Historical Mystery Women Sleuth

She keeps house for Inspector Witherspoon...and keeps him on his toes. Everyone's awed by his Scotland Yard successes - but they don't know about his secret weapon. No matter how messy the murder or how dirty the deed, Mrs. Jeffries' polished detection skills are up to the task...proving that behind every great man there's a woman - and that a crimesolver's work is never done.

It's the 1930s, and a mysterious illness is spreading over Scotland. But the noble and ancient family of Inverkillen, residents of Loch Down Abbey, are much more concerned with dwindling toilet roll supplies and who will look after the children now that Nanny has regretfully (and most inconveniently) departed this life. Then Lord Inverkillen, earl and head of the family, is found dead in mysterious circumstances. The inspector declares it an accident but Mrs MacBain, the head housekeeper, isn't so convinced.

Ghostly images appear and float across the stage, objects levitate into the air, and a beautiful assistant disappears inside a glass box, then reappears inside a second glass box. All while the audience at the Crystal Palace, including amateur investigator Mikaela Forsythe, watch the performance. Is it real? Then, an evening with her friend, Theodora Templeton, attending the one-night performance by master illusionist Jean Luc Betard, takes a ghastly turn and plunges Mikaela headlong into murder when the illusionist's young assistant is found dead at the end of his newest stunt.

In this second installment of Carola Dunn's cozy mystery series set in 1923 England, plucky Daisy Dalrymple embarks on another assignment for Town and Country magazine and discovers that daffodil bulbs aren't all that's buried in a country estate's flower bed.

July 1831. It's been 15 years since Sebastian Gage has set foot in Langstone Manor. Though he has shared little with his wife, Lady Kiera Darby, about his past, she knows that he planned never to return to the place of so many unhappy childhood memories. But when an urgent letter from his grandfather reaches them in Dublin, Ireland, and begs Gage to visit, Kiera convinces him to go.

The divine Phryne Fisher returns to lead another dance of intrigue. Seven Australian soldiers, carousing in Paris in 1918, unknowingly witness a murder and their presence has devastating consequences. Ten years later, two are dead ... under very suspicious circumstances. Phryne's wharfie mates, Bert and Cec, appeal to her for help. They were part of this group of soldiers in 1918 and they fear for their lives and for those of the other three men.

The Murders at Fleat House is the suspenseful and utterly compelling crime novel from the author of the multimillion-selling The Seven Sisters series, Lucinda Riley. Read by Gemma Whelan (The Woman Who Lied) 'A cleverly woven mystery to savour' – Sunday Express The sudden death of a pupil in...

In the latest USA Today bestselling, Victorian Era-set Countess of Harleigh Mystery from multi-award winning author Dianne Freeman, Frances Hazelton and her husband, George, uncover the secrets of backstage Paris to find out who’s acting the role of a killer to chilling perfection....

Inspector Witherspoon is perplexed. No one seems to know the identity of the dead man dressed like a vicar and propped up against the outside wall of St. Paul's Church. A paper clutched in the corpse's hand reveals the address of a dilapidated and seemingly abandoned cottage - abandoned if you don't count the human skeleton stuffed in the chimney. To link these two bizarre incidents will take all of the resources at Witherspoon's command - and a little help from the efficient Mrs. Jeffries....

With more than a dash of glamour and serious helpings of style, the witty and courageous Phryne Fisher returns. In 1928 St Kilda’s streets hang with fairy lights. Magic shows, marionettes, tea dances, tango competitions, life-saving demonstrations, lantern shows, and picnics on the beach are all part of the Flower Parade. And who else should be chosen to be Queen of the Flowers but the gorgeous, charming and terribly fashionable Hon Phryne Fisher?

Major Robert Kurland has returned to the quiet vistas of Kurland St. Mary to recuperate from the horrors of Waterloo. However injured his body may be, his mind is as active as ever. Too active, perhaps. When he glimpses a shadowy figure from his bedroom window struggling with a heavy load, the tranquil façade of the village begins to loom sinister....

Kitty Underhay is looking forward to a week of long lunches and wedding planning with her husband-to-be, Captain Matthew Bryant. But the plan is derailed when he is called on to collect a former comrade-in-arms, arriving on the 15:50 from Paddington. As the train bearing Simon Travers pulls up to the platform, a piercing scream rises over the screech of its brakes. Travers is dead in his seat, a dagger in his heart. Only a few individuals had access to Travers’s compartment, and Kitty must find out which of these seemingly benign passengers is, in fact, a cross-country killer.

As Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes embark on their 11th adventure together, they find themselves immersed in the world of silent filmmaking. Here, the pirates are real—and unlike the shooting done with a camera, this sort can be deadly.

It's summertime on the Riviera, where the Jazz Age is busily reinventing the holiday delights of warm days on golden sand and cool nights on terraces and dance floors. Just up the coast lies a more traditional pleasure ground: Monte Carlo, where fortunes are won, lost, stolen, and hidden away. So when Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes happen across the Côte d'Azur in this summer of 1925, they find themselves pulled between the young and the old, hot sun and cool jazz, new friendships and old loyalties, childlike pleasures and very grownup sins...

Thirty-year-old society matron Lola Woodby has survived her loveless marriage with an unholy mixture of highballs, detective novels, and chocolate layer cake until her husband dies suddenly, leaving her his fortune, or so Lola thinks. As it turns out, all she inherits from Alfie is a big pile of debt. Pretty soon Lola and her stalwart Swedish cook, Berta, are reduced to hiding out in the secret love nest Alfie kept in New York City.

It’s 1968, London is in full swing, and the Savoy Hotel is at the height of its legendary glitz and glamour, welcoming the rich, famous, and aristocratic into its rarified world of perfection. Royals wait upstairs in luxurious suites for discreet encounters. All is as it should be at the Savoy. If only it weren’t for the dead body in Room 705. Could it be murder? Impossible! Who could have done such a thing? Suspicion falls upon Priscilla Tempest, the quick-witted Canadian head of the Savoy press office who has a penchant for champagne, the wrong sort of men—and trouble.

Regency widow Lily Adler has finally settled into her new London life when her semi-estranged father arrives unexpectedly, intending to stay with her while he recovers from an illness. Hounded by his disapproval, Lily is drawn into spending time with Lady Wyatt, the new wife of an old family friend. Lily barely knows the woman, but she and her husband, Sir Charles, seem as happy as any newly married couple...until the morning Lily arrives to find the house in an uproar and Sir Charles dead.

It's 1942, and as far as her father knows, Evelyn Bishop, heiress to an aeronautics fortune, is working as a translator in London. In truth, Evelyn—daring, beautiful, and as adept with a rifle as she is in five languages—has joined the Office of Strategic Services as a spy. Her goal is personal: to find her brother, who is being held as a POW in a Nazi labor camp. Through one high-risk mission after another, she is paired with the reckless and rebellious Nick Gallagher, growing ever close to him until the war's end brings with it an act of deep betrayal.

Sarah Brandt is shattered when she learns that a woman has inquired at Hope’s Daughters Mission for Catherine, the abandoned child she has taken as her daughter. The woman claims she was Catherine’s nursemaid, now acting on behalf of the girl’s mother to reunite them. Unwilling to simply hand Catherine over to a complete stranger, Sarah asks Malloy to investigate. But when he goes to interview the woman at her tenement in Chelsea, he finds she has been murdered. Though her death leaves Sarah’s claim to Catherine unchallenged, her sense of justice compels her to work with Malloy to find the killer.

This dazzling thriller pits Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta against greater odds than ever before. Convicted serial killer Carrie Grethen has escaped from psychiatric hospital with plans for revenge. Wary and shaken, Scarpetta also has to investigate the death by fire of an unknown woman...