Historical Thriller

"A book about oil and water, rangers and outlaws, Anglos and Hispanics, frontier and settlement, money and power...James Michener is something rare and valuable: an honorable craftsman doing honorable work....He manages to make history vivid and palatable to the reader." THE BOSTON GLOBE Texas...

Something sinister is afoot, but where? The arrival of a gun-toting stranger in a little Western town causes quite a stir. Who is this man? What is he after? And most importantly, which side of the law is he on? Jim Wood likes the look of the area, but before he can think of settling down, he'll have to finish the business that brought him here. With doubt and suspicion on every side, can he find the answers he needs? Or will evil win out before the truth is revealed?

Sur une île au large de Cherbourg, un vieil homme et une jeune fille vivent isolés, entourés de serviteurs et de gardes du corps, à l'abri de tout reflet ; en aucun cas Hazel ne doit voir son propre visage. Engagée pour soigner la jeune fille, Françoise, une infirmière, va découvrir les étranges mystères qui unissent ces deux personnages. Elle saura pourquoi Hazel se résigne, nuit après nuit, aux caresses du vieillard.

It's the end of the roaring twenties, and the exuberant and Honourable Phryne Fisher is dancing and gaming with gay abandon. But she becomes bored with London and the endless round of parties. In search of excitement, she sets her sights on a spot of detective work in Melbourne, Australia. And so mystery and the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse, appear in her life. From then on it's all cocaine and communism until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.

Shot down over Siberia, ex-Justice Department agent Cotton Malone is forced into a fight for survival against Aleksandr Zorin, a man whose loyalty to the former Soviet Union has festered for decades into an intense hatred of the United States. Before escaping, Malone learns that Zorin and another ex-KGB officer, this one a sleeper still embedded in the West, are headed overseas to Washington D.C. Noon on January 20th—Inauguration Day—is only hours away.

December 1941: ‘Pearl Harbor has been bombed.’ My husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s, voice shakes as he tells me the devastating news. We both know what this means: America is at war. Eleanor Roosevelt takes a deep breath. This is her third term as First Lady and she knows what it takes to lead her country alongside charming and charismatic Franklin. She’s dedicated to her role as an activist having spent her life working towards a vision of a better America. But the attack on Pearl Harbor shatters everything.

It's Christmas 1909, and for once Lady Hardcastle - respectable gentlewoman, amateur spy - and her lady's maid, Florence Armstrong, are setting sleuthing aside. They are invited to the festivities up at The Grange, as guests of Sir Hector and Lady Farley-Stroud. But barely have corks been popped and parlour games played when a mysterious crime comes to light.

The son of a wealthy plantation owner and a doting mother, Mungo St John is accustomed to the wealth and luxuries his privilege has afforded him. That is until he returns from university to discover his family ruined, his inheritance stolen and his childhood sweetheart, Camilla, taken by the conniving Chester Marion. Fuelled by anger and love, Mungo swears vengeance and devotes his life to saving Camilla - and destroying Chester.

World War II comes to Farleigh Place, the ancestral home of Lord Westerham and his five daughters, when a soldier with a failed parachute falls to his death on the estate. After his uniform and possessions raise suspicions, MI5 operative and family friend Ben Cresswell is covertly tasked with determining if the man is a German spy. The assignment also offers Ben the chance to be near Lord Westerham's middle daughter, Pamela, whom he furtively loves. But Pamela has her own secret.

August 1920, Dublin, Ireland: A fraught task keeps Verity and her husband Sidney in the country after their initial clandestine mission has been completed: the traitor Lord Ardmore is scheming to employ the deadly phosgene gas he's stolen for some terrifying purpose, and the couple will need both the Crown forces and the rebels' help to thwart him. As they pursue their quarry, they are drawn into a case involving a series of cunning and brazen jewel thefts.

When Ross Buchanan is forced to resign as chairman of the Barrington Shipping Company, Emma Clifton wants to replace him. But Don Pedro Martinez intends to install his puppet, the egregious Major Alex Fisher, in order to destroy the Barrington family firm just as the company plans to build its new luxury liner, the MV Buckingham. Back in London, Harry and Emma's adopted daughter wins a scholarship to the Slade Academy of Art where she falls in love with a fellow student, Clive Bingham, who asks her to marry him.

October 1832. Kiera is enjoying the slower pace of the English countryside. She, Sebastian, and their infant daughter have accompanied her father-in-law, Lord Gage, home so that he can recuperate from the injuries he sustained in a foiled attempt on his life. But as the chill of autumn sweeps across the land, they receive a summons from an unexpected quarter. Lord Gage's estranged uncle—a member of the notorious Roscarrock family—has been murdered, and his family is desperate for answers. Despite Lord Gage's protests, Kiera and Sebastian press on to Cornwall to assist.

Vittorin, a young Austrian officer, has just been released from a Russian POW camp toward the end of the Great War. In Vienna his family, his girlfriend, and his old job await him, but Vittorin can’t think of settling down until he has settled the score with the sadistic camp commander, Staff Captain Selukov. Private obsession and political turmoil mix as Perutz leads his hero on a manhunt into the thick of the Russian civil war. In and out of prison, starving in the gutters of Moscow, thrown into revolutionary battle, Vittorin pursues his elusive quarry across postwar Europe. At each turn, he encounters only Fate’s joker, until, back in Vienna, Fate plays him the biggest joke of all.

Summer descends over the picturesque King’s Cove as Darling and Lane’s mutual affection blossoms. But their respite from solving crime is cut short when a British government official arrives in Nelson to compel Darling to return to England for questioning about the death of a rear gunner under his command in 1943. In Darling’s absence, Ames oversees the investigation into the suspicious death of a local elderly woman and uncovers a painful betrayal inflicted 40 years earlier.

The sisters at a lonely Cornish convent share a chilling secret they cannot confess...Sister Sophia is dead. Another disappears. And a mysterious last letter from a dying nun is sent to the prioress. Sister Joan has faced her own demons. Now she is sent to the convent to investigate, as well as teach the local children. There are whispers of virgin sacrifice and suicide, and the mother prioress certainly wears pink nail varnish. And who is the young man hiding in the bracken?

On a bright September morning in 1939, two days after Britain declares war on Germany, a group of privileged but desperate people gather in Southhampton to board the largest, most luxurious airliner ever built - the Pan American Clipper - bound for New York.

Lady Georgiana Rannoch, 35th in line for the British throne, knows how to play the part of an almost royal - but now she's off to Hollywood, where she must reprise her role as sleuth or risk starring in an all-too-convincing death scene...

With men departing to fight for king and country, women have new opportunities at home. Dorothy Peto and her fellow suffragettes propose forming the Women’s Police Volunteers to assist police keep order. At first, the suggestion is derided, yet the force is stretched thin. As Dorothy and her friends train and organize to help refugees fleeing the war and guide terroried Londoners to shelter during the Zeppelin raids, the ‘ladies in blue’ gain a grudging acceptance. During one nightly bombing raid, Dorothy discovers the body of a beautiful Belgian refugee in Seven Dials.

The indomitable Amelia Peabody and her husband, known to many as "the Father of Curses", are into archaeology and mischief again. This third in the series brings the reader once more into Egypt and the shady world of black market antiquities. The winter excavation season has hardly yet begun when Amelia stumbles onto what looks suspiciously like a ring of thieves.

Anno Domini 1040. Christianity has swept unstoppably across Scandinavia, leaving few enclaves of the old ways clinging on to their fading world as King Olof of Sweden works to convert his people. A young warrior, Halfdan, has witnessed the ‘mercy' of the Christian lords, watched his people attacked, his village burned and the Odin stone toppled as heretical. Watched his father cut down by an ambitious Christian jarl and his zealous priest. Among the ashes of his world, he vowed an oath of vengeance before all the gods.