Historical Suspense Women Sleuths

Under a bundle of mistletoe, art collector Daniel McCourt lies with his throat slit, a bloody sword next to his body. Inspector Witherspoon is determined to solve the case - preferably before the eggnog is ladled out on Christmas Eve - but of course he will require assistance from the always sharp-witted housekeeper, Mrs. Jeffries, who has a few of her own theories on why McCourt had to die by the sword.

Orlando Edison is a stockbroker using London's infatuation with foreign mining ventures to make a fortune. He has curried favor with the nation's most respected aristocrats, even inviting three influential investors - known as the Merry Gentlemen - to be part of his latest enterprise. Edison is welcomed in the highest circles and moves with ease among the rich and powerful. But a few days before Christmas, he is found murdered.

New York, 1939 Giddy Brodsky knows she’s lucky to have a job as a cigarette girl at a Manhattan jazz club, but she dreams of opening her own beauty shop and lifting her family out of poverty. The Brodskys have lived cheek to jowl in the Lower East Side tenements since they came to America nineteen years ago, fleeing a deadly pogrom in their Russian village. But they continue to face prejudice. Yet Giddy is focused on the future—until she recognizes one of the Cossacks who irrevocably changed her life and the past comes flooding back.

Sarah Malloy has just helped with the delivery of a bouncing baby girl at her women's clinic, when she receives a visit from an engaging and determined young woman writing an article for New Century Magazine. Louisa Rodgers explains that she is researching the dangers of patent remedies. Sarah is only too happy to tell Louisa exactly what she thinks of the so-called medicines. A few days later, Sarah receives a visit from a bereft Bernard Rodgers, who explains that his daughter, Louisa, has been found strangled in the lobby of the building where New Century has its offices.

World War II rages on across Europe, but Maggie Hope has finally found a moment of rest on the pastoral coast of western Scotland. Home from an undercover mission in Berlin, she settles down to teach at her old spy training camp, and to heal from scars on both her body and heart. Yet instead of enjoying the quieter pace of life, Maggie is quickly drawn into another web of danger and intrigue.

London, 1880. Kat Holloway, highly sought-after young cook to the wealthy of London, finds herself embroiled in murder when she’s accused of poisoning her employer, the loathsome Sir Lionel Leigh-Bradbury. Her only help as she works to clear her name comes from the mysterious Daniel McAdam, a handsome man-of-all-work who seems to know everyone and always happens to be in the right place at the right time.

Olive and Jasper have never been closer—except for one thing. Jasper is still reticent about his frequent disappearances from polite society. With the holidays approaching and no paying client on the books, Olive decides to shadow Jasper when he’s unexpectedly called away. Her search brings her to Holly Hill Lodge where an eclectic group has gathered to celebrate an old-fashioned English Christmas. When the butler goes missing, Olive and Jasper must work together to solve the Christmas crime—as well as the secret Jasper hides.

Molly Murphy - now Molly Sullivan - is a year into her marriage, expecting her first child, and confined to the life of a housewife. She’s restless and irritable in the enforced idleness of pregnancy and the heat of a New York summer in 1905. So when a trip to the post office brings a letter addressed to her old detective agency asking her to locate a missing Irish serving maid, Molly figures it couldn’t hurt to at least ask around, despite her promise to Daniel to give up her old career as a detective. On the same day, Molly learns that five babies have been kidnapped in the past month.

Between ornate bridal gown fittings and meetings with Lyndy's distant relatives, Stella finally feels less like an out-of-place American and more like a respected aristocrat. Everything changes as the arrival of an anonymous gift and return of her overbearing father cast a dark shadow over the festivities, conjuring difficult memories and new fears....

1937. War with Germany is dawning, and a civil war already raging in Spain. Split across political lines, the six Mitford sisters are more divided than ever. Meanwhile their former maid Louisa Cannon is now a private detective, working with her policeman husband Guy Sullivan.

Hannah Cameron was not well-liked, but who stabbed her in the back? To almost everyone, the answer was clear: she was killed by a burglar. This case is given to Inspector Nivens, so Mrs. Jeffries and the rest of the household must tiptoe around this case to find the real killer.

When Kat's employer asks for help in clearing her friend's name, Kat trades her kitchen for the homes of Mayfair's wealthiest families. Soon antiquities are disappearing not only from the extravagant households of connoisseurs and collectors but also from the illustrious British Museum. As the thefts increase in frequency, Kat calls upon her friend Daniel McAdam, who has already set himself up in a pawnshop on the Strand as a seedy receiver of stolen goods. When a man is murdered in the shop, Kat must use all of her wits to see that the thieves are caught and justice is done.

In Death in the Floating City, Emily is surprised to receive a plea for help from her childhood nemesis, Emma, whose father-in-law has been murdered and whose husband has vanished. Digging into the mystery, Emily unearths a centuries-old puzzle - and raises the ire of those who will do anything to keep their secrets hidden.

When a fellow passenger is found dead on Audrey's packet ship from France, a mysterious note on the body points to her as the killer. Detained in Dover for an inquest that is being led by a prejudiced magistrate, she is joined by trusted friends and family—and the newly minted viscount, Hugh Marsden—to prove her innocence. But when it's discovered the murdered man was a private inquiry agent, hired to follow the duchess while she traveled the Continent, they enter a race to find out who hired him and why.

The year started badly and only got worse - blizzards, strikes, power cuts, and political unrest were the norm. For journalist Allie Burns, however, someone else's bad news was the unmistakable sound of opportunity knocking, and the year is ripe with possibilities. But Allie is a woman in a man's world. Desperate to get away from the "women's stories" the Glasgow desk keeps assigning her, she strikes up an alliance with wannabe investigative journalist Danny Sullivan. From the start, their stories create enemies.

Isle of Iona, 1927: Cast away on a remote locale, Jane’s latest assignment depends on concealing her identity and blending in at an occult gathering. Not even her fiancé, Redvers, can be too close as she uncovers the truth about Robert Nightingale, enigmatic leader of the Order of the Golden Dawn—a group made up of supernatural ceremonies, influential people, and an undefinable darkness. When a woman tries to escape to the mainland only to be found murdered in the moors, the shocking scene reveals it’s easier to join the Golden Dawn than it is to leave.

1920s London isn’t the ideal place for a brilliant woman with lofty ambitions, but research assistant Saffron Everleigh is determined to beat the odds in a male-dominated field at the University College of London. She embarks on her first research study alongside the insufferably charming Dr. Michael Lee, traveling the countryside with him in response to reports of poisonings. But when Detective Inspector Green is given a case with a set of unusual clues, he asks for her assistance.

England, 1942. The Nazis' relentless Blitz may have paused, but London's nightly blackouts continue. Now, under the cover of darkness, a madman is brutally killing and mutilating young women in eerie and exact re-creations of Jack the Ripper's crimes. What's more, he's targeting women who are reporting for duty to be Winston Churchill's spies and saboteurs abroad. The officers at MI5 quickly realize they need the help of Special Agent Maggie Hope to find the killer dubbed "the Blackout Beast". A trap is set.

The year is 1928, and after the death of a maid at a glamorous society party, fortune heir Bryan Guinness seizes life and proposes to 18-year-old Diana, the most beautiful of the six Mitford sisters. The maid's death is ruled an accident, and the newlyweds put it behind them to begin a whirlwind life. Accompanying Diana as her lady's maid is Louisa Cannon, as well as a coterie of friends, family and hangers on, from Nancy Mitford to Evelyn Waugh. When a second victim is found in Paris in 1931, Louisa begins to see links with the death of the maid two years previously.

The ladies of the Mayfair Orchid and Exotic Plant Society are known for a bit of friendly rivalry, but the backstabbing has never been literal - until now. When Hiram Filmore, an orchid hunter and supplier, is found dead in Mrs. Helena Rayburn's conservatory, Inspector Witherspoon is called in to weed out a murderer. When it comes out that Mrs. Rayburn and her flowery friends knew each other from long ago, Mrs. Jeffries begins to suspect that there's more to unearth about this case than meets the eye.