Historical Suspense Women Sleuths

The evidence was all there: a dead body, two dessert plates, and a gun. Could it be that Mr. Ashbury was sharing his cake with his killer? The old bloke had enemies galore - even his own daughter disliked him. Mr. Ashbury's son-in-law doesn't want Inspector Witherspoon asking questions. Of course this doesn't stop Mrs. Jeffries and her staff from snooping around.

Gretel has never had any time for sorcerers, considering them nothing more than show-offs with questionable fashion sense. It is with some reluctance and a deal of grumpiness, then, that she agrees to look into the matter of a murdered magician. All that is left of him is a grisly remnant, which the police quack confirms is the murdered man’s appendix. What has become of the rest of him is baffling the local constabulary, the Sorcerers’ Society, and, not least, the hapless trickster’s widow.

Ellie, ever-ready to aid her country, heads north, her safe-cracking tools in tow. But before she can rendezvous with the major, she witnesses an unnatural death. A man falls dead in the street in front of her, with a mysterious missive clutched in his hand. Ellie’s instincts tell her that the man’s death is connected in some way to her mission. After she is reunited with Major Ramsey, the pair discovers that the dead man had ties to a counterfeiting operation, supplying German spies with fraudulent British currency to use in their operations.

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.

In return for a random act of kindness, scholar Li Bai Chang presents young cook Kat Holloway with a rare and precious gift - a box of tea. Kat thinks no more of her unusual visitor until two days later when the kitchen erupts with the news that Lady Cynthia's next-door neighbor has been murdered.

In Phryne's third adventure, Phryne is off to Ballarat for a week of fabulousness, but the sedate journey by train turns out to be far from the restful trip she was planning. What was planned as a restful country sojourn turns into the stuff of nightmares: a young girl who can't remember anything, rumours of vile white slavery and the body of an old woman missing her emerald rings.

With the epic victory at Waterloo behind them, Arianna and Saybrook are looking forward to a quiet summer of scholarship, far from the turmoil of war and politics. But little do they know that an even more dangerous battle is about to test their mettle. The shocking news that Lord Grentham, the steely minister of state security, has been accused of treason and is on the run from arrest takes them and their close circle of friends by surprise. Arianna and Saybrook don't want to believe it. Despite their fraught past with the minister, they've developed a grudging friendship.

Hugh Breedlove is far from the most agreeable client private investigator Frank Malloy has ever had, but his case is impossible to refuse: his young niece, Julia, has been wrongfully committed to an insane asylum by her cruel and unfaithful husband, Chet Longly. Though Breedlove and his wife seem more interested in protecting the family reputation than their niece’s safety, Frank and Sarah agree to help for the sake of Julia and the young son she left behind. Frank and Sarah’s investigation reveals a dark secret.

Argyll, Scotland. July 1832. After a trying few months in Edinburgh, Kiera and her husband and investigative partner, Sebastian Gage, are eager to escape to the Highlands with their three-month-old child. Kiera is overjoyed for her cousin Rye and her friend Charlotte, who are being wed in a private ceremony at the estate of Rye's great-uncle, the Marquess of Barbreck, in what seems to be the perfect wedding party. But when Kiera is invited to peruse Barbreck's extensive art collection, she is disturbed to discover that one of his most priceless paintings seems to be a forgery.

With London's streets deserted, a young flower girl is murdered. But why was she out so late on the foggiest night of the year? Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard has nowhere to even begin looking for a suspect. However, Mrs. Jeffries, his housekeeper, is even more accomplished at detection than she is at household management. A policeman's widow herself, her quick wits allow her to nudge the inspector in the right direction to solve the mystery.

Olivia Denis discovers her father kneeling over the body of a man...a man who supposedly drowned in the Channel years before. Olivia wants to ring for help, her father wants to hide the body, but a mysterious phone call brings Scotland Yard to the murder scene. Olivia can't stand by and let her maddening, disapproving father hang. To prove his innocence - and learn his secrets - she must work with a master spy.

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.

Normally dead bodies in a graveyard are buried - but not this one. When a woman is found strangled in a North London cemetery with an old newspaper clipping clutched in her hand, Inspector Witherspoon is surprised to find that he and the victim have crossed paths before. Alice Robinson was a respectable widow who ran a quiet Islington lodging house. None of her lodgers have any apparent motive to murder their landlady.

Flavia is enjoying the summer, spending her days punting along the river with her reluctant family. Languishing in boredom, she drags a slack hand in the water - and catches her fingers in the open mouth of a drowned corpse. Flavia needs to put her super-sleuthing skills to the test to investigate the murder of three gossips in the local church and to keep her sisters out of danger.

The Great War has ended at last. Archaeologist Amelia Peabody and her husband, Emerson, the distinguished Egyptologist, no longer fear for the life of their daring son, Ramses, now free from his dangerous wartime obligations to British Intelligence. Delightful new additions to the growing Emerson family and new wonders waiting to be discovered beneath the shifting Egyptian sands mark a time of new beginnings in Luxor.

On the eve of her marriage to George Hazelton, Frances has a great deal more on her mind than flowers and seating arrangements. The Connors and the Bainbridges, two families of American robber barons, have taken up residence in London, and their bitter rivalry is spilling over into the highest social circles. At the request of her brother, Alonzo, who is quite taken with Miss Madeline Connor, Frances has invited the Connor family to her wedding. Meanwhile, Frances’s mother has invited Mr. Bainbridge, and Frances fears the nuptials may end up being newspaper-worthy for all the wrong reasons.

Phryne Fisher, her sister Beth, and her faithful maid Dot take a trip to an amusement park with Phryne's two daughters Ruth and Jane. But in the dusty dark Ghost Train, a mummified bullet-studded corpse falls to the ground in front of them. Digging to the bottom of this long-standing mystery takes her to the country town of Castlemaine where it soon becomes obvious that someone is trying to muzzle her investigations. Meanwhile, Phryne's lover Lin Chung has his own mystery to solve.

The Gardener Estate is one of the most storied and beloved places on the West Coast: a magnificent house in vast formal grounds, home to a family that shaped California—and fought hard to conceal the turmoil and eccentricities within their walls. And now, just as the turmoil seems buried and the Estate prepares to move into a new future, construction work unearths a grim relic of the estate's history: a skull, hidden away some fifty years ago.

Amory Ames is traveling to New York City to be a bridesmaid, but when a man is found dead on the bride's doorsteps, she must catch the culprit before it's too late.

The Armistice of November 1918 ended the fighting, but the Great War will not be over until a peace treaty is drawn up and signed by all parties. Representatives from the Allies are gathering in Paris, and already ominous signs of disagreement have appeared. Sister Bess Crawford, who has been working with the severely wounded in England in the war’s wake, is asked to carry out a personal mission in Paris for a Matron at the London headquarters of The Queen Alexandra’s. Bess is facing decisions about her own future, even as she searches for the man she is charged with helping.