Victorian English Mystery

Following a humiliating fourth season in London, Lady Elizabeth Fraser is on her way back to her ancestral country estate when her train careens off the rails and bursts into flames. Though she is injured, she manages to drag herself and her unconscious mother out of the wreckage, and amid the chaos that ensues, a brilliant young railway surgeon saves her mother's life. Elizabeth feels an immediate connection with Paul Wilcox - though society would never deem a medical man eligible for the daughter of an earl.

Orlando Edison is a stockbroker using London's infatuation with foreign mining ventures to make a fortune. He has curried favor with the nation's most respected aristocrats, even inviting three influential investors - known as the Merry Gentlemen - to be part of his latest enterprise. Edison is welcomed in the highest circles and moves with ease among the rich and powerful. But a few days before Christmas, he is found murdered.

Bath, England, 1890. Mystery author Lady Amy Lovell receives an anonymous letter containing shocking news: her fiancé, Mr. Ronald St. Vincent, has been dabbling in something illegal, which causes her to promptly break their engagement. Two evenings later, as Lady Amy awaits a visit from Lord William Wethington, fellow member of the Bath Mystery Book Club, her former fiancé makes an unexpected and most unwelcome appearance at her house.

A glittering French aristocrat is on the run, disguised as a British governess. England's top spy has a score to settle with her family. But as they're drawn inexorably into the intrigue and madness of Revolutionary Paris, they gamble on a love to which neither of them will admit.

Ghostly images appear and float across the stage, objects levitate into the air, and a beautiful assistant disappears inside a glass box, then reappears inside a second glass box. All while the audience at the Crystal Palace, including amateur investigator Mikaela Forsythe, watch the performance. Is it real? Then, an evening with her friend, Theodora Templeton, attending the one-night performance by master illusionist Jean Luc Betard, takes a ghastly turn and plunges Mikaela headlong into murder when the illusionist's young assistant is found dead at the end of his newest stunt.

London 1885. Something's not right at Shoreditch Workhouse and reporter Penny Green is struggling to convince someone to listen. After spending time there undercover, she knows that more can be done for the deserving poor beneath its roof. But does anyone else care? When two workhouse inmates die in a fight, the police and the coroner accept the simplest explanation. Penny undertakes her own investigation with Inspector James Blakely's help and it's not long before they make themselves unpopular.

London, 1893: High up in a house on a dark, snowy night, a lone seamstress stands by a window. So begins the swirling, serpentine world of Paraic O'Donnell's Victorian-inspired mystery, the story of a city cloaked in shadow but burning with questions: Why does the seamstress choose to jump out of that window? Why is there a cryptic message sewn into her skin? And how is she connected to a rash of missing girls, all of whom seem to have disappeared under similar circumstances?

The past reaches out to the unlikely investigative team of Angus Brodie and Mikaela Forsythe when a man she was once engaged to marry seeks her assistance to find his young runaway son. However, a simple case of following the clues left behind becomes far more as the search unravels her former fiancé’s secrets. Mikaela is determined to find the answers.

An artist's model never shows up at Neville Grant's house...or so he claims. But when one of Mr. Grant's houseguests suddenly dies, the Inspector and Mrs. Jeffries have to work double-time to find both the missing model and the killer!

Gareth Fitzallen is celebrated for four things: his handsome face, his notable charm, his aristocratic connections, and an ability to give the kind of pleasure that has women begging for more. Normally he bestows his talents on experienced, worldly women. But when he heads to Langdon's End to restore a property he inherited - and to investigate a massive art theft - he lays plans to seduce a most unlikely lady.

Ten years ago, Thomas Paxton was sent by Revolutionary France to infiltrate the British Intelligence Service. Now his sense of honor brings him back to London to confess. But instead of facing the gallows, he is given one last impossible assignment to prove his loyalty. Lovely, lying former French spy Camille Leyland is dragged from obscurity by threats and blackmail.

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.

Celia Renton, a poor relation, is summoned to Sorrowmoor, a gloomy estate owned by her cousin, Connall Rothwell. But all is not well at the house. A mysterious death of the master's brother, a master with demons, and a deadly enemy await Celia. Even as her heart is torn with mistrust of the master of the house, danger lurks behind handmade dolls and treacherous smiles. Will Celia live to learn the secrets of Sorrowmoor?

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.

Mr. James Harding was a lot of things - businessman, well-to-do, probable scoundrel - but a drinker he most assuredly was not. So when Harding is believed to have drunkenly fallen to his death into the icy River Avon, Lord William Wethington is immediately suspicious. Finding Lord William's name on a letter in the victim's pocket, the local constabulary summons William to identify the victim. Police detectives learn that William had been one of Harding's business clients - and undoubtedly not the only client the dead man had cheated.

Minerva Kenny is a dear woman, but her tendency to "borrow" things without asking has finally caught up with her. William Barrett has learned Minerva's shameful secret, and he's holding it over her head. Mrs. Jeffries and the staff at Upper Edmonton Gardens have hatched a scheme to save her - but when they try to recover the damning evidence from Barrett, they discover something more shocking: Barrett's corpse. Considering the victim's wicked ways, Minerva is far from the only suspect.

London, 1852. Genevieve Timmons has made her living posing as a spiritualist to swindle wealthy believers, until one misstep lands her in a jail cell awaiting the noose. Then a stranger, Mr. Lockhart, arrives to make her a peculiar offer. The lord he serves, Mr. Pemberton, has been grieving the mysterious death of his beautiful bride-to-be for six months. Although no foul play was ever uncovered, the young lord is convinced that she was murdered.

This novel has been in the works since its beginning in 2005 when a century and half old colonial style home was restored by the author and his wife, Barbara. For over twelve months, the house did an amazing transformation, the third time since its original construction in 1845. The first time it was restored was 1861. The second time in 1932 and the last time in 2005.

Hannah Cameron was not well-liked, but who stabbed her in the back? To almost everyone, the answer was clear: she was killed by a burglar. This case is given to Inspector Nivens, so Mrs. Jeffries and the rest of the household must tiptoe around this case to find the real killer.

Mirabelle Daws traveled all the way from Australia to Sheridan Square to visit her sister - only to die in the middle of a locked garden. All the residents of Sheridan Square have a key to the garden - but no one seemed to know that Mirabelle was planning to arrive. So the question facing Mrs. Jeffries is: Who wanted to make sure that Mirabelle's visit was very, very short-lived?