Historical Thriller

Summer, 1939. British journalist John Russell has just been granted American citizenship in exchange for agreeing to work for American intelligence when his girlfriend, Effi, is arrested by the Gestapo. Russell hoped his new nationality would let him safely stay in Berlin with Effi and his son, but now he’s being blackmailed. To free Effi, he must agree to work for the Nazis. They know he has Soviet connections and want him to pass them false intelligence. Russell consents, but secretly offers his services to the Soviets instead.

The first story in a fiery new series about the west's most dangerous boomtown, and the reformed outlaw who risks his life to keep it safe....In the dark shadow of the Prophecy Mountains lies the ramshackle town of Rattlesnake Wells, where dreamers come to make their fortunes, and desperados come to die. The streets of this little settlement are slick with mud and stained with blood, and it will fall to Bob Hatfield to sweep them clean. The town marshal, Hatfield, has a young man's face, but his eyes are those of a killer. He is a good man, but he has a secret that weighs on his soul.

In The Limehouse Text, Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn discover a pawn ticket among the effects of Barker's late assistant, leading them to London's Chinese district, Limehouse. There they retrieve an innocent-looking book that proves to be a rare and secret text stolen from a Nanking monastery, containing lethal martial arts techniques forbidden in the West.

Lady Violet has decided that life in noisy, crowded, busy London is simply not her cup of tea. Her search for a rural property to purchase must be set aside when she learns that Hugh St. Sevier has been accused of murder. Worse, the handsome physician is doing nothing to aid those trying to exonerate him. Though it requires outsmarting the magistrate, enlisting the aid of Sebastian, Marquess of Dunkeld, and literally poking around in the undergrowth, Violet is determined to prove her friend’s innocence—with or without St. Sevier’s cooperation.

As both a prisoner and an undercover operative, US Marshal Hank Fallon has faced down some of the most vicious, terrifying, cold-blooded thieves and murderers in the West. Now, Hank is finally free, and he’s got no intention of setting foot inside a jail ever again. But the new federal prison being constructed in Leavenworth, Kansas, needs a warden, and Hank is the right man for the job. He’s got the scars to prove it - and to keep the peace. But keeping these lawless hornets in their nest is no easy feat.

In nine short stories, seven of which have never previously been available in print, and one brand-new, never-before-seen Sherlock Holmes mystery - available together for the first time - Laurie R. King blends her long-running brand of crime fiction with historical treats and narrative sleight of hand.

It is 1890, and in the days before Christmas, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are visited at Baker Street by a new client. Eve Allerthorpe, eldest daughter of a grand but somewhat eccentric Yorkshire-based dynasty, is greatly distressed, as she believes she is being haunted by a demonic Christmas spirit. Her late mother told her terrifying tales of the sinister Black Thurrick, and Eve is sure that she has seen the creature from her bedroom window. What is more, she has begun to receive mysterious parcels of birch twigs, the Black Thurrick’s calling card.

The sins of Adam Hardesty's past have been discovered. And if he does not hunt down his blackmailer quickly, his secrets will be revealed to all.... But there is an obstacle in his way: sensation novelist Caroline Fordyce. She knows that Adam's quest for justice could shatter her own reputation - and mire her family in lethal scandal. And she fears what he may find. Together they will navigate the shadow side of London, venturing into an underworld of cutthroats, connivers, and illusionists.

Melissa North had assumed that after eight years of not setting eyes on each other, her youthful attraction to - or an infatuation with - Julian Delamere, once Viscount Dagenham and now earl of Carsely, would have faded to nothing and gasped its last. Unfortunately, during the intervening years, she has failed to find any suitable suitor who measures up to her mark, and she is resigned to ending her days an old maid. Then she sees Julian across a crowded ballroom, and he sees her, and the intensity of their connection shocks her.

Manfred Baumann is a loner. Socially awkward and perpetually ill at ease, he spends his evenings quietly drinking and surreptitiously observing Adèle Bedeau, the sullen but alluring waitress at a drab bistro in the unremarkable small French town of Saint-Louis. One day, she simply vanishes into thin air and Georges Gorski, a detective haunted by his failure to solve one of his first murder cases, is called in to investigate the girl's disappearance. He sets his sights on Manfred.

In 1930, young Archie Goodwin comes to New York City hoping for a bit of excitement. In his third week working as a night watchman, he stops two burglars in their tracks - with a pair of hot lead slugs. Dismissed from his job for being “trigger-happy”, he parlays his newfound notoriety into a job as a detective’s assistant, helping honest sleuth Del Bascom solve cases like the Morningside Piano Heist, the Rive Gauche Art Gallery Swindle, and the Sumner-Hayes Burglary. But it’s the kidnapping of Tommie Williamson that introduces Goodwin to the man who will change his life.

New York Times best-selling author Amanda Quick returns to the exclusive seaside community of Burning Cove, where more than one person with a dark past has gone to reinvent themselves. But some secrets are just too deadly to stay hidden, and some pasts can never stay buried.

Two people have been targeted. Shots have been fired. Who stands to inherit? Who has the most to lose? Evangeline "Evie" Parker, Countess of Woodridge, thinks it's nothing but an accident but then an attempt is made on her host's life. Suddenly, all the guests attending the Duke of Hetherington's house party think they are being targeted. Who will be next? Evie and her new chauffeur form an unlikely alliance to discover as much as they can before the killer can get it right.

Lanning “Lanny” Budd spends his first 13 years in Europe, living at the center of his mother’s glamourous circle of friends on the French Riviera. In 1913, he enters a prestigious Swiss boarding school and befriends Rick, an English boy, and Kurt, a German. The three schoolmates are privileged, happy, and precocious - but their world is about to come to an abrupt and violent end. When the gathering storm clouds of war finally burst, raining chaos and death over the continent, Lanny must put the innocence of youth behind him.

London, 1782. The sole survivor of an ill-fated expedition to Jamaica has gone missing upon his return home. Dr. Thomas Silkstone had been entrusted to catalog all the New World specimens and therefore feels compelled to investigate the disappearance. Meanwhile, a rumor circulates that a potion with the power to raise the dead is afoot, and the formula is thought to be in the missing botanist's journal.

London, 1850: A young Charles Lenox struggles to make a name for himself as a detective...without a single case. Scotland Yard refuses to take him seriously and his friends deride him for attempting a profession at all. But when an anonymous writer sends a letter to the paper claiming to have committed the perfect crime - and promising to kill again - Lenox is convinced that this is his chance to prove himself. The writer's first victim is a young woman whose body is found in a naval trunk, caught up in the rushes of a small islets in the middle of the Thames.

Late on a spring night in 1920, five boys cross the Yorkshire dales to the ruins of Fountains Abbey, intent on raising the Devil. Instead, they stumble over the Devil himself, sitting there watching them. Terrified, they run for their lives, leaving behind a book on alchemy stolen from their schoolmaster. The next morning, a body is discovered in the cloisters of the abbey--a man swathed in a hooded cloak and wearing a gas mask.

Bombay, 1921: Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father's law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a law degree from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women's legal rights. Mistry Law has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen is going through the paperwork, she notices something strange.

A wagon train winding through the remote reaches of the Rocky Mountain high country can attract plenty of scavengers - some of them human - like Vic Bedell and his gang of cutthroats. All he wants is the women, who can be traded for gold mine supplies...or used for whatever else he has in mind. But he didn't count on Preacher leading that train.

When Evie Parker, Countess of Woodridge, decides to spend a day in London unaccompanied she has no idea she will encounter the one person she has hoped to spend the rest of her life avoiding. There's no escaping Isabel Fitzpatrick's exuberant energy and desire to show off her new husband. However, the encounter sets off a series of events and brings trouble right to Evie's doorstep.