Historical Womens Mystery

In this compelling Gaslight Mystery by Edgar Award-nominated author Victoria Thompson, a lady of means helps midwife Sarah Brandt rescue a young woman and her newborn from a brothel. But when the wealthy benefactor is found murdered, Sarah uncovers some unpleasant truths about the victim, her charity, and the woman and child Sarah risked her own life to save.

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.

In 1959, Hollywood ingenue Mercy Welles seems to have the world at her feet. Far removed from her Nebraska roots, she has crafted herself into a glamorous Oscar-nominated actress engaged to an up-and-coming director… Until she shockingly vanishes without a trace, just as her career is taking off. Almost sixty years later, Kit O’Neill, a junior television producer in Manhattan, is packing up her recently deceased grandmother’s attic, only to discover a long-lost box of souvenirs that reveal that the grandmother who raised her and her sister was, in fact, the mysterious Mercy Welles.

During World War II, a family finds life turned upside-down when the government opens a Japanese internment camp in their small Colorado town. After a young girl is murdered, all eyes turn on the newcomers. Rennie has just turned thirteen and until this time, life has pretty much been predictable and fair. But the winds of change are coming, and with them, a shift in her perspective and a discovery of secrets that can destroy even the most sacred things. Part thriller, part historical novel, Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas is a riveting exploration of the darkest—and best—parts of the human heart.

London, December 1943. As the Russian army repels German forces from Stalingrad, Maggie Hope takes a much-needed break from spying to defuse bombs in London. But Maggie herself is an explosion waiting to happen. Traumatized by her past, she finds herself living dangerously - taking huge risks, smoking, drinking, and speeding through the city streets on a motorbike. The last thing she wants is to get entangled in another crime.

Manhattan, 1850. Born out of wedlock to a wealthy socialite and a nameless immigrant, Cora Lee can mingle with the rich just as easily as she can slip unnoticed into the slums and graveyards of the city. As the only female resurrectionist in New York, she’s carved out a niche procuring bodies afflicted with the strangest of anomalies. Anatomists will pay exorbitant sums for such specimens—dissecting and displaying them for the eager public. Cora’s specialty is not only profitable, it’s a means to keep a finger on the pulse of those searching for her. She’s the girl born with two hearts....

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. When the general office manager of Sutcliffe Manufacturing is murdered, no one is really surprised. Ronald Dearman was anything but a dear man. The tyrannical bully had more than enough enemies to go around.

What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known that the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured commonplace book. Brought from England on Eleanor’s fateful voyage to the New World, her book was passed down through the fifteen generations of daughters who followed as they came of age.

It is 1936. Undercook Joan Hart and lady's maid Verity Hunter are back in London after a long stay in the country. The capital is fraught and unsettled. Protests and riots are taking place regularly, fascism is on the rise and trouble in Europe is brewing, but the girls are still thrilled to be back in the Big Smoke, ready for some fun and frivolity. That is, until an old friend of Verity's contacts the servant sleuths, asking for help.

Southland brings us a fascinating story of race, love, murder, and history, against the backdrop of an ever-changing Los Angeles. A young Japanese-American woman, Jackie Ishida, is in her last semester of law school when her grandfather, Frank Sakai, dies unexpectedly. While trying to fulfill a request from his will, Jackie discovers that four African-American boys were killed in the store Frank owned during the Watts Riots of 1965. Along with James Lanier, a cousin of one of the victims, Jackie tries to piece together the story of the boys' deaths.

Arlette Montrose Banfield angered many marriageable women when she snagged the handsome Lewis Banfield - but were they angry enough to poison her? Mrs. Jeffries doesn't mind getting her hands dirty to uncover the greed behind her murder.

Within just a couple of days, detective Leo Schultz’s life unravels. His son Rick is kidnapped and horrifically murdered. The very next day, Schultz’s car runs over a little girl, and he is identified by witnesses as the driver. Only his partner, PJ Gray, believes in his innocence. For city officials, this is not the end of it, as key members of the law and order systems are successively taken down.

1925. LONDON. When Alice Diamond, a.k.a. “Diamond Annie,” is elected the queen of the Forty Elephants, she’s determined to take the all-girl gang to new heights. She’s ambitious, tough as nails, and a brilliant mastermind with a plan to create a dynasty the likes of which no one has ever seen. Alice demands absolute loyalty from her “family”—it’s how she's always kept the cops in line. Too bad she’s now the target for one of Britain’s first policewomen.

1792, England: Lord Francis and Lady Ottilia Fanshawe are on their way home when their coach comes to a sudden stop. A woman is standing in the middle of the road - covered in blood. The woman refuses to speak but on further investigation they find the body of a man hidden in the woods. Ottilia insists on bringing the woman home to find out what occurred. But the more she finds out the more complicated the case becomes....

Melbourne, Australia, 1929. The year starts off for glamorous private investigator Phryne Fisher with a rather trying heat wave and more mysteries than you could prod a parasol at. Simultaneously investigating the apparent suicide death of a man on St Kilda beach and trying to find a lost, illegimate child who could be heir to a wealthy old woman's fortune, Phryne needs all her wits about her, particularly when she has to tangle with a group of thoroughly unpleasant Bright Young Things.

Catherine Lloyd presents Book 2 in the Miss Morton Mysteries series.

For almost 50 years, Katie Carroll has kept a box tucked away inside her wardrobe. It dates from her time working as a nurse in a west of Ireland mother and baby home in the 1960s. The box contains a notebook holding the details of the babies and young women she met there. It also holds many of the babies' identity bracelets. Following the death of her husband, Katie makes a decision. The information she possesses could help reunite adopted people with their birth mothers, and she decides to post a message on an internet forum.

Thirty-year-old society matron Lola Woodby has survived her loveless marriage with an unholy mixture of highballs, detective novels, and chocolate layer cake until her husband dies suddenly, leaving her his fortune, or so Lola thinks. As it turns out, all she inherits from Alfie is a big pile of debt. Pretty soon Lola and her stalwart Swedish cook, Berta, are reduced to hiding out in the secret love nest Alfie kept in New York City.

Revered mystery writer Josephine Tey is traveling from Scotland to London for the final week of her play Richard of Bordeaux, the surprise hit of the season, with pacifist themes that resonate in a world still haunted by war. But joy turns to horror when her arrival coincides with the murder of a young woman she had befriended on the train ride - and Tey is plunged into a mystery as puzzling as any in her own works.

Perhaps the best place in 1943 Hollywood to see the stars is the Hollywood Canteen, a club for servicemen staffed exclusively by those in show business. Murder mystery playwright Annie Laurence, new in town after a devastating breakup, definitely hopes to rub elbows with the right stars. Maybe then she can get her movie made. But Hollywood proves to be more than tinsel and glamour. When despised film critic Fiona Farris is found dead in the Canteen kitchen, Annie realizes any one of the Canteen's luminous volunteers could be guilty of the crime.