Victorian English Mystery

November 1853. Inspector Field has summoned his friends Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins to examine a body found in an attic studio, its throat cut. Around the body lie the lacerated fragments of canvas of a painting titled A Winter of Despair. Wilkie realises he recognises the victim, for he had been due to dine with him that very evening. The dead man is Edwin Milton-Hayes, one of Wilkie's brother Charley's artist friends. With his own brother under suspicion of murder, what secrets lie among the close-knit group of Pre-Raphaelite painters who is the killer in their midst?

Against a backdrop of activism and anarchy amongst those living in the squalor of Victorian London’s East End, Johnny’s cooperative is thriving. His main concern is for his 15-year-old son, Noah, who is showing signs of having inherited the family affliction. Noah is seeing beyond the surface world, and Johnny is anxious to prevent him from setting his eyes on evil. Meanwhile, William attempts to adapt to his new life in England and understand the deep mysteries of his family history. Mary is also hunting, but not for knowledge.

London, 1890. Mina Murray once lived an adventurous life, but after a tragedy in the forests of Transylvania, she left it all behind. Now she has settled into a quiet routine as a schoolteacher in London, engaged to the respectable solicitor Jonathan Harker, attempting to fit into the stuffy upper class London society to which he belongs. But when vampires abduct Jonathan, her dark past comes careening into her present.

When her soulmate, Jonathan August-Trelawney jilts her at the altar, Lily Pond is determined to live life on her own terms. Her friends aren’t afraid of giving their opinions, encouraging her to find someone else to marry, and swiftly. Lily has other ideas.

Raven looks out over the small town of Cogsworth and imagines a life beyond her grandmother's mansion. But Raven holds a dark secret that prevents her from leaving. Now an orphan, Raven must do her best to hide her gifts of sight if she's to survive the cruel Victorian society. However, when a ghost of a child comes to her for help, Raven finds herself in the gas-lit streets of London, on the trail of a female serial killer. As she tries to solve the string of murders, she realizes that the murders are almost identical to those from a case left unsolved years before she was born.

Private investigator Charles Maddox is surprised when he is approached by Edward Tulkinghorn for help. The feared and shadowy attorney offers Charles a handsome price he can't refuse to do some sleuthing for a client. Charles learns that Sir Julius Cremorne has been receiving threatening letters, and now Tulkinghorn wants him to find and stop whoever is responsible. But what starts as a simple open-and-shut case swiftly escalates into something bigger and much darker. As he cascades toward a collision with powerful forces, Charles will need all the assistance he can get…

Stetson has been fooling London for ten years while her fictitious alter-ego solves crimes. But could a criminal mastermind put her carefree days of sleuthing in jeopardy? Evelyn longs to be recognized for her talent; will her music prove to be the key in helping Stetson solve a mystery? While Jack the Ripper terrorizes London, Stetson closes in on the art thief she has been after for months; however, will catching him place her in an impossible position which threatens to expose her?

Isobel Amsel is wasting away in an asylum. Mad with boredom, she recklessly risks her future wandering the countryside. When an excursion nearly turns deadly, Isobel fears one of her enemies is targeting her, but she quickly discovers something far more insidious. The lives of two boys are at stake, and she desperately wishes her partner were by her side.

"The good old days" aren't all they're cracked up to be...at least in Jeanne M. Dams's turn-of-the-century novels. Her woman on the spot, Hilda Johansson, a maid in the Studebaker household in South Bend, sees what's going on among the rich, suffers what's going on among the less fortunate...and has no trouble telling it like it is.

Olivia Sheldon has travelled across the world to marry a man she does not love. Reluctant to leave England but coerced into the marriage, Olivia's reward is being reunited with her estranged sister, Clara. Her punishment is falling impossibly and illicitly in love with the enigmatic Captain Edward Bertram. Then one scorching day Clara is abducted from Alexandria's busiest street. Desperate to find her sister - and the truth about her disappearance - Olivia becomes embroiled in Egypt's shadowy underworld, risking both her life and future with Edward.

Violet Veil is ready for her next big case, and with trouble afoot at the Grecian Theatre, Violet and her dog, Bones, are hot on the trail. But just who is the mysterious fortune-teller, Lady Athena, whose predictions keep coming true? Is it all just a case of smoke and mirrors? Or is there something more sinister going on?

Gideon Waverley, heir to the Duke of Townsend, had everything a young man could need, a promising future, a title, charming good looks, great friends, and a family who adored him. Until his body turned him into a monster. He had no choice but to separate himself from the world, to hide his monstrous self from society, to cast away his future. But the brilliant and beautiful Eve Cornwell refused to believe he could not be saved, even as she refused to guard her heart.

Ghost stories date back centuries, but those written in the Victorian era have a unique atmosphere and dark beauty. Michael Sims, whose previous Victorian collections Dracula’s Guest (vampires) and The Dead Witness (detectives) have been widely praised, has gathered twelve of the best stories about humanity’s oldest supernatural obsession. The Phantom Coach includes tales by a surprising and often legendary cast, including Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as lost gems by forgotten masters such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and W. F. Harvey. Amelia B. Edwards’s chilling story gives the collection its title, while Ambrose Bierce ("The Moonlit Road"), Elizabeth Gaskell ("The Old Nurse’s Story"), and W. W. Jacobs ("The Monkey’s Paw") will turn you white as a sheet. With a skillful introduction to the genre and notes on each story by Sims, The Phantom Coach is a spectacular collection of ghostly Victorian thrills.

Clara grew up believing that her mother's family had disowned them. But the grandmother Clara never knew is now entreating her to visit Thurnley Hall, the family seat in Yorkshire. The old lady is on her deathbed and anxious to disclose vital family secrets before it's too late - for Clara's unborn child may be cursed with a horrible fate.

England, 1925. Louisa Drew lost her husband in the First World War and her six-year-old twin sons in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Newly remarried to a war-traumatised husband and seven months pregnant, Louisa is asked by her employer to travel to Clewer Hall in Sussex where she is to photograph the contents of the house for auction. She learns Clewer Hall was host to an infamous séance in 1896, and that the lady of the house has asked those who gathered back then to come together once more to re-create the evening.

Alternate France, 1871. Art historian Veronica Devine dreams of putting her husband's betrayal behind her. So she's grateful for the somewhat distracting mission to transport a valuable collection from a French chateau across the Atlantic. But before her voyage even begins, she's attacked by thieves and saved by a mysterious stranger. Luc, the Marquis de Monceau's, fate is bound to an enchanted ancestral painting. So when the beautiful woman he saves insists she has permission to remove his portraits, he has no choice but to escort her aboard a luxury airship.

This gripping historical crime fiction novel, based on fact, is set in Bradford, England, 1888. It explores the horrific murder of Johnny Gill; a murder and mutilation so gruesome, it stuns a nation. Even hardened detectives are affected by its savagery, swiftly comparing it to the work of Jack the Ripper.

This short story in the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series features one of the most beloved characters in the series, as well as giving the listener a tour of the boardinghouse itself. Chronologically, this story come soon after the events in Scholarly Pursuits, so if you don't like spoilers, you might want to wait to listen to it until you have finished that book.

It’s January 1881, and while the grownups in Annie and Nate Dawson’s San Francisco O’Farrell Street boardinghouse are busy with their own affairs, two boys and a dog find their own adventure. Ian Hennessey, a poor boy from South of Market, who is trying to shoulder a man’s responsibilities, gets in trouble, and his best friend, Jamie Hewitt, does what he can to help. But it is Jamie’s young Boston Terrier, Dandy, who saves the day.

A country house retreat with friends like Benjamin Maker should be exactly the relaxation Amethyst Forester needs. But this country house comes with unbearable snobbery and a missing person. Needing support, Amethyst calls Inspector Jenson to come and investigate. As jealousies and hatred threaten both Maker and Amethyst, Jenson becomes their greatest ally. Amethyst’s inventions are increasing her fortunes, both good and bad, making her a target. Already off-kilter after an unexpected proposal, Amethyst finds something she believed lost forever.