Victorian Thriller

Kate Ardleigh is everything the Victorian English gentlewoman is not - outspoken, free-thinking, American...and a writer of the frowned upon penny dreadfuls. Soon after her arrival in Essex, England, a body is unearthed in a nearby archeological dig - and Kate has the chance to not only research her latest story but to begin her first case with amateur detective Sir Charles Sheridan.

Oxford student Jillian Leigh works day and night to keep up with her studies—so to leave at the beginning of the term is next to impossible. But after her uncle Toby, a renowned ghost hunter, is killed in a fall off a cliff, she must drive to the seaside village of Rothewell to pack up his belongings. Almost immediately, unsettling incidents—a book left in a cold stove, a gate swinging open on its own—escalate into terrifying events that convince Jillian an angry spirit is trying to enter the house.

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!

Coronation Day, 1902. Charles and Kate Sheridan are pleased to be witness to the crowning of their king. Expatriate author Jack London is also watching the festivities—but with a more skeptical eye. He has come to London to write an exposé of the East End slums—and the coronation has not tempered his disdain for the monarchy. This special day takes a sinister turn when an anarchist accidentally blows himself up with a bomb meant for the king.

November 1866: The grisly murder site in London's East End is thronged with onlookers. None of them expect the calmly efficient young woman among them to be a medical doctor, arrived to examine the corpse. Inspector Richard Tennant, overseeing the investigation, at first makes no effort to disguise his skepticism. But Dr. Julia Lewis is accustomed to such condescension . . .

Jack the Ripper begins his reign of terror. Miss Sarah Bain, a photographer, supplements her meager income by taking illicit boudoir photographs of the town's local ladies of the night. But when two of her models are found gruesomely murdered within weeks of one another, Sarah begins to suspect it's more than mere coincidence.

With her darkest nightmare come true and an assassin following her every step, Anna Kronberg must hurry to find the true motivation behind Moriarty's plan to use disease as a weapon. Bit by bit, she and Sherlock Holmes unravel a spider web of crime, espionage, and bioterrorism that spreads across continents.

When wealthy banker Sir Gerald Mariner posts a handsome reward for finding his missing infant, all of London joins in, hoping to win that money for themselves. Usually discouraged by a saturated market, photographer and private detective Sarah Bain is instead curiously allured as she realizes the case hits much closer to home than she first thought.

On a quest to distract her lifelong friend Jeremy from his recent heartbreak, Lady Emily organizes a holiday in Greece. As a lover of all things Greek, she quickly finds herself occupied with tours of ancient ruins, lively debates with Margaret, a devoted Latinist, and slightly more scandalous endeavors with her dashing husband, Colin Hargreaves. But the pleasantries are brought to an abrupt halt when a man long believed dead greets the party at their island villa. Lord Philip Ashton, Colin's childhood best friend and Emily's first husband, has returned.

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.

A stranger who appears on Kat's doorstep turns out to be one Charlotte Bristow, legal wife of Joe Bristow, the man Kat once believed herself married to—who she thought died at sea twelve years ago. Kat is jolted by Charlotte’s claims that Joe was not only murdered but that he also had amassed a small fortune before he died. Charlotte makes the cook an offer she cannot refuse—if Kat can discover the identity of Joe's murderer, Charlotte will give her a share of the fortune Joe left behind. Kat must race to catch the real killer before she loses her job and possibly her life.

After an odd encounter at a grand masquerade ball, Lady Emily becomes embroiled in the murder investigation of one of the guests, a sometime actress trying to pass herself off as the mysterious heiress and world traveler Estella Lamar. Each small discovery, however, leads to more questions. Was the intended victim Miss Lamar or the imposter? And who would want either of them dead?

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.

Inspector Witherspoon has been assigned another tough case. The latest murder victim has possibly swindled his shareholders out of a huge sum of money. When the businessman is found with a bullet through is chest, all of them are suspects - but no one is telling the truth. It is up to Mrs. Jeffries and the household staff at Upper Edmonton Gardens to crack the case.

It’s 1876, and Charles Lenox has just given up his seat in Parliament after six years, primed to return to his first love, detection. With high hopes he and three colleagues start a new detective agency, the first of its kind. But as the months pass, and he is the only detective who cannot find work, Lenox begins to question whether he can still play the game as he once did.Then comes a chance to redeem himself, though at a terrible price: a friend, a member of Scotland Yard, is shot near Regent’s Park.

With London's streets deserted, a young flower girl is murdered. But why was she out so late on the foggiest night of the year? Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard has nowhere to even begin looking for a suspect. However, Mrs. Jeffries, his housekeeper, is even more accomplished at detection than she is at household management. A policeman's widow herself, her quick wits allow her to nudge the inspector in the right direction to solve the mystery.

London, June 1860: When an assassination attempt is made on Queen Victoria, and a petty thief is gruesomely murdered moments later - and only a block away - Chief Detective Inspector Charles Field quickly surmises that these crimes are connected to an even more sinister plot. Was Victoria really the assassin's target? Are those closest to the Crown hiding something? Soon, Field's investigation exposes a shocking conspiracy in which the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species sets off a string of murders, arson, kidnapping, and the pursuit of a diabolical madman.

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.

Lord William has finally gained his desire to move his family from Bath to his country estate, Wethington Manor, west of Reading, not too far from either Bath or London. Lady Amy is a happy, contented mother to their son, and has taken up her writing once again. Their family members are close by, and all is well. Well, maybe not. The new village vicar is charming, polite, and serves inspiring sermons. The villagers adore him, and many young women have their eye on the handsome cleric. However, it appears someone doesn’t love him….

Straddling the worlds of the ton and the working class, as an ex-solider turned railroad magnate, Zach hunts killers for the Metropolitan Police by day and dutifully attends balls at night. In neither world has he met a woman with the brazenness to mock him. So when a saucy governess blows him a kiss he is determined to catch her, never expecting that when he does he will find an intelligent, quirky woman hiding more than her true name. As Zach peels back the layers of Emily’s lies, he falls for the street-wise woman who handles a dagger like a pro and kisses like a mistress.