Historical Police Fiction

Paris: July 1890. Inspector Achille Lefebvre and his wife Adele are enjoying their stay at a seaside resort - until a body found hanging from a bridge in a public park demands the Inspector's attention. Is it suicide or murder? A twisted trail of evidence draws Inspector Lefebvre into a shadowy underworld of international intrigue, espionage, and terrorism.

Stoke Newington, 1863: Little Margaret Lovejoy is found brutally murdered in the outhouse at her family’s estate. A few days later, a man is cut down in a similar manner on the doorstep of courtesan and professional detective Heloise Chancey’s prestigious address. At the same time, Heloise’s maid, Amah Li Leen, must confront events from her past that appear to have erupted into the present day. Once again Heloise is caught up in a maelstrom of murder and deceit that threatens to reach into the very heart of her existence.

Berlin, Spätsommer 1935. In der Familie Rath geht jeder seiner Wege. Pflegesohn Fritz marschiert mit der HJ zum Nürnberger Reichsparteitag, Charly schlägt sich als Anwaltsgehilfin und Privatdetektivin durch, während sich Gereon Rath, mittlerweile zum Oberkommissar befördert, mit den Todesfällen befassen muss, die sonst niemand haben will. Ein tödlicher Verkehrsunfall weckt seinen Jagdinstinkt, obwohl seine Vorgesetzten ihm den Fall entziehen und ihn in eine andere Abteilung versetzen. Es geht um Hermann Göring, der erpresst werden soll, um geheime Akten, Morphium und schmutzige Politik.

Il commissario Maki Markaris ha due grandi passioni: il mare e la caccia al polpo, che conserva nel congelatore dei reperti organici del commissariato di Chania, sull'isola di Creta. Markaris però ama anche il raki, l'acquavite ottomana al profumo di anice, e le dee. Proprio come Afroditi, la giovane archeologa rimasta orfana di un padre che custodiva il segreto più straordinario di quell'isola celebre fin dai tempi più antichi per la leggenda del Minotauro.

An old flame has returned to Chief Inspector Frederick Troy's life: Kitty Stilton, wife of an American presidential hopeful. Private eye Joey Rork has been hired to make sure Kitty's amorous liaisons with a rat pack crooner don't ruin her husband's political career. But he also wants to know why Kitty has been spotted with Danny Ryan, whose twin brothers, in addition to owning one of London's hottest jazz clubs, are said to have inherited the crime empire of fallen mobster Alf Marx. Before Rork can find out, he meets a gruesome end.

When a young woman's body is discovered in the summer of 1910 in Vienna, the inspector's wife is certain the figs found in her stomach during the autopsy are the clue to the identity of the murderer - for there are no fresh figs in Vienna at this time of year.

April 1990, Guadeloupe: The body white female French tourist has been discovered on a nudist beach. The victim's remains offer no clues about her final hours. What turned this woman's vacation in paradise into a final nightmare? French-Algerian judge Anne Marie Laveau is assigned the high-profile case as a top priority. As always, the story of a murdered white woman has attracted the attention of international media.

London, April 1912. The third Irish Home Rule Bill is passing through Parliament, and the situation is growing ever more tense. Closely involved in the negotiations, cabinet minister Edmund Latimer finds himself under growing pressure, which only intensifies when his seven-month-old niece, Lucy, is snatched away in her pram in Regent's Park. Could there be a connection between Lucy’s kidnapping and the Irish talks? With her husband under intolerable strain, Edmund's wife, Alice, makes it her business to find out.

London, november 1944. En ung flicka hittas brutalt mördad. Den vinterkalla staden är mörklagd på grund av kriget och polisens resurser är begränsade i en stad som tvingats ta emot flyktingar från ett härjat Europa. Flickan visar sig vara en polsk judinna, Rosa Nowak, som arbetade på den pensionerade kriminalkommissarien John Maddens gård. Tyngd av samvetskval bestämmer han sig för att hjälpa sina gamla kollegor vid Scotland Yard att lösa fallet.

Luglio 1932. A Napoli è arrivato il caldo, quello vero, e la città sembra precipitare nell'inferno. In una notte rovente, un notissimo chirurgo cade dalla finestra del suo ufficio. Un uomo dall'aria irreprensibile, ma con qualche magagna nella vita. Scartata presto l'ipotesi del suicidio, Ricciardi e il brigadiere Maione iniziano un'indagine che li porterà a fare i conti con i più indomabili sentimenti e passioni, e ad affrontare i lati oscuri dell'anima. Questa volta saranno le donne della loro vita a reclamare attenzione.

Napoli, 1932. Manca una settimana a Pasqua e l'aria profuma di primavera. In un'esclusiva casa di tolleranza, viene trovata morta una delle ragazze più belle, la famosa Vipera. Chi è stato a soffocarla con un cuscino? Nella sua indagine, il commissario Ricciardi si troverà impigliato in una rete di sentimenti e passioni insospettabili, che toccheranno anche lui. Rappresentata con maestria nella sua vivace autenticità, la città arriverà a svelare il suo volto meno conosciuto.

È l'estate del 1899, e l'Italia è più unita sulle mappe che nel cuore dei suoi abitanti. Il giovane vicebrigadiere Ghibaudo viene trasferito nell'entroterra sardo con un gruppo di carabinieri provenienti da tutto il Regno per fondare un avamposto nella lotta al brigantaggio. Il mondo che lo attende è profondamente diverso dalla Torino in cui è cresciuto: i crimini sono tanti, ma poche le denunce, a dimostrazione che lì i torti vengono raddrizzati non dalla legge ma dai coltelli. È dunque una sorpresa quando la popolana Lianora si rivolge ai carabinieri per un caso di furto.

A woman appears on the streets of Shanghai. She has thousands of cuts - and is screaming for Inspector Danilov... Days later, the woman is dead. But another body is left waiting for the Inspector. Someone is playing with Danilov... someone prepared to kill, just to get their message across. At first, the victims seem unconnected. But with each body bringing a new message for Danilov, he knows this is a riddle especially designed for him. As more bodies start appearing, time is running out to solve the deadly puzzle.

Jena, 1985. Ein junger Mann ist ermordet worden. Ein Punker, so nennen sich diese Gestalten, die vom sozialistischen Staatswesen so schwer auf Linie zu bringen sind. Die Ermittler der Morduntersuchungskommission um Oberleutnant Otto Castorp nehmen schnell den Vater des Opfers ins Visier, einen Antiquitätenhändler mit Westkontakt, der dem Arbeiter- und Bauernstaat feindselig gegenüber steht. Der Ermordete, das weiß Castorp, hatte sich als Informeller Mitarbeiter bei der Staatssicherheit verpflichtet.

Hamburg 1928: Seit einem Jahr gibt es im Hamburger Stadthaus eine weibliche Kriminalpolizei unter Leitung der resoluten Josefine Erkens. Auch die freiheitsliebende Paula heuert dort an. Als eine Tänzerin ermordet und obszön entstellt wird, gelingt es Erkens, Paula und eine weitere Kommissarin in der bisher rein männlich besetzen Mordkommission unterzubringen. Angeführt wird diese Ermittlungsgruppe von Martin Broder, der der Hölle von Flandern entkam. Zu Beginn tut er sich schwer mit den "unfähigen Weibern", doch die Frauen arbeiten mit präziser Logik und kühlem Witz.

Viet Nam, 1963. A female Viet Cong assassin is trawling the boulevards of Saigon, catching US Army officers off-guard with a single pistol shot, then riding off on the back of a scooter. Although the US military is not officially in combat, 16,000 American servicemen are stationed in Viet Nam “advising” the military and government. Among them are Ellsworth Miser and Clovis Robeson, two army investigators who have been tasked with tracking down the daring killer.

London, 1882. Alec Lonsdale, a young reporter on the Pall Mall Gazette, is working on a story about a fatal house fire. But the postmortem on the victim produces shocking results: Patrick Donovan's death was no accident. But why would someone murder a humble shop assistant and steal part of his brain? When a second body is discovered, its throat cut, and then a third, Lonsdale and his spirited female colleague, Hulda Friederichs, begin to uncover evidence of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest echelons of Victorian society.

Albert Beauchamp disappeared just before Christmas in 1856. When he reappears more than a year later, he's in several pieces, packed in salt in a shipping crate in New Orleans. NYC inspectors Jasper Lightner and his partner, Hieronymus Law, are called in to investigate - but the further they dig into the wealthy financier's background, the dirtier the story gets.

When Mary Corbet walks into private investigator Jennie Redhead's rundown Oxford office one pleasant spring day in 1974, she is a desperate woman. Although she's convinced her daughter has been murdered, she can get neither the police nor her husband to agree with her. Jennie is not convinced either, but more out of compassion than conviction agrees to take the case. The only clue she has to go on is a fragment of an obscure 17th-century poem she finds in Linda's bedroom.

A lone German bomber crosses the east coast of Britain on a moonless night in the long hot summer of 1940. The pilot picks up the silver thread of a river and, following it to his target, drops his bomb over Cambridge's rail yards. The shell falls short of its mark and lands in a maze-like neighbourhood of terraced streets on the edge of the city's medieval centre. DI Eden Brooke is first on the scene and discovers the body of an elderly woman, Nora Wylde, beside her shattered bed in a terrace house on Elm Street.