Historical Mystery Thriller

In late 1756, as the British government collapses in the aftermath of the loss of Minorca, and the country and navy are thrown into political chaos, a small force of ships is sent to the West Indies to reinforce the Leeward Islands Squadron. Captain Edward Carlisle and his first lieutenant George Holbrooke are fresh from the Mediterranean and their capture of a powerful French man-of-war. Their new frigate Medina has orders to join a squadron commanded by a terminally ill commodore. Their mission: a near-suicidal assault on a strong Caribbean island fortress.

As newspapers reported in the 1890s, a woman dubbed "Shakespeare" was found dead in a seedy hotel along the waterfront by Manhattan’s South Street Seaport. The chilling scene recalled for press and police alike Jack the Ripper’s victims in London. Panicked New Yorkers worked feverishly to halt that maniac’s spree from expanding across the Atlantic. The city only sighed relief after detectives abruptly arrested a traveling Algerian ex-soldier for the crime.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched an attack against U.S. naval forces stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. But what if the Japanese followed up their air assault with an invasion and occupation of Hawaii? This is the question explored by Harry Turtledove in Days of Infamy, with frightening implications.

The time is World War II. The place is a brutal prison camp deep in Japanese-occupied territory. Here, within the seething mass of humanity, one man, an American corporal, seeks dominance over both captives and captors alike. His weapons are human courage, unblinking understanding of human weaknesses, and total willingness to exploit every opportunity to enlarge his power and corrupt or destroy anyone who stands in his path.

It’s the eve of 1953, and Aloysius Archer is in Los Angeles to ring in the New Year with an old friend, aspiring actress Liberty Callahan, when their evening is interrupted by an acquaintance of Callahan’s: Eleanor Lamb, a screenwriter in dire straits. After a series of increasingly chilling events—mysterious phone calls, the same blue car loitering outside her house, and a bloody knife left in her sink—Eleanor fears that her life is in danger, and she wants to hire Archer to look into the matter. Archer suspects that Eleanor knows more than she’s saying.

It's hard country, but the pioneers of Fury (Population 112) are banding together to make it a home. With barren lands, blinding dust storms, drought, hostile Indians and violent bands of cutthroat outlaws against them, death is never far away. It's enough to make Jason Fury, whose father the town was named after, ride out for San Francisco. But a fiery young redhead named Megan McDonald keeps him Arizona bound - and just in time.

In Phoenix, a sheriff guns down a banker and robs him of a document. Going to the banker's aid, a witness hears the dying man's last words and takes hold of the map the sheriff was really after. By the time the crooked lawman realizes he has the wrong document, Jolene Wellington is on the run - and framed for the murder of the banker.

Paris, 1393. Recent widow Christine de Pizan became a scribe to support her family, but when she is called to the palace to work, she dreads going. There, everyone fears the king's attacks of unreason and they believe the charlatans who claim they can cure him with vile potions. But when a mysterious book of magic leaves a trail of real murdered bodies in its wake, Christine has more than black magic to worry about. Then one of the king's favorites, Hugues de Precy, is found murdered and his wife Alix de Clairy is blamed.

The damsel is in distress, or so it seems to Conrad Browning. On his way across the wide, tall Utah territory to California, the Loner meets a beautiful Mormon girl on the run from a forced wedding - and the gun-toting faithful trying to hunt her down. But there are two sides to every story - and the ones you don't hear are the ones that can get you killed. The runaway bride has a little history of her own. Soon, the Loner touches off a storm of unholy gunfire, drawing blood from an outlaw and a death sentence from a patriarch.

In a remote house in the middle of Dartmoor, six shadowy figures huddle around a table for a seance. Tension rises as the spirits spell out a chilling message: "Captain Trevelyan...dead...murder." Is this black magic or simply a macabre joke? The only way to be certain is to locate Captain Trevelyan. Unfortunately, his home is six miles away and, with snowdrifts blocking the roads, someone will have to make the journey on foot....

In 1866 the border between the US and Mexico is a hotbed of gunrunners, mercenaries, and the emperor of Mexico's spies, saboteurs, and double agents. On top of which West Texas is plagued by Comanche warriors. Into this mix ride two massive gangs of the meanest, most kill-happy bunch of bloodthirsty ravagers to ever draw breath.

In the year 1311, in the highest tower of Cloud of Sparrows Castle, a beautiful woman watches as enemies gather below. As she calmly awaits her fate, she begins to write the secret history of the Okumichi clan...of the gift of prophecy they share and the extraordinary destiny that awaits them.

In this tense, riveting mind game, New York Times bestselling novelist Nelson DeMille delivers a suspenseful short story in the tradition of his classic military novels The General's Daughter and Word of Honor. A band of soldiers in its last month of service in Vietnam goes out on a patrol through enemy territory with a female sniper in its path. Recounting the mission in shattering and sometimes gruesome detail, DeMille creates a concise masterpiece of moody suspense.

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.

In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive.

Christmas Eve, and the Lee family's reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture and a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed. When Hercule Poirot offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man....

In the Mongollon Rim country of Arizona, Frank Morgan walked into a blood feud between two powerful cattle barons. When the shooting stopped and the smoke cleared, Morgan had killed one of the men. Now, the dead man’s family wants revenge and the surviving rancher wants to silence Frank Morgan forever. Suddenly, the last gunfighter is on his own against a devil’s brew of murderous enemies. And amidst the lying and the killing is the beautiful young woman whose father Frank shot down - and one last thing worth dying to defend....

Award-winning author Alan Bradley returns with another beguiling novel starring the insidiously clever and unflappable 11-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce. The precocious chemist with a passion for poisons uncovers a fresh slew of misdeeds in the hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey - mysteries involving a missing tot, a fortune-teller, and a corpse in Flavia’s own backyard. Flavia had asked the old Gypsy woman to tell her fortune, but never expected to stumble across the poor soul, bludgeoned in the wee hours in her own caravan.

Jane Marple is an elderly lady from St Mary Mead who possesses an uncanny knack for solving even the most perplexing puzzles. Now, for the first time in 45 years, Agatha Christie’s beloved character returns to the page for a globe-trotting tour of crime and detection. Join Marple as she travels through her sleepy English village and around the world. In St Mary Mead, a Christmas dinner is interrupted by unexpected guests; the Broadway stage in New York City is set for a dangerous improvisation.

The sisters at a lonely Cornish convent share a chilling secret they cannot confess...Sister Sophia is dead. Another disappears. And a mysterious last letter from a dying nun is sent to the prioress. Sister Joan has faced her own demons. Now she is sent to the convent to investigate, as well as teach the local children. There are whispers of virgin sacrifice and suicide, and the mother prioress certainly wears pink nail varnish. And who is the young man hiding in the bracken?