Historical Thriller

For centuries, the Vikings have swept out of the Norse countries and fallen on whatever lands they could reach aboard their longships, and few could resist the power of their violent onslaught. They came at first to plunder and then to settle, an encroachment fiercely resisted wherever they went. Such was the case in the southern lands of Ireland. En route to the Viking longphort there, known as Dubh-linn, Thorgrim Night Wolf and Ornolf the Restless stumble across an Irish ship.

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, a baffling cipher found near the body. As Langdon and gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, sort through the bizarre riddle, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci, clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Narrated by acclaimed British actor Edward Petherbridge. On the eve of war, Sherlock Holmes is asked by the Prime Minister of England to recover a new British superweapon that has fallen into the wrong hands. But Lucy James, an actress and Holmes's recently discovered grown daughter, has inherited the family sleuthing skills and strong-willed nature. Despite her father's objections, she insists on helping him, although several horrific murders have been linked to the weapon's disappearance.

London 1884. Electricity pioneer Simon Borthwick lights up Victorian London with a stunning illuminations display - then shoots himself in a hansom cab. Plucky Fleet Street reporter Penny Green witnesses the inventor's death and suspects the clue to his suicide lies in a mysterious letter he left behind. But can she persuade Inspector James Blakely of Scotland Yard that a crime has been committed? Borthwick isn't the only person who died that day, and Penny soon encounters a shadowy world which the police can't get close to.

In 1848, Dooley Monahan, son of struggling Iowa pioneers, went off to pick up a new milk cow. Young Dooley never came home. Now, nearly three decades later, Dooley Monahan has become an accidental legend, managing to plant a bullet in the chest of a dangerous outlaw. All Dooley really wants is to claim his reward at a bank in Phoenix and make his way north to a gold strike he read about in a newspaper. But fate has other plans.

The edge of the Roman Empire is a volatile place; the tribes of the North dwell near its borders. These hinterlands are the homeland of Gaius Petreius Ruso's slave, Tilla, who has scores of her own to settle there: Her tribespeople, under the leadership of the mysterious Stag Man, are fomenting a rebellion, and her former lover is implicated in the murder of a soldier. Ruso, once again pulled into a murder investigation, is appalled to find that Tilla is still spending time with the prime suspect.

New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King has won sweeping critical acclaim and an impressive collection of awards for her writing. Although other writers have tried, no one has matched King's ability to capture the allure of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes.

The men onboard HMS Terror have every expectation of finding the Northwest Passage. When the expedition's leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the Terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear there is no escape.

A young American actress arrives in London hoping to learn her identity, just as Sherlock Holmes is closing in on a master criminal. Their worlds collide, and not even Holmes could have foreseen the impact!

Sometimes, it’s bad to be good. That’s what happens when Scratch Morton and Bo Creel are rewarded with a gold mine for saving a rich man’s bacon. The catch: This mine is a magnet for marauding Mexican banditos. Budding capitalists, Scratch and Bo fight back. That’s when they discover that the thieves aren’t who they thought they were, some really bad guys are on the way, and a beautiful woman might just be the most dangerous bandit of all — the kind that can steal your heart.

In 1914 collisions between motor cars and horse-drawn carriages are an everyday occurrence on the streets of Paterson, New Jersey. But when an out-of-control driver smashes into a buggy driven by Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp, their lives change forever. Constance, the oldest, demands payment for the damages but quickly realizes that she is dealing with a madman.

For decades, Nick Burns has been haunted by a decision he made as a young soldier in World War I, when a French artist he’d befriended thrust both her paintings and her baby into his hands—and disappeared. In 1974, with only months left to live, Nick enlists Jenny, a college dropout desperate for adventure, to help him unravel the mystery. The journey leads them from Paris galleries and provincial towns to a surprising place: the Museum of Tears, the life’s work of a lonely Italian craftsman.

Lady Arianna, now the Countess of Saybrook, is settling into married life with her new husband. To celebrate his birthday, she finds the perfect gift: a rare volume of botanical engravings on Theobroma cacao - or chocolate - in an exclusive bookshop. But she is forced to fight off a stranger who tries to steal it way from her. Arianna forgets about the strange incident - until she and her husband attend an important government party on a country estate, where her assailant reappears and turns out to be a Russian diplomat.

Scratch Morton and Bo Creel, two aging cowpokes and friends for years, have seen their share of cattle drives, shootouts, and bust-ups. They do their best to stay on the right side of the law, and never go looking for trouble, but it seems to find them just the same. In Arizona Territory, they get stuck in the midst of a battle between competing stagecoach lines. Of course, a pretty woman who happens to own one of the lines has a lot to do with it, and things aren't quite what they seem.

Chicago, 1932. Mick Oberon may look like just another private detective, but beneath the fedora and the overcoat, he's got pointy ears and he's packing a wand.

Frank Morgan survived his first trip to Alaska. Barely. Now, in Western Canada, Morgan and a band of survivors encounter an arch enemy with a fortune in ill-gotten gains - money he'll use to supply murderous Metis rebels with stolen U.S. Army Gatling guns to use for a bloodbath - and the Last Gunfighter is now in their way. But before the rebels can kill him, a daring U.S. secret agent joins his side. In a harsh and untamed land, Frank Morgan will soon face the ultimate battle for survival - before an all-out civil war explodes.

It's late summer on Guadalcanal, and the Japanese are getting deadlier and more aggressive by the day. Hemmed in and short on supplies, the US Marine Corps fights ferociously to maintain their tenuous hold on Henderson Field. Major Al Decker, part of an elite unit known as the Marine Raiders, has put together a small crack team of battle-hardened men. Tasked with surveillance, hit and run attacks, and any other dirty job that’s required, it’s Decker’s Raiders that must venture out into the deadly tropical jungles and face down marauding Japanese soldiers around every corner.

When Inspector Shanti de Silva moves with his English wife, Jane, to his new post in the sleepy hill town of Nuala, he anticipates a more restful life than police work in the big city entails. However an arrogant plantation owner with a lonely wife, a crusading lawyer, and a death in suspicious circumstances present him with a riddle that he will need all his experience to solve. Set on the exotic island of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) in the 1930s, Trouble in Nuala is an entertaining and absorbing mystery spiced with humor and a colorful cast of characters.

It's AD 123, and the sun is shining on southern Gaul. Ex-military medic Ruso and his British wife, Tilla, are back after a long absence - but it's not the reunion anyone had hoped for. Ruso's brother has left him in charge of a farm he has no idea how to manage, a chronic debt problem, and a gaggle of accident-prone small children. Meanwhile his sister Flora has run away to rescue her boyfriend, who's accused of murdering a wealthy guest at a party.

Elam Eskers lives his days in peace on his ranch in the small town of Phoenix, Oregon, with his ranch hand, Samson, and his dog, Dusk, keeping him company. Gone are the days when he was the man outlaws feared the most. When he doesn't seek trouble, though, it finds him. Quincy Meiner has a hunger for money. He will stop at nothing to steal the land that belongs to Elam and his neighbors. At first, Meiner is just a nuisance. But when the Meiner gang kill Elam's dog, terrorize his town and kidnap Roxanna, the only woman Elam has ever loved, it becomes personal.