Historical Mystery Suspense

1926: Harriet Stone, a liberated, educated Black woman, and Lovey, the orphaned, biracial, 12-year-old she is bound to protect are Harlem-bound, embarking on a new, hopefully less traumatic, chapter in their lives. They have been invited to move from Connecticut by Harriet’s cousin, Junetta Plum, who runs a boarding house for independent-minded single women. It’s a bold move since Harriet has never met Junetta, but the fatalities of the Spanish flu and other tragedies have already forced her and Lovey to face their worst fears.

After Culloden, Iain MacGillivray was left for dead on Drumossie Moor. Wounded, his face brutally slashed, he survived only by pretending to be dead as the Redcoats patrolled the corpses of his Jacobite comrades. Six years later, with the clan chiefs routed and the Highlands subsumed into the British state, Iain lives a quiet life, working as a bookseller in Inverness. One day, after helping several of his regular customers, he notices a stranger lurking in the upper gallery of his shop, poring over his collection. But the man refuses to say what he's searching for.

When a maid in the upper class Ellison household is strangled, Inspector Pitt is called in to investigate. He finds a world ruled by strict manners and social customs, where the inhabitants of the Ellison's neighborhood appear to be more outraged by the thought of scandal than they are by murder. Inspector Pitt finds a most unlikely ally in Charlotte, the Ellison's spirited daughter. But as the murders continue, Charlotte and Pitt find themselves drawn together by more than the investigation.

While Wolf contemplates whether or not to continue investigating, it seems that the dowager has taken matters into her own hands and is investigating a case independently. But why has she gone missing from her home for two nights, and what mischief has she gotten herself into? Tracking down the elderly woman takes Tabitha and Wolf into some of the darkest, most dangerous corners of the city. What on earth is the exasperating dowager caught up in that she seems to have become entangled with London’s prostitutes?

At Breakneck Bay, the rides are fast, the injuries frequent, and the lawsuits endless. But when a teenage employee vanishes after closing, leaving behind a blood-soaked crime scene, it’s clear this summer will be the deadliest yet. Suspicion falls on park manager Mitch Blue, forcing his newlywed wife Kit to confront the cracks in their marriage—and the unsettling secrets he’s been keeping. But Kit and the police aren’t the only ones looking for answers. Someone is watching from the shadows, waiting to finish what they started years ago.

November, 1940. Tom Tyler, Detective Inspector of the small Shropshire town of Whitchurch, is a troubled man. The preceding summer had been a dark one for Britain, and even darker for Tom's own family and personal life. So he jumps at the opportunity to help out in the nearby city of Birmingham, where an explosion in a munitions factory has killed or badly injured several of the young women who have taken on dangerous work in support of the war effort.

The year 1941: Andrew Troost, heir to generations of naval tradition, has just been made admiral, when reports fly in of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Troost's son, Warren, has followed in his footsteps and is one of the men fighting for his country on a PT boat in the Pacific. In New York City, Tony Trapasso hears the call to action and gets ready to join the naval action. With him is Jacob Miller, a young man choosing to become a naval pilot instead of following the rabbinical calling of his Jewish forebears.

Georgie's best friend, Belinda, inherits a spooky old house in Cornwall and asks Georgie to go with her to inspect the property. When they arrive, they meet Rose, a woman Belinda knew as a child when she spent her summers with her grandmother in Cornwall. Belinda never liked Rose, who has always been bossy and a bit of a bully, but when Belinda's house proves to be uninhabitable, Rose invites them to stay with her. Rose is now married to Tony Summers, Belinda's childhood crush, and lives in the lovely house on the cliffs that he has inherited.

Le professeur Toscano, chargé d'effectuer des recherches à l'université de Lisbonne sur la conquête du Nouveau Monde, est convaincu d'avoir mis au jour une vérité capitale. Une révélation si sensible qu'il a codé l'ensemble de son travail. Un acte paranoïaque peut-être, ou de prudence... car Toscano est retrouvé mort.

Who killed Sir Crispin Gibbons? A wedding invitation and news of mischief that could be murder, takes Lennox to the Earl of Bloxford's country pile. He soon finds himself in a world of purloined artworks, forgeries and a priceless Bloxford Beauty. But who are the Bloxford Beauties? And why are they the focal point around which swirls death? Lennox must confront life-long friends, unscrupulous artists and dealers to finally unravel a plot so complex that even his old adversary, Chief Inspector Swift of Scotland Yard, is befuddled.

Autumn, 1921. Lady Eleanor Swift is invited to her old school, St Mary’s, as a guest speaker. Her favorite teacher, Mrs. Wadsworth, has asked that Eleanor talk about her intrepid travels around the globe - travelling the Silk Road by bicycle, crossing the Himalayas and even befriending the Maharaja of India. But in the circumstances, perhaps it would have been a good idea to talk about her career as a daring detective. Because no sooner has Eleanor brushed up on her times tables than she is greeted by terrible news: Mrs. Wadsworth has been murdered.

London, September 1666. The Great Fire rages through the city, consuming everything in its path. Even the impregnable cathedral of St. Paul's is engulfed in flames and reduced to ruins. Among the crowds watching its destruction is James Marwood, son of a disgraced printer and reluctant government informer. In the aftermath of the fire, a semi-mummified body is discovered in the ashes of St. Paul's, in a tomb that should have been empty. The man's body has been mutilated, and his thumbs have been tied behind his back.

Are curses real? After a toymaker magician gives a lecture at a collector’s club soiree, an important spell is stolen and a man is found strangled. The investigation into his murder leads India and Matt to the colorful and dangerous world of the Romany gypsy where curses are used as weapons against their enemies. But nobody seems to know if curses are real or not. As Matt and India close in on the killer, old foes bring trouble into their lives. With the threat of exposure hanging over London’s magicians, disaster is never far away.

Colorado, 1880. Gracy Brookens has delivered hundreds, maybe thousands of babies in her lifetime. The only midwife in a small mining town tucked in the Tenmile Range, Gracy is a gifted and important resource for the women of her hardscrabble community. For years she has advised expectant mothers through their pregnancies, guided them through the tortures of labor, and then helped them heal.

In February 1835, the cold New Orleans streets are alight with masked Mardi Gras revelers as the American Theater’s impresario, Lorenzo Belaggio, brings a magnificent yet controversial operatic version of Othello to town. But it’s pitch-black in the alley where free man of color Benjamin January hears a slurred whisper, spies the flash of a knife, and is himself wounded as he rescues Belaggio from a vicious attack. Could competition for audiences - or for Belagio’s affections - provoke such violent skulduggery?

London, 1812. The brutal slaughter of eight young prostitutes in a house of refuge near Covent Garden leaves only one survivor - and one witness: Hero Jarvis, reform-minded daughter of the prince regent's cousin, Lord Jarvis. When the Machiavellian power broker quashes any official inquiry that might reveal his daughter's unorthodox presence, Hero launches an investigation of her own and turns to Sebastian St. Cyr, viscount Devlin, for help.

Georgie, or Lady Georgiana Rannoch, is busy planning her upcoming nuptials to Darcy O'Mara. Unfortunately, what has started as a simple wedding has become quite a royal headache and grand affair, thanks to a guest list that includes the queen and the appointment of princesses as Georgie's bridesmaids. “If only Darcy and I had eloped!” she thinks, as she attempts to organize her wedding and find a place for her and her husband-to-be to live. Just as she despairs of ever finding a home, her godfather offers his fully staffed country estate. But something sinister is afoot....

1888 was a busy year for Holmes and Watson. If Dr. Watson is to be believed, The Sign of Four, A Scandal in Bohemia, and The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor all took place in this year (I would also argue that The Valley of Fear is set in the same year — ed.). As if that weren’t enough, 1888 is remembered (albeit infamously) as the year that Jack the Ripper unleashed an autumn of terror on the citizens of London. While there are no Holmes vs. the Ripper stories in this volume, the authors of the later stories have all alluded to the atmosphere of terror permeating Holmes’s London at that time.

From the start, St. Cyr's mission is sensitive: finding out who killed the bishop of London, a leading candidate for archbishop of Canterbury, in the crypt of the same country church where the mummified body of another murder victim was discovered only hours earlier. It becomes downright dangerous once the charismatic viscount unearths the surprising connection between the men as well as the many powerful enemies with motives for their murder - including his own father.

Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave. These ominous words, slashed from the pages of a book of Psalms, are the last threat that the darling of London society, Sir Edward Grey, receives from his killer. Before he can show them to Nicholas Brisbane, the private inquiry agent he has retained for his protection, Sir Edward collapses and dies at his London home, in the presence of his wife, Julia, and a roomful of dinner guests.