40 years. Now, with the imminent publication of her memoir, she’s about to let the world in on that shocking secret - as soon as she can track down the answers to a few crucial last questions. A resonant coming-of-age story and a thrilling political mystery, True Believers is Kurt Andersen’s most ambitious novel to date, introducing a brilliant, funny, and irresistible new heroine to contemporary fiction.

Does love conquer all? Nell’s not so sure. Adjusting to wedlock isn’t easy for a woman whose initial aversion to the married state took her to the Poor Farm. When a tragedy out of the blue prompts her to repay past debts, her charitable instincts threaten to wreck her happy new life. What does she really want - and what does she really need? Join the beloved characters from the House of Closed Doors series as we bridge the years between Nell’s story and Sarah’s, interweaving stories of love and despair, darkness and light in the turbulent Chicago of the late 1870s.

The Strange Visitation at Wolffe Hall: The year is 1841 and Grayson Sherbrooke, a popular author of gothic paranormal mysteries, lives on the coast of Northern England with his 4-year-old-son, Pip. The Resident Evil at Blackthorn Manor: In Grayson Sherbrooke’s second Otherworldly Adventure, he goes to Scotland to Vere Castle, the home of his aunt and uncle. The Ancient Spirits of Sedgwick House: When Grayson Sherbrooke takes his son Pip to the home of Lord Lyle for a month of fun and relaxation, little does he know what awaits him.

As soon as Kerstin Kvist arrives at remote, ivy-covered Lydstep Old Hall in Essex, she feels like a character in a gothic novel. A young nurse fresh out of school, Kerstin has been hired for a position with the Cosway family, residents of the Hall for generations. She is soon introduced to her "charge", John Cosway, a 39-year-old man whose strange behavior is vaguely explained by his mother and sisters as part of the madness that runs in the family.

En el año 1944 los aliados preparan en secreto una de las mayores operaciones militares de la historia: la invasión de la Europa ocupada por los nazis.

Beatrice Poole may be a vicar's daughter, but that doesn't mean she's a stranger to the darker passions. Indeed, she knows enough about gothic terrors to have carved out a highly successful career penning "horrid novels." But now the talented authoress finds herself in the midst of an ominous adventure that rivals anything she's ever written.Her beloved Uncle Reggie is dead, Beatrice suspects that he was murdered - all because of his keen interest in a fabled treasure that may not even exist. Rumors abound that the Forbidden Rings of Aphrodite, said to give their possessor the most unnatural powers, have surfaced in London. Yet Beatrice needs more than rumors to uncover the truth. That's why she's braved the wilds of Devon to seek out a leading authority on antiquities and ancient legends: The famously eccentric, unquestionably reclusive, possibly dangerous Earl of Monkcrest, a man believed to dabble in the supernatural.But bearding the Mad Monk of Monkcrest in his den and dangling the possibility of uncovering a fabulous artifact before him may be the biggest mistake of Beatrice's life. For suddenly, she finds herself joined in an uneasy alliance with a man who is every bit as fascinating as one of the heroes in her novels.

In the time of the Pharaoh, a tiny infant is rescued from the banks of the Red Sea. She is named Zipporah, "the little bird". Although she is a Cushite by birth, one of the black people of the lands to the south, she is taken in by Jethro, high priest and sage of the Midianites. Jethro adores his adopted daughter, and she is an honored member of his family. But the blackness of Zipporah's skin sets her apart and will decide her future.

When Eliza Sullivan inherits an estate from a recently deceased aunt, she leaves behind a grievous and guilt-ridden past in New Orleans for rural England and a fresh start. Eliza arrives at her new home and finds herself falling for the mysterious lord of Havenwood, Malcolm Winfield. Despite the sinister rumors that surround him, Eliza is drawn to his melancholy charm and his crumbling, once-beautiful mansion. With enough love, she thinks, both man and manor could be repaired.

After a weeklong passage over the Atlantic from Boston to Liverpool, Ginger Gold arrives at her childhood London home--Hartigan House--to find decade-old remains from some poor woman on the floor in the attic. Ginger's Boston terrier, Boss, noses out a missing phalange from under the bed. It's a mystery that once again puts Ginger alongside the handsome Chief Inspector Basil Reed. Who is the victim? And how did she end up in Ginger's home?

It is 1943: Tucked away in the idyllic hills south of Florence, the Rosatis, an Italian family of noble lineage, believe that the walls of their ancient villa will keep them safe from the war raging across Europe. Eighteen-year-old Cristina spends her days swimming in the pool, playing with her young niece and nephew, and wandering aimlessly amid the estate's gardens and olive groves. But when two soldiers, a German and an Italian, arrive at the villa asking to see an ancient Etruscan burial site, the Rosatis' bucolic tranquility is shattered.

When Amy Osbourne’s parents are lost at sea, she is forced to leave her London home and is sent to live with her aunt and uncle at the opposite end of the country. Alardyce House is depressing and dreary, her aunt haughty and cruel. Amy strikes up a friendship with her cousin Edward but his older brother Henry is just as conceited as his mother, and a mutual loathing develops between him and Amy. Struggling in this strange, unwelcoming environment, Amy begins to suspect that something isn’t right at Alardyce House.

Nine-year-old Olivia Friel is delighted to be spending the summer at Greyfriars House, a place where her parents, their family and friends are always happy. But this year there's an underlying tension that Olivia doesn't understand. Then one night she sees something she's not meant to, and accidentally lets slip a devastating betrayal. Charlotte Friel gets a call from her ailing mother, asking something she's never asked before: for Charlotte to come home. There are things Olivia needs to tell her daughter before it's too late, secrets to be shared about forgotten relatives and a mysterious house.