Historical Detective

The unflappable ornamental blacksmith-turned-detective Meg Langslow returns in this latest bird mystery by award-winning author Donna Andrews. Aficionados of Murder with Peacocks and Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos will revel in Andrews's trademark dry humor, offbeat characters, and...

The bestselling author of the Alienist series returns with a chilling elaboration on the Sherlock Holmes canon, as the famed detective investigates a pair of gruesome murders, which cast an otherworldly shadow as far as Queen Victoria herself. It all begins familiarly enough: Sherlock Holmes and...

Scotland Yard’s Inspector Ian Rutledge brought the Great War home with him, and its horrors haunt him still. On New Year’s Eve 1919, he finds a brass cartridge casing, similar to countless others he’d seen on the battlefield, on the steps of a friend’s house. Soon there are more, purposely placed where he is sure to discover them. Unexpectedly drawn away from London to a small Northamptonshire village, he investigates the strange case of a local constable shot with a bow and arrow.

March 1889. Midnight. Six strangers meet for the first time outside the great door of Tewkesbury Abbey. They are searching for the tomb of the medieval crusader knight, Sir Roger de la Pole. What they find inside is unexpected and deeply shocking. They were seeking holy relics. But the body they uncover is barely cold. And Sir Roger’s ancient bones are missing. Detective Inspector Ravenscroft and Constable Tom Crabb are called on to solve the crime. They must decipher the strange coded letters on the outside of the Templar's tomb.

On a cold night in February, the popular Lighterman's ball festivities are cut short when a guest of honor, Stephen Bremmer, goes into spasms and abruptly collapses. Once again Inspector Witherspoon returns to the Wrexley Hotel to investigate a murder. The victim was considered a boorish snob who felt entitled to anything and anyone he wanted. Yet despite his Oxford education, he was barely literate, lazy, and prone to make stupid mistakes - his last mistake turned out to be crossing a killer.

Hank Fallon knows what it's like to rot behind bars. To wallow in the filth of a rat-infested cell. To smell the pent-up rage of cutthroat killers and thieves. Fallon earned his freedom the hard way. He saved the lives of four guards, got released early, and became a detective. Then he went undercover, infiltrated a prison gang plotting to bust out - and barely made it out alive. Now they're sending him back. Behind the iron. Straight to hell...

When a renowned theater director senses something amiss during his latest production, he calls Nero Wolfe. Though the corpulent genius wouldn’t normally accept a job this vague, a mutual friend dangles the prospect of a very rare orchid in exchange for his services, and Wolfe can’t resist. With a mind to suss out useful backstage gossip, Wolfe turns to his faithful assistant, Archie Goodwin, to impersonate a journalist in order to speak to the cast. Though Goodwin’s conversations prove unfruitful, on his last day at the theater, the director is murdered in his sound-proof booth.

In his sixteenth Matthew Scudder novel, New York Times bestselling author Lawrence Block takes the award-winning series to a new level of suspense A man in a Virginia prison awaits execution for three horrific murders he must have committed but swears he didn't . . . An aging investigator in...

In this absorbing new entry in the acclaimed New York Times bestselling series, Scotland Yard’s Ian Rutledge is caught up in a twisted web of vengeance and murder. On the north coast of Cornwall, an apparent act of mercy is repaid by an arrest for murder. Four young women have been accused of...

Annie Darling's yuletide preparations have been put on hold because her mother-in-law, Laurel, has taken to chatting up ghosts in the local graveyard. Across Broward's Rock, onetime movie star Marguerite Dumaney Ladson has called together all of her kin and their exes for a gala celebration...

In London, 1946, the Right Sort Marriage Bureau is getting on its feet and expanding. Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge are making a go of it. That is until Lord Bainbridge—the widowed Gwen’s father-in-law and legal guardian—returns from a business trip to Africa and threatens to undo everything important to her, even sending her six-year-old son away to a boarding school. But there’s more going on than that.

Brought to you by Penguin. ONLY SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH. ONLY HE CAN TELL THE WORLD. VIENNA, 1946 A brilliant German scientist spirited out of the ruins Nazi Europe in search of a new life MOSCOW, 1964 A rising star of the British diplomatic service whose job is not what it seems LONDON, THE PRESENT...

The 9th installment in the Aubrey/Maturin series All of Patrick O'Brian's strengths are on parade in this novel of action and intrigue, set partly in Malta, partly in the treacherous, pirate-infested waters of the Red Sea. While Captain Aubrey worries about repairs to his ship, Stephen Maturin...

The frontier zone of Archenfield in Herefordshire is a no-man's-land, which acts as a bulwark between Norman-controlled English soil and the Welsh border. Soldier Ralph Delchard and lawyer Gervase Bret arrive in Hereford for what looks like one of their more straightforward assignments from the crown, to settle conflicting claims to land in Archenfield. Ralph and Gervase are shocked to discover the murder of a principal witness, a wealthy landowner who was burned alive in his own home. No clues remain except an enigmatic red dragon cut into the turf in front of the house.

London, 1884. A culprit is on the run after a fatal poisoning in Bermondsey. It seems like a simple case for Penny Green to report on, until a series of macabre photographs is discovered. As the poisonings continue, Scotland Yard is convinced they have their suspect. It's not long before they're outwitted, and no one is safe. Penny and Inspector James Blakely must avoid the red herrings and track down the manipulative poisoner. But could there be more than one?

Two fearless women--living a century apart--find themselves entangled in the mystery surrounding the biggest scientific controversy of the nineteenth century: the classification of the platypus. 1808 Agnes Banks, NSW Rose Winton wants nothing more than to work with her father, eminent naturalist...

It's AD 123, and the sun is shining on southern Gaul. Ex-military medic Ruso and his British wife, Tilla, are back after a long absence - but it's not the reunion anyone had hoped for. Ruso's brother has left him in charge of a farm he has no idea how to manage, a chronic debt problem, and a gaggle of accident-prone small children. Meanwhile his sister Flora has run away to rescue her boyfriend, who's accused of murdering a wealthy guest at a party.

When the body of his daughter's friend is brought to his autopsy table, Quirke is plunged into a world of corruption that takes him to the darkest corners of the Irish Church and State. "At first they thought it was the body of a child. Later, when they got it out of the water and saw the pubic...

Oscar Wilde, aged 27, has come to the city of decadence to discover its charms, to rekindle his friendship with the divine Sarah Bernhardt, and to collaborate with France’s most celebrated actor-manager, Edmond La Grange. Oscar discovers dark secrets lying at the heart of the La Grange company, and is confronted by murders both foul and bizarre. To solve the crimes, to unravel the mystery, Oscar risks his life - and his reputation - embarking on a dangerous adventure that takes him from bohemian night clubs to an asylum for the insane.

Ella has discovered a secret room in the Yellow Cottage, but with it comes a ghost. Who was she? And how did she die? Ella needs to find the answers before either of them can find peace. But suddenly, things take a nasty turn for the worse.