Victorian Suspense

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.

After the mysterious death of her father, Miss Gillian Young takes a new job as the principal costume designer at the renowned Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. But while she remembers her father as a kind, well-respected man of the Police Force, clues she uncovers indicate he'd been living a double life: a haunting photograph of a young woman, train stubs for secret trips just before his death, and a receipt for a large sum of money. Are these items evidence of her father's guilty secrets? His longtime police partner thinks so.

A book of passion, of 16th century England, of greed and political ambition unto death. Historians and novelists have written extensively about the various aspects of Queen Elizabeth I’s long, rich, and tumultuous life. No one has ever given us a fully realized portrait of the greatest English monarch as a young girl. Concluding her brilliant Tudor trilogy, Robin Maxwell enters this new territory by introducing Elizabeth as a romantic and vulnerable teenager dangerously awakening to sexuality with the wrong man.

Charlotte Brontë is plunged into a perilous adventure and a passionate romance that leads her from the peaceful Yorkshire moors to the crime-infested streets of London, across the sea to the Continent, to the ports of Cornwall, the wilds of Scotland, and the palaces of Queen Victoria herself. Will Charlotte be able to stop a devious invisible villain whose schemes threaten her life, her family, and her country?

Pioneering undercover journalist Nellie Bly is rightly famous for exposing society's ills. From brutal insane asylums to corrupt politicians, she used the pages of the New York World to bring down all manner of frauds, cheats, and charlatans.

London, 1890. In Victorian London, reporter Jennie Quinn employs deception as a weapon. Going undercover to seek justice for a murdered informant, she's drawn into a powerful criminal's seductive game of cat and mouse. Enigmatic former lawman Matthew Colton is as dangerous as he is clever, but the passion in his kiss is too tempting to resist. She aches to trust him, but she will not abandon her quest for the truth. Colton is a man with secrets of his own. Thirsting for vengeance, the disgraced Scotland Yard detective has infiltrated the criminal world he's vowed to destroy.

Ten years ago, Penelope Paiget promised she’d wait for Samuel Black. But she was only a genteel, impoverished paid companion, forced into service after her father’s death revealed his insurmountable debts. Now she’s a successful novelist, posing as secretary to the Earl of Wickshire to hide her identity. Ten years ago, Samuel Black chose his own path instead of upholding his family’s legacy as spies. But having fought for the formation of the Metropolitan Police Force, echoes of his past and his true origins remind him how unworthy he is to call himself detective inspector.

Clayton Barbour, the narrator, is a protected bourgeois son just weak enough to allow himself to be overwhelmed by a sly, dissembling force of evil, just strong enough to be constantly tormented by his weakness. Invited to a séance by a casual acquaintance, Moore, who sees in him a psychic force, he becomes the inadvertent victim of Moore's wife's contact with a channeled malignant force.

Florida, 1884. It's a new year and Cassie Gwynne is determined to be done with the unseemly business of murder. Unfortunately, fate has other plans . . . The very next day, she happens upon the body of a newcomer to town—customs collector Chester Pence—floating beneath the boardwalk. Never one to shy away from a puzzle, Cassie can't resist getting involved in the investigation. It's no secret that Chester made a number of enemies in his short time in Fernandina: confiscating a beleaguered bride's wedding dress and a bossy businessman's cigars among many other mean acts.

Miss Lane is puzzled by Jasper Jesperson's interest in what seems a very minor theft - possibly even a prank - from the storerooms at the British Museum. But London in the 1890s is rife with secret organisations, cults and individuals eager to acquire some of the legendary magic of ancient Egypt. The deeper the two detectives dig, the more hidden crimes they uncover, and the higher the death toll mounts. And at the centre of it all is the 'Mystery Mummy' recently acquired by the museum. Are the deaths and madness truly caused by a mummy's curse? Or is there a living villain to be apprehended?

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…

Nobody comes to a brothel seeking a true story. But you will want to learn the truth about Aimée Bonnard, the best-paid woman in Galveston. Formerly known as Yvonne LaCroix, Aimée arrives on the Island in the summer of 1898. She’s looking for work in a high-end brothel, but she is also outrunning the consequences of a deadly night in New Orleans–a night in which a rival prostitute lost her life. Mistress of deception, Aimée charms and entices her way into an existence of extravagance and adventure in one of the most exclusive brothels of Galveston.

London is in flux. The clop of the hansom cab has given way to the madness of the motorcar. And Sherlock Holmes, safe in the bee-loud glades of the Sussex downs, is lured back to London when a problem is posed to him by Dr. Watson and Watson's friend, Col. Higgins. Is the transformation of Eliza Doolittle from girl of the streets to duchess more than it seems? Is it really the work of Henry Higgins's phonetics lessons, or has another girl been substituted for her, and why? Has the original girl been murdered? Even Eliza's father can't say for sure.

Jane Black is plain and smart, a combination sure to kill any prospects found in a London season. Pretending her wallflower status is of no concern, Jane focuses on the quiet country life she’s planned even as she struggles with the vow she made to her grandfather to protect the family. But when she discovers her grandfather’s friend, Dr. Seymour, carries with him the secret to unmasking the traitor behind the attacks on the Black family, Jane knows it’s her duty to rescue the doctor from Bedlam and carry him to safety. If only the Marquess of Evanshire will allow her to do so.

Third son of the king of Cardenas, Prince Damien Rothchester is known for his drinking, gambling, and whoring. Knowing he will never inherit the throne, he goes about life feeling purposeless. But when he steps into a glittering ballroom on the night of his twenty-fifth birthday, the roguish young prince’s life will be forever changed.

Grace and Seamus, united by their past experiences, are adrift on a raft of shame in the sea of 1830s London society. After a personal tragedy, Grace's desperation to leave London forces Seamus to accept a dubious commission on the private explorer, Clover. With the expedition financed by Colonel Hamilton and his private backers, Seamus is tasked with mapping a round-the-world voyage. But Colonel Hamilton has an additional package that requires delivering - Father Babcock, a priest wanted for murder.

Pride and Prejudice is a romantic novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story charts the emotional development of the protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet, who learns the error of making hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between the superficial and the essential. The comedy of the writing lies in the depiction of manners, education, marriage, and money during the British Regency period.

When Victorian shipping tycoon Jem Brigg is killed in a robbery, his family and the business world are shocked to discover the actual owner of the company is a woman, and a young one at that. Eleanora Pembroke’s first action as owner is to hire the handsome and capable Eliot Sparks as the face of the company. Her status as the premier heiress of London motivates a host of suitors interested only in her shipping company. To end the constant barrage of suitors, Eleanora proposes a fake engagement with her debonair new manager, but Eliot has other ideas.

Someone, somewhere, had been strangled. Psychic Jenny Watkins' second vision comes through the eyes of the victim. While she doesn't know when or where the strangulation took place, she does get a good look at the killer. With little else to go on besides an image in her mind, Jenny races to put a name to the face before he strikes again.