Historical Detective

The story you’re about to hear is the second Charlie Chan novel, and it features a parrot named Tony who is witness to a crime. The unusual bird spoke Chinese and had a less-than-perfect use of English grammar but was killed by the criminals as a precaution. Chan himself was a friend of a family selling jewels and agreed to deliver them on his first trip to mainland California. While there he masquerades as a pidgin-speaking cook during his undercover investigation. His profound and original intelligence offers genial humor and witty dialogue.

Two young girls plot a murder by witchcraft. Soon afterwards, a government clerk dies painfully in mysterious circumstances. His colleague James Marwood is asked to investigate—but the task brings unexpected dangers. Meanwhile, architect Cat Hakesby is working for a merchant who lives on Slaughter Street, where the air smells of blood and a captive Barbary lion prowls the stables. Then a prestigious new commission arrives. Cat must design a Poultry House for the woman that the king loves most in all the world.

In pre-war London, Olivia Denis wins a plum assignment from her newspaper when she meets the glamorous French fashion designer, Mimi Mareau. Mimi has it all - wealth, talent, acclaim, and a British duke for a lover. But on her first visit to Mimi's new Mayfair house of haute couture, Olivia finds something else - the body of an unknown man. Mimi and her three French assistants say they don't know the man, but is that true? As Olivia spends time around the salon, she learns at least one of the women knew the dead man and all four women are lying.

Irene Adler is no ordinary young lady. She's at the top of the ranks in the All Souls cohort, a competitive preparatory class reserved for Oxford's brightest minds. But her peers and professors don't know she's a lady at all. To them, she is Isaac Holland. Keeping up her disguise gets trickier when All Souls students start dying, one by one. Determined to find out who's responsible for the deaths, Irene—as Isaac—teams up with fellow classmate and roommate Sherlock Holmes to track down clues

"When I say, therefore, that [my brother] has better powers of observation than I...I am speaking the exact and literal truth." (Sherlock Holmes) This story occurs when Mycroft, an athletic Cambridge graduate, assists the secretary of state. He becomes embroiled in a mystery in Trinidad based on actual history. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a huge Holmesian, seven feet two inches tall, basketball's all-time leading scorer, and a US cultural ambassador. Anna Waterhouse is a professional screenwriter and script consultant.

In this, his third adventure, the lovable detective William Murdoch becomes involved with the apparent suicide of Constable Oliver Wicken, a man who was the sole support of his mother and invalid sister. But further investigation by Detective Murdoch takes him far afield, and he begins to suspect that the Eakin family, whose house adjoins the one where Wicken died, is more involved with the case than they admit. Here, once again, Maureen Jennings brings the period vividly to life.

Some years ago, Cyrus Barker matched wits with Sebastian Nightwine, an aristocrat and sociopath, and in exposing his evil, sent Nightwine fleeing to hide from justice somewhere in the far corners of the earth. The last thing Barker ever expected was to encounter Nightwine again - but the British government, believing they need Nightwine's help, has granted him immunity for his past crimes, and brought him back to London.

England, 1917. Reeling from the death of her fiancé, Stella Marcham welcomes the opportunity to stay with her pregnant sister, Madeleine, at her imposing country mansion, Greyswick - but she arrives to discover a house of unease and her sister gripped by fear and suspicion. Before long, strange incidents begin to trouble Stella - sobbing in the night, little footsteps on the stairs - and as events escalate, she finds herself drawn to the tragic history of the house.

When Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn are hired to find a girl from the upper classes who has gone missing in the East End, they assume her kidnapping is the work of white slavers. But when they discover five girls have been murdered in Bethnal Green, taunting letters begin to arrive in Craig's Court from a killer calling himself Mr. Miacca. Barker fears that Miacca might be part of the Hellfire Club, a group of powerful, hedonistic aristocrats performing satanic rituals.

Declaring he needs to clear his conscience, a dying man walks into Scotland Yard and confesses that he killed his cousin five years earlier during the Great War. When Inspector Ian Rutledge presses for details, the man evades his questions, revealing only that he hails from a village east of London. With little information and no body to open an official inquiry, Rutledge begins to look into the case on his own. Less than two weeks later, the alleged killer’s body is found floating in the Thames, a bullet in the back of his head.

An elderly couple living in Victorian London struggle against despair as their small resources dwindle. When an eccentric and mysterious gentleman answers their advertisement for a lodger, they celebrate. But as women begin dying at the hands of "The Avenger", they start to suspect something too horrific for words.

Brighton, 1882: Albert Moscrop spends his holiday peering at beachgoers through a telescope, piecing together disarmingly trivial observations into a compelling drama for his own amusement. A keen student of human nature, Moscrop concentrates his interest on one particular family - the Protheros, especially the beautiful Zena Prothero, whose husband appears to take her for granted. Moscrop gradually moves into the circle of the Prothero family, only to become involved in a sensational murder.

London, 1895. Former Baker Street Irregular Tim Badger is determined to follow in the footsteps of his mentor, Sherlock Holmes, by opening his own consulting detective agency with his partner, Benjamin Watson. The intrepid duo are ready to make a name for themselves . . . if only they had clients! Their luck changes when Sherlock recommends his protégés to Thomas Brent. Brent is eager to find out who killed his master, Horace Quinn, during a séance. What was Quinn desperately trying to find out from his deceased business partner, Stephen Latimer, before he was stabbed?

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford have just become the proud owners of an old house in an English village. Along with the property, they have inherited some worthless bric-a-brac, including a collection of antique books. While rustling through a copy of The Black Arrow, Tuppence comes upon a series of apparently random underlinings. However, when she writes down the letters, they spell out a very disturbing message: "Mary Jordan did not die naturally." And 60 years later, Mary's enemies are still ready to kill....

1862. A goods train is speeding through the Sapperton Tunnel when it hits a makeshift pen of sheep inexplicably set up near the exit. The animals are slaughtered by the impact whilst the train hits a pile of rocks and is derailed, seriously injuring the occupants. Inspector Colbeck discovers that the shepherd and his dog are missing. Stephen Rydall who owned the sheep is shocked by the occurrence, which further affects him as he is a major shareholder in the Great Western Railway.

Daniel Pitt is delighted that his sister is visiting London with her American husband Patrick, a policeman, and their young daughter. But Patrick's trip has another purpose, for which he enlists Daniel's help. Philip Sydney, a young British diplomat, is accused of robbery and assault in Washington, but he has taken diplomatic immunity and fled to England. The perfect opportunity to obtain justice presents itself when Sydney is accused of a small embezzlement at the British Embassy in the USA, but as Daniel digs deeper into the case it becomes clear that vengeance is involved.

In an untouched corner of Craynebrook, the lifeless body of a local farmer is found, his blood mingling with the mud of Blackbird Farm. For Detective Inspector Matthew Stannard, still nursing wounds from a brutal assault, this grisly scene marks the beginning of an investigation unlike any he’s worked on before.

New York, 1958. Even though Evelyn Murphy has made progress conquering her agoraphobia by leaving the Pinnacle, she still feels most comfortable in her father's hotel. With Malcolm Cooper, her new boyfriend and fellow employee at the hotel, Evelyn feels prepared for whatever happens next. In this case, it’s throwing a big fundraiser with the who’s who of New York City. The night is a success, and Evelyn finally takes up Malcolm’s offer to visit his apartment in Yonkers. As the party ends, they sneak away to the garage to get Evelyn's car. But Evelyn's always been good at finding things.

New York, Autumn, 1907: Former private detective Molly Murphy Sullivan is happy with her place in the world. She and her policeman husband, Daniel, have built quite a life for themselves in Greenwich Village, in their modest-yet-beautiful home in Patchin Place, filled with family, friends, and laughter. Molly and Daniel have a good marriage, a true partnership where they value each other’s opinions in all things. So when he tells her they’re moving to a fancy home on Fifth Avenue—and that he’s running for the sheriff of New York—Molly is left reeling.

London, 1890: Four vicious murderers have escaped from prison, part of a plan gone terribly wrong, and now it is up to Walter Day, Nevil Hammersmith, and the rest of Scotland Yard's Murder Squad to hunt down the convicts before the men can resume their bloody spree. But they might already be too late. The killers have retribution in mind, and one of them is heading straight toward a member of the Murder Squad, and his family.