Historical Suspense Women Sleuths

Jack the Ripper begins his reign of terror. Miss Sarah Bain, a photographer, supplements her meager income by taking illicit boudoir photographs of the town's local ladies of the night. But when two of her models are found gruesomely murdered within weeks of one another, Sarah begins to suspect it's more than mere coincidence.

In this fifth delightful entry, Anthony and Agatha Award nominee Susan Wittig Albert re-imagines Beatrix Potter wearing her sleuthing cap as the village of Sawrey lies buried beneath a blanket of Christmas snow. While she and her animal friends investigate a puzzling death, Miss Potter wonders if she can acknowledge her fondness for Mr. Heelis and still remain loyal to her fiancé’s memory.

On a dark, damp Sunday evening, a man taking a shortcut home sees a hand reaching out in supplication from a bundle of sacks. In an instant he knows something terrifying has happened.

In the Highlands in the late 1950s, much of the local newspaper’s success was due to Mrs. Smart, the no-nonsense office manager who kept everything and everyone in line. Her murder leaves her colleagues in shock and the Highland Gazette office in chaos.

The letter came in secret, with a pearl eardrop from an aunt long thought dead, resurrecting the forbidden past. Banished by her spiteful half sister, Queen Mary, to Hatfield House in the English countryside, 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth cannot refuse the summons. The Boleyns are in grave danger. And Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, is marked for death by a master poisoner whose reign of terror may have royal sanction.

Sir George Braxton was found lying face down in a frozen fountain with the back of his skull bashed to bits. The case is complicated by a distinct lack of holiday cheer in the victim's three argumentative middle-aged daughters and their sullen house guests. Even the cranky cat hates everyone. To top it all off, the home secretary has called in Inspector Witherspoon over the heads of some touchy local lads, making matters stickier than a plum pudding. Only the help of his housekeeper, Mrs. Jeffries, will give the poor inspector any chance of sleeping on Christmas Eve....

In spring 1889, Prudence and Geoffrey set sail from New York Harbor on a private yacht bound for Bradford Island, where her friend Eleanor Dickson is to be wed. The Sea Islands along the Georgia coast serve as a winter playground for the likes of the Carnegies, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and Dicksons. Despite her Yankee pedigree, Eleanor is marrying a Southern gentleman, Teddy Bennett, and Prudence is thrilled to be the maid of honor.

With the threat of war looming over the Continent now that Napoleon has reseized the throne of France, London is abuzz with intrigue as diplomats from the European powers gather to negotiate a military alliance against him. But Lady Arianna and her husband, the Earl of Saybrook, are intent on staying clear of the conflict, deciding it's a battle for nations and armies to fight. Until things turn very personal. When a Prussian diplomat is murdered, two items found in his pocket force Arianna and Saybrook to once again become reluctant allies with the shadowy head of British security.

The Prodigal Son Mission on Mulberry Bend stands as a refuge for girls who otherwise would have to live by selling the only thing they have of value - themselves. The work being done there so impresses midwife Sarah Brandt that she volunteers to help out however she can - with clothes, with medical assistance, and with the organization of a benefit dinner. And when one of the girls is found dead and refused burial because of her former life, Sarah's passion for justice is aroused.

London, 1894. Albertine Honeycombe never wanted a husband and certainly not the one with fifteen children that her cousin, Aubrey, is trying to marry her off to. She reinvents herself as Countess Von Dagga, a private detective aiding the upper echelons of women in society. As the Countess, she is a married woman, with a conveniently absent husband who doesn’t exist, which allows her far more freedom than being single. When Lord Grendel, from whom she has recovered blackmail letters, is murdered, Albertine is suspect number one—having been the last person to see him.

Restless and uncertain of her future in the wake of World War I, former battlefield nurse Bess Crawford agrees to travel to Yorkshire to help a friend of her cousin Melinda through surgery. But circumstances change suddenly when news of a terrible accident reaches them. Bess agrees to go to isolated Scarfdale and the Neville family, where one man has been killed and another gravely injured. The police are asking questions, and Bess is quickly drawn into the fray as two once close families take sides, even as they are forced to remain in the same house until the inquest is completed.

December 1935. Director Monty Harrison's production of A Christmas Carol has had a troubled run on its tour of regional theatres. With tensions amongst the cast running high, the company reach their final stop—London's Theatre Royale. Catastrophe, however, strikes on opening night: Scrooge dies on stage, the result (it is presumed) of a heart attack. But the show must go on. Until, that is, a leading theatre critic—and old rival of Monty's—is killed backstage.

Irish immigrant and private detective Molly Murphy is thrilled to have a ticket to see world-famous illusionist Harry Houdini. But before he can even take the stage, the opening act goes horribly wrong—and the sensational Signor Scarpelli’s lovely assistant is sawed in half. In the aftermath, Scarpelli accuses Houdini of tampering with his equipment. Who else but the so-called Handcuff King could have got a hold of his trunk of tricks, which he keeps under lock and key?

She keeps house for Inspector Witherspoon...and keeps him on his toes. Everyone's awed by his Scotland Yard successes - but they don't know about his secret weapon. No matter how messy the murder or how dirty the deed, Mrs. Jeffries's polished detection skills are up to the task...proving that behind every great man there's a woman - and that a crimesolver's work is never done.

The divine Phryne Fisher returns to lead another dance of intrigue. Seven Australian soldiers, carousing in Paris in 1918, unknowingly witness a murder and their presence has devastating consequences. Ten years later, two are dead ... under very suspicious circumstances. Phryne's wharfie mates, Bert and Cec, appeal to her for help. They were part of this group of soldiers in 1918 and they fear for their lives and for those of the other three men.

When a Quaker Kindertransport chaperone is murdered in the East End of London, Britain’s counterintelligence spymaster tasks Olivia Denis to join the group rescuing children from Nazi Germany. Olivia must find not only a killer, but a traitor relaying sensitive material to the enemy. Once they reach Berlin, Olivia discovers she must rescue the family of an imprisoned British spy before she leaves the next day.

She keeps house for Inspector Witherspoon...and keeps him on his toes. Everyone's awed by his Scotland Yard successes - but they don't know about his secret weapon. No matter how messy the murder or how dirty the deed, Mrs. Jeffries' polished detection skills are up to the task...proving that behind every great man there's a woman - and that a crime solver's work is never done.

September 1939, and the worries of war follow Josephine Tey to Hollywood, where a different sort of battle is raging on the set of Hitchcock’s Rebecca. Then a shocking act of violence reawakens the shadows of the past, with consequences on both sides of the Atlantic, and Josephine and DCI Archie Penrose find themselves on a trail leading back to the house that inspired a young Daphne du Maurier—a trail that echoes Rebecca’s timeless themes of obsession, jealousy, and murder.

In 1851, private detective Laetitia Rodd is enjoying a well-earned holiday when she gets an urgent request for her services. Mrs. Rodd’s neighbor Jacob Welland is a reclusive rich gentleman dying of consumption, and he wants Mrs. Rodd to find his brother, who has been missing for 15 years. Joshua Welland was a scholar at Oxford, brilliant, eccentric, and desperately poor when he disappeared from the university. Friends claim to have seen him since, in gypsy camps and wandering around the countryside.

When it's your job to save the day—where do you start? Librarian spy Irene has standards to maintain, especially while on probation. And absconding from a mission via a besieged building doesn't look good. But when her escape route home goes up in flames, what's a spy to do? However, it seems gates back to the Library are malfunctioning across dozens of worlds. Worse still, her nemesis Alberich is responsible—and he plans to annihilate the Library itself.

Molly’s policeman husband, Daniel, is late returning home. He comes with a tale to tell: There was a murder on Ellis Island that day, and the main suspect is the spitting image of Molly. The circumstances are eerily similar to when Molly herself arrived on Ellis Island, and she can’t help but feel a sense of fate. Molly was meant to be there that day so that she can clear this woman’s name.