Historical Womens Mystery

New York City, 1899. When it comes to show business, Gilded Age opera singer Ella Shane wears the pants. The unconventional diva breaks the mold by assuming "trouser roles"-male characters played by women - and captivating audiences far and wide with her travelling theater company. But Ella's flair for the dramatic takes a terrifying turn when an overacting Juliet to her Romeo drinks real poison during the final act of Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi.

Lady Rose Summer, the wayward Edwardian debutante who keeps getting mixed up in disreputable adventures, would swear she is not a jealous woman. After all, she knows her engagement to private detective Captain Harry Cathcart is only a ploy to keep her parents from shipping her off to India. But then Harry's latest client, Dolores Duval--a vision of curves with a seductive French accent--starts appearing everywhere at his side.

The options for the penniless daughter of a deceased earl are few indeed in Regency England. So, following the suspicious death of her father and the discovery that she and her much younger sister have been left without income or home, Lady Caroline takes a post as a lady's companion to the wealthy widow Frogerton. Just as Caroline is getting accustomed to her new position, her aunt, Lady Eleanor Greenwood, invites her and her employer to a house party in the countryside to celebrate her youngest daughter's birthday. But all is not well at the Greenwood estate.

New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King garners widespread acclaim for her suspenseful novels rich with historical detail. Set in the vibrant Paris Jazz Age, The Bones of Paris introduces private investigator Harris Stuyvesant, an American agent who’s been given the plum assignment of locating beautiful young model Philippa Crosby. But when Philippa’s trail ends at the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in Montmartre, Stuyvesant discovers a world where art meets sexual depravity - and where a savage killer lurks in the shadows.

Spirited debutante Lady Olivia McLeod, cherished daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Strathaven, has two interests: solving mysteries and winning the love of her rescuer and secret crush, the infamous Duke of Hadleigh. When Livy joins Lady Charlotte Fayne's charity for young ladies and discovers that it is a front for a covert investigative agency, she is thrilled. Livy dedicates herself to solving a deadly case. Little does she realize that the path to danger will also lead to her heart's deepest desire.

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.

After Sir Robert's injury from the battle of Waterloo begins troubling him again, his wife Lucy insists they relocate from the village of Kurland St. Mary to Bath, along with her sister Anna, so that Robert can take the waters and recover. At the Roman baths, Robert befriends an elderly and pugnacious businessman, Sir William Benson, ennobled by the Crown for his service to industry. Their acquaintance is short-lived, however, when the man is found drowned in the baths. Robert vows to find his killer, with Lucy's aid.

During the height of the Great War, playboy Prince Harry, the third in line to the British throne, vanishes in thin air while horseback riding in Hyde Park The strikingly handsome playboy prince is initially believed to have arranged his disappearance so he can enjoy a brief rendezvous with one of his secret lovers. But when his absence continues on for days, the royal family grows concerned and summons Scotland Yard, who can only recover scant, unrevealing clues.

March 1920: Life has turned unsettlingly quiet for former British Intelligence agent Verity Kent and her husband, Sidney. But even that false calm is about to end. As threats remain, the French authorities soon request Sidney's help with a suspect who claims to have proof of treason—shortly before she is assassinated. The murder of a Belgian lawyer aboard a train seems at first to be a simple case of revenge. But the victim was connected to British Intelligence, and possessed papers detailing the sinking of a gold-laden German ship during the war.

When a fellow passenger is found dead on Audrey's packet ship from France, a mysterious note on the body points to her as the killer. Detained in Dover for an inquest that is being led by a prejudiced magistrate, she is joined by trusted friends and family—and the newly minted viscount, Hugh Marsden—to prove her innocence. But when it's discovered the murdered man was a private inquiry agent, hired to follow the duchess while she traveled the Continent, they enter a race to find out who hired him and why.

November, 1939. The British government has assembled a small group of intellectuals at an estate north of London as part of a top-secret codebreaking effort. Everything about it is clandestine. The facility is ringed with a veil of silence until one of the young female linguists is murdered. Britain's counterintelligence spymaster tasks Olivia Redmond with finding the killer and the motive. Olivia is sent in alone, without clues or suspects. Did the murder victim uncover a mole? Could Britain's program to break German enigma cyphers be compromised?

The new decade is going well for Edgar Stephens and his good friend the magician Max Mephisto. Edgar is happily married, with children, and promoted to Superintendent. Max has found fame and stardom in America, though he's now back in England for a funeral, and a prospective movie job. Edgar's new wife, though - former detective Emma - is restless and frustrated at home, knowing she was the best detective on the team. But when an investigation into a string of disappearing girls begins, Emma sees her chance to get back in the action. She begins her own hunt.

It’s 1968, London is in full swing, and the Savoy Hotel is at the height of its legendary glitz and glamour, welcoming the rich, famous, and aristocratic into its rarified world of perfection. Royals wait upstairs in luxurious suites for discreet encounters. All is as it should be at the Savoy. If only it weren’t for the dead body in Room 705. Could it be murder? Impossible! Who could have done such a thing? Suspicion falls upon Priscilla Tempest, the quick-witted Canadian head of the Savoy press office who has a penchant for champagne, the wrong sort of men—and trouble.

An extraordinary woman living in extraordinary times, Lady Frances Ffolkes is an Edwardian era suffragette who has an uncanny ability to attract danger and romance. When Major Colcombe, a family friend and war veteran, dies under mysterious circumstances, the good Lady discovers that he was working on a manuscript, about South Africa's bloody Boer War, that reportedly revealed a scandalous mistake that cost many innocent lives.

Train enthusiast Francis Humphreys took his last breath while relatives and neighbors visited downstairs. But if everyone was downstairs, who could have stolen into Uncle Francis's study, killed him, and escaped? Mrs. Jeffries will have to lend her downstairs common sense to this upstairs murder mystery.

1926 – Christie is a darling of the literary circuit and the most desired guest in London’s glittering social scene. She can often be found at meetings of the Detection Club – where mystery writers come together to share ideas, swap secrets and drink copiously. But then a fellow author's initiation ceremony takes a gruesome turn, and one of the group ends up dead. Now, Agatha is no longer just the creator of great mystery plots – she’s a player in one.

As the recently promoted assistant to the Tate's Modern Collections keeper Diana Gilden, Lily helps plan a world-class Picasso exhibit to honor the passing of the great artist--and she's waited her whole life for this moment. The opening is beyond anyone's expectations--the lighting, the champagne, the glittering crowd, and the international acclaim--until Lily does the unthinkable. She stops in front of a masterpiece and hears her own voice say, "It's a forgery." The gallery falls silent.

2019: Andie Figuero has just landed her dream job as a producer of Mansion Makeover, a popular reality show about restoring America’s most lavish historic houses. Andie has high hopes for her latest project: the once glorious but gently crumbling Sprague Hall in Newport, Rhode Island, summer resort of America’s gilded class—famous for the lavish “summer cottages” of Vanderbilts and Belmonts. But Andie runs into trouble: the reclusive heiress who still lives in the mansion, Lucia “Lucky” Sprague, will only allow the show to go forward on two conditions.

New York City, 1911. Edith Wharton, almost equally famed for her novels and her sharp tongue, is bone-tired of Manhattan. Finding herself at a crossroads with both her marriage and her writing, she makes the decision to leave America, her publisher, and her loveless marriage. And then, dashing novelist David Graham Phillips—a writer with often notorious ideas about society and women’s place in it—is shot to death outside the Princeton Club. Edith herself met the man only once, when the two formed a mutual distaste over tea in the Palm Court of the Belmont hotel.

NEW YORK CITY, 1947: Wealthy financier and ghoulish connoisseur of crime, Jessup Quincannon, is dead, and famed detective Lillian Pentecost is under arrest for his murder. Means, motive, and a mountain of evidence leave everyone believing she’s guilty. Everyone, that is, except Willowjean “Will” Parker, who knows for a fact her boss is innocent. She just doesn’t know if she can prove it.