Historical Police Fiction

As the clouds of World War I threaten to engulf Egypt, Gareth Owen, the Mamur Zapt, head of the Secret Police, confronts a series of personal and professional challenges, from the pitfalls of his marriage, to a riot in Cairo's Camel Market.

Archaeologist Neil Watson did not expect to find the body of American veteran Norman Openheim in the ruins of the old chantry chapel. He turns to his old student friend, Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson, for help. Ironically, both men are looking at an invading force - Wes the WWII Yanks and Neil a group of Spaniards killed by outraged locals as they limped from the wreckage of the Armada. 400 years apart two strangers in a strange land have died violently - could the same motives of hatred, jealousy and revenge be at work? Wes is running out of time to find out....

Stefan Lindman, a young police officer recently diagnosed with mouth cancer, decides to investigate the murder of his former colleague, but is soon enmeshed in a mystifying case with no witnesses and no apparent motives. Terrified of the disease that could take his life, Lindman becomes more and more reckless as he unearths the chilling links between Molin's death and an underground neo-Nazi network that runs further and deeper than he could ever have imagined.

Forensic genealogist Morton Farrier agrees to take on a case to identify the biological mother of three foundlings, abandoned in shop doorways as newborn babies in the 1970s. He has just one thing with which to begin his investigation: the three women’s DNA, one of whom is his half-aunt. With just six days of research time available to him, his investigation uncovers some shocking revelations and troubling links to his own grandfather, and Morton finds that for the first time in his career, he is advising his clients not to read his concluding report.

Scotland Yard’s Inspector Ian Rutledge brought the Great War home with him, and its horrors haunt him still. On New Year’s Eve 1919, he finds a brass cartridge casing, similar to countless others he’d seen on the battlefield, on the steps of a friend’s house. Soon there are more, purposely placed where he is sure to discover them. Unexpectedly drawn away from London to a small Northamptonshire village, he investigates the strange case of a local constable shot with a bow and arrow.

As commander of the River Police, Monk is accustomed to violent death, but the mutilated female body found on Limehouse Pier one chilly December morning moves him with horror and pity. The victim’s name is Zenia Gadney. Her waterfront neighbors can tell him little—only that the same unknown gentleman had visited her once a month for many years. She must be a prostitute, but—described as quiet and kempt—she doesn’t appear to be a fallen woman. What sinister secrets could have made poor Zenia worth killing? And why does the government keep interfering in Monk’s investigation?

When a man’s naked corpse is found strapped to a waterwheel, newly appointed Inspector Haze is called upon to investigate the crime. With the help of American surgeon Captain Redmond, he delves into the life of Frank Darrow, a man who inspired such hatred, his mere death wasn’t enough to satisfy his killer. Finding few clues and no obvious motive for the murder, Redmond and Haze must peel away the layers of Frank Darrow’s relationships to get to the shocking truth, while also coming to terms with unexpected developments in their own lives.

As Police Superintendent Thomas Pitt investigates the leak in the Colonial Office, he quietly looks into the tragic death of his childhood mentor, Sir Arthur Desmond. Pitt believes he was murdered and that the crime is connected with the treachery in the government. He makes little progress...until a second murder reverberates through London.

Cambridgeshire, September 1813: Detective Stephen Lavender and Constable Ned Woods are lured to an isolated estate in the deadly marshland surrounding Ely, to investigate a murder.

In Let Loose the Dogs, Murdoch’s life and work overlap tragically. His sister, who long ago fled to a convent to escape their abusive father, is on her deathbed. Meanwhile, Harry Murdoch, the father whom Murdoch long ago shut out of his life, has been charged with murder and calls on his estranged son to prove his innocence. But, knowing his father, what is Murdoch to believe?

Responding to pressure from on high, the Atlanta Police Department is forced to hire its first black officers. It's a victory of sorts, though the newly minted policemen are met with deep hostility by their white peers, and their authority is limited: They can't arrest a suspect unless a white officer is present; they can't drive squad cars; they can't even enter the station through the front door.

London, 1882. Alec Lonsdale, a young reporter on the Pall Mall Gazette, is working on a story about a fatal house fire. But the postmortem on the victim produces shocking results: Patrick Donovan's death was no accident. But why would someone murder a humble shop assistant and steal part of his brain? When a second body is discovered, its throat cut, and then a third, Lonsdale and his spirited female colleague, Hulda Friederichs, begin to uncover evidence of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest echelons of Victorian society.

After two London men end their business partnership, one of them is savagely murdered in a medieval tithe barn on his estate in Somerset. Investigating the killing, Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge discovers that the victim was universally despised in Cambury - even the victim's wife and the town's police inspector are suspect. And yet in London circles, the man was highly regarded. What triggered his death?

The action swings from London to Sweden, and then back into the past, to Franco’s Spain, as Roy and Castells hunt a monstrous killer...in the latest instalment of Johana Gustawsson’s award-winning series. Spain, 1938: the country is wracked by civil war, and as Valencia falls to Franco’s brutal dictatorship, Republican Therese witnesses the murders of her family. Captured and sent to the notorious Las Ventas women’s prison, Therese gives birth to a daughter who is forcibly taken from her.

One stormy night, a ghostly encounter on a lonely road leads Inspector de Silva into a case of murder and a mystery that stretches back to Ceylon’s distant past. To uncover the truth, he will have to face death and his inner demons. If you love entertaining and absorbing mysteries, spiced with colorful characters and a dash of humor, don’t miss the Inspector de Silva Mysteries.

Agatha Christie’s world is one of glamorous society parties, country house weekends and growing literary fame. Nan O’Dea’s world is something very different. Her attempts to escape a tough London upbringing during the Great War led to a life in Ireland marred by a hidden tragedy. After fighting her way back to England, she’s set her sights on Agatha. Because Agatha Christie has something Nan wants. And it’s not just her husband.

April 1937, die Familie Rath ist zersprengt. Eigentlich wollte Charlotte Rath, geborene Ritter, schon längst im Ausland sein, doch halten die Umstände sie in Berlin fest. Ihr ehemaliger Pflegesohn Fritze ist in die geschlossene Abteilung der Nervenheilanstalt Wittenau gesteckt worden, ihre beste Freundin Greta ist spurlos verschwunden und steht unter Mordverdacht. Dem untergetauchten und von den Behörden für tot gehaltenen Gereon Rath wird es derweil zu gefährlich in Deutschland, er besteigt einen Zeppelin, um in die USA zu entkommen.

Billy Boyle awakens in a field hospital in Sicily with amnesia. In his pocket is a yellow silk handkerchief embroidered with the initial L. Gradually he remembers: he has been sent ashore in advance of the troops with this token from Lucky Luciano to contact the head of the Sicilian Mafia. But he must also thwart a murderous band of counterfeiters of Army scrip led by Vito Genovese.

Why was the redoubtable King Henry, an aborigine from Western Australia, killed during a thunderstorm in New South Wales? What was the feud that led to murder after nineteen long years had passed? And who was the woman who saw the murder and kept silent? This first story of Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, the half-aborigine detective, takes him to a sheep station in the Darling River bush country where he encounters those problems he understands so well... mixed blood and divided loyalties.

Gareth Cadwallader Owen is the Mamur Zapt, the Head of the Khedive's Secret Police. However, unlike his British colleagues, Owen works for the Khedive. It's not a comfortable perch, as agitation for political and social restructuring grows. Furthermore, Owen is married to a pasha's daughter, Zeinab, herself straddling a cultural divide.