Historical Thrillers Mystery Fiction

William Lowell Kane and Abel Rosnovski, one the son of a Boston millionaire, the other a penniless polish immigrant-born on the same day near the turn of the century on opposite sides of the world-are brought together by fate and the quest of a dream. Two men - ambitious, powerful, ruthless - are locked in a relentless struggle to build an empire, fueled by their all-consuming hatred.

Earl Swagger is tough as hell. But even tough guys have their secrets. Plagued by the memory of his abusive father, apprehensive about his own impending parenthood, Earl is a decorated ex-Marine of absolute integrity — and overwhelming melancholy. Now he’s about to face his biggest, bloodiest challenge yet. It is the summer of 1946, organized crime’s garish golden age, when American justice seems to have gone to seed for good.

This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, Royal Navy, and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, against the thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Details of life aboard a man-of-war in Nelson's navy are faultlessly rendered: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the road of broadsides as the great ships close in battle.

Join Blix Windway, an adventurous lady traveler, on a journey down the Nile in 1924. An eclectic mix of passengers boards the steamer, including a captain of industry, a former stunt-girl reporter turned lady of the manor, an archaeologist, an American teacher, a British doctor and his invalid wife, and a German photographer. When a passenger is found dead, the elegant cruise turns into a floating crime scene. With everyone confined on board, tensions rise and secrets surface.

September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. Gestapo boss Obersturmbannführer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. Hunger is widespread. Rumors fester. The war’s outcome is far from certain. Diplomats, refugees, and escaped Allied prisoners flee for protection into Vatican City; at one fifth of a square mile, it's the world’s smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome. A small band of unlikely friends led by a courageous Irish priest is drawn into deadly danger as they seek to help those seeking refuge.

AD 865. The fierce Vikings stormed onto Saxon soil hungry for spoils, conquest, and vengeance for the death of Ragnar Lothbrok. Hundr, a Northman with a dog's name...a crew of battle hardened warriors...and Ivar the Boneless. Amidst the invasion of Saxon England by the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, Hundr joins a crew of Viking warriors under the command of Einar the Brawler. Hundr fights to forge a warriors reputation under the glare of Ivar and his equally fearsome brothers, but to do that he must battle the Saxons and treachery from within the Viking army itself...

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.

London, 1941: Miss Jane Treen is at her desk, strong black coffee in hand and fluffy ginger cat by her side, when her top-secret government work is interrupted by an urgent call to Devon. A woman has been found dead in a lake in a place where she shouldn’t have been. Jane needs to gather the clues and find the killer before someone else from the agency gets hurt… Shy and handsome code-breaker Arthur Cilento is bewildered by the arrival of the efficient Miss Treen and her cat Marmaduke.

Betrayed by the ruling families of Italy, Ezio Auditore embarks upon an epic quest for vengeance. To eradicate corruption and restore his family's honor, he will learn the art of the Assassins. Along the way, Ezio will call upon the wisdom of such great minds as Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavelli, knowing that survival is bound to the skills by which he must live.To his allies, he will become a force for change in his fight for freedom and justice.

It's London in 1876, and the whole city is abuzz with the enigmatic disappearance of a famous foreign pianist. Lenox has an eye on the matter - as a partner in a now-thriving detective agency, he's a natural choice to investigate. Just when he's tempted to turn his focus to it entirely, however, his grieving brother asks him to come down to Sussex, and Lenox leaves the metropolis behind for the quieter country life of his boyhood. Or so he thinks. In fact, something strange is afoot in Markethouse.

A road trip with Gabe and her friends leads Sylvia to discover more about her mother’s veiled past yet throws up several questions, too. The stack of unopened letters addressed to her family will hopefully provide answers. As she delves into the contents, a startling revelation emerges: the letters allude to a clandestine union between two magician families, hinting at the elusive identity of Sylvia’s father. Full of hope, she embarks on a quest to find the author of the letters.

When a set of bound manuscripts written on magician-made paper is brought to the Glass Library, Sylvia and the professor send the owner away. After all, the library collects books about magic, not containing it. But the murder of the bookbinder who bound them sees the books returned to the library, along with Gabe in his role as consultant for Scotland Yard. When his investigation uncovers a link to Sylvia’s past, they’re even more determined to find the murderer. But they’re not the only ones searching for answers.

On the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Paris, 1962, Devereaux and Nordstrom uncover Soviet plans to ship nuclear arms. But when nobody acts after sharing his findings, Devereaux becomes the target of an assassination attempt and soon realizes the plot extends far beyond Cuba - and himself. A thrilling and well-paced novel filled with Cold War intrigue, Topaz features two agents on a journey around the world to save NATO and themselves.

To find the one man who can fix the magic in Matt's watch, he and India are led to a convent where the nuns will do anything to keep their secrets private. Including murder? Matt and India must uncover the truth behind the disappearance of the mother superior and two babies given to her care many years ago. But sometimes, the truth is painful and its exposure can have deadly consequences.

London, 1988. Royal fever sweeps the nation as Britain falls in love with the ‘people’s princess’. Which means for Scotland Yard, the focus is on the elite Royalty Protection Command, and its commanding officer. Entrusted with protecting the most famous family on earth, they quite simply have to be the best. A weak link could spell disaster. Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick and his Scotland Yard squad are sent in to investigate the team. Maverick ex-undercover operative Ross Hogan is charged with a very sensitive—and unique—responsibility.

The members of the Royal Society for Natural History Appreciation have always felt they were built for greater things. Now, as they take a wrong turn, they stumble upon a secret of mythical proportions. To discover the truth, they need to go on a modern-day Voyage of Discovery and descend into London’s underworld of lost rivers, Tube tunnels, and secret passageways. But as a thick fog settles over London, and as the Royal Society digs deeper into London’s secrets, what they uncover could have disastrous consequences for Lady Caroline’s family, and even the Government.

In recent decades, ostensibly to combat the rising tide of criminality in Mumbai’s underworld, the Indian Police Service has carried out many hundreds of extrajudicial assassinations of suspects. Karan, an expert sharpshooter in an elite branch dispensed with dishing out this vigilante justice, has a difficult choice: Should he continue to blindly follow orders from his superiors, regardless of their moral standing, or take matters into his own hands and do what he believes to be right?

Eccentric Lady Jane Franklin makes an outlandish offer to adventurer Virginia Reeve: take a dozen women, trek into the Arctic, and find her husband's lost expedition. Four parties have failed to find him, and Lady Franklin wants a radical new approach: put the women in charge. A year later, Virginia stands trial for murder. Survivors of the expedition willing to publicly support her sit in the front row. There are only five. What happened out there on the ice?

From Shanghai to Wake Island, the Corps was America’s first line of defense as the winds of war exploded into the devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. This is the story of the men of the Marine Corps, their loves and loyalties, an elite fraternity united by courage and honor, as they steel themselves for battle, prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice....

December 1941. America teeters on the brink of war, and in Honolulu, Hawaii, police detective Joe McGrady is assigned to investigate a homicide that will change his life forever. The trail of murder he uncovers will lead him across the Pacific, far from home and the woman he loves; and though the U.S. doesn't know it yet, a Japanese fleet is already steaming toward Pearl Harbor. Spanning the entirety of World War II, Five Decembers is a beautiful, masterful, powerful novel that will live in your memory forever.