Historical Thrillers Mystery Fiction

An arranged marriage, 1484. Emeline knows she has no voice in her marriage, so she counts herself fortunate when her betrothed turns out to be a charming man with a heart of gold. But before the wedding, flames consume everything, and the murdered body of Emeline's fiancé is discovered. Sparks fly when Emeline finds herself marrying the younger brother.

Ian Dunross, the current tai-pan of the illustrious yet financially troubled Struan empire, is racing to undo the damage his predecessor left behind and to once again stand on stable ground. And he’ll do whatever it takes—including striking a hard-fought deal with an American millionaire. But his rival, Quillan Gornt, has other plans. Suddenly caught in a dubious plot involving Soviet spies, Hong Kong’s criminal underground, and the hostile takeover of his company, Dunross holds nothing back in the fight for the Noble House.

When the shah is thrown out of Iran, the nation's turmoil becomes world headlines. Caught in this shifting world of fanaticism, ambition, duplicity, and violent death are the foreign helicopter pilots who have been servicing the oil fields up and down the country. Their one objective is to make a bold, concerted escape to safety across the Gulf.

From the authors of the best-selling series CHERRINGHAM. When Sir Harry's Aunt Lavinia invites her friends from The Arts Club down to Mydworth Manor for a weekend of Bohemian fun, she's not expecting a prince to turn up too, eager to join in the frolics. But when a body turns up in the prince's bedroom, it's up to Harry and Kat to find the killer.

Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship. Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own.

Late summer, 1270. Although the Simon de Montfort rebellion is over, the smell of death still hangs over the land. In the small priory of Tyndal, the monks and nuns of the Order of Fontevraud long for a return to routine. Their hopes are dashed, however, when the young and inexperienced Eleanor of Wynethorpe is appointed their new prioress. Only a day after her arrival, a brutally murdered monk is found in the cloister gardens, and Brother Thomas, a young priest with a troubled past, arrives to bring her a more personal grief.

London, 1944. While the Luftwaffe makes its final assault on the already battered British capital, Londoners rush through the streets, seeking underground shelter in the midst of the city's blackout. When the panic subsides, other things begin to surface along with London's war-worn citizens. A severed arm is discovered by a group of children playing at an East End bomb site, and when Scotland Yard's Detective Sergeant Frederick Troy arrives at the scene, it becomes apparent that the dismembered body is not the work of a V-1 rocket.

There are few people Nero Wolfe respects, and Lon Cohen of the New York Gazette is one of them. So when Cohen asks for a favor, the famously brilliant - and notoriously lazy - detective is inclined to listen. According to Cohen, someone wants to kill the Gazette’s gossip columnist, Cameron Clay. Death threats are a regular hazard for Clay, who’s hurled insults and accusations at every boldfaced name in the five boroughs. But the latest threats have carried a more sinister tone.

From the authors of the best-selling series CHERRINGHAM. When heart-throb American tennis coach Todd Winters careens off the road in his speeding car one night and plunges in the river, it seems like a tragic accident. But Winters was a young man with many dangerous secrets, and Harry and Kat discover there's no shortage of people who wanted him out of the picture. Soon they discover clear evidence: the accident was no accident at all. And now Harry and Kat had best be careful too... even in the genteel world of the Mydworth Lawn Tennis Club, a desperate murderer could be ready to kill again.

Victorian adventuress and butterfly hunter Veronica Speedwell receives an invitation to visit the Curiosity Club, a ladies-only establishment for daring and intrepid women. There she meets the mysterious Lady Sundridge, who begs her to take on an impossible task - saving society art patron Miles Ramsforth from execution. Accused of the brutal murder of his artist mistress Artemisia, Ramsforth will face the hangman's noose in a week's time if Veronica cannot find the real killer. But Lady Sundridge is not all that she seems.

1940. With the Germans about to enter Paris, Claire Bouchard flees France for England. Two years later she is recruited by the Special Operations Executive and sent back into occupied France to work alongside the Resistance. Working undercover as a teacher in Brittany, Claire accidentally befriends the wife of the German Commandant of Rennes, and the blossoming friendship is about to become a dangerous mission. Claire begins a double life as a Gestapo Commandant’s mistress to retrieve information, but ghosts from her past make the deception more painful than she could have imagined.

Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffeehouse is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. She is terrified - but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done. Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a fashionable London Hotel have been murdered, and a cufflink has been placed in each one’s mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman?

It is 1940 and a tragedy sends Lou and her little brother, Oz, along with their invalid mother, from New York City to the rugged mountains of Southwest Virginia to live with their great-grandmother. The story is told with both heartbreaking elegance and large doses of touching humor as the lives of Lou and Oz are changed forever.

It is 1817 and Elizabeth Darcy is mistress of Pemberley, adored by her husband and splendidly happy. She does not know what adversity awaits her family: mistrust, scandal, tragedy, and a secret that must be kept at all costs. Almost 200 years later, Evie Martin does not even know that she is descended from the Darcys of Pemberley when their history disrupts her life. Who is Charlie Hayward, the charming, cynical private detective and why has he contrived to meet her? What are the elusive "Elizabeth Papers", and why did Elizabeth Darcy herself want them destroyed?

Molly Murphy always knew she'd end up in trouble, just as her mother predicted. So, when she commits murder in self-defense, she flees her cherished Ireland, under cover of a false identity, for the anonymous shores of late 19th-century America. When she arrives in New York and sees the welcoming promise of freedom in the Statue of Liberty, Molly begins to breathe easier. But when a man is murdered on Ellis Island, a man Molly was seen arguing with, she becomes a prime suspect in the crime.

Taita, the pharaoh's advisor and hero of Desert God and River God, once again finds himself caught up in a whirlpool of ruthless intrigue that threatens the very foundations of the beloved empire he has pledged his life to protect. Plunged into dangerous and deadly waters more treacherous than the Nile, he must use his intelligence, alchemy, and cunning to protect his pharaoh and keep safe all he loves.

Philippa Watson, a good-natured yet troubled 17-year-old, has just moved to Washington, DC. She’s lonely until she meets Judy Peabody, a brilliant and tempestuous classmate. The girls become unlikely friends and fashion themselves as intellectuals, drawing the notice of Christine Martins, their dazzling English teacher, who enthralls them with her passion for literature and her love of noirish detective fiction. When Philippa returns a novel Miss Martins has lent her, she interrupts a man grappling with her in the shadows.

Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old, they're frozen—or so their inside joke goes. Ali’s work seems like a safe desk job, but what her friends—and even her beloved son—don’t know is that her team has a secret: they can travel back in time to look for evidence. So far, Ali has only made short trips to the recent past, so she’s surprised when she’s asked to investigate a murder in 1850. The killing has been pinned on an aristocratic patron of the arts and antiquities, and member of a sinister group called The Collectors.

As the Vanderbilt Ball approaches, a series of unexplained earthquakes have New York City on edge. Miriam's attempts to understand their cause lands her in the place she least wants to be. Confronting her deepest fears may be the only way to find the missing Pembroke Girls and save her sister. But the question that haunts Miriam most is whether Gwen can still be saved.

A new year, 1917, is dawning, and the Great War that ravages the world shows no sign of abating. Answering the siren call of Egypt once more, Amelia Peabody and her family arrive at their home in Luxor to learn of a new royal tomb ransacked by thieves. Soon an even more disturbing outrage concerns the intrepid clan of archaeologists: the freshly and savagely slain corpse of a thief defiling the ancient burial site. Yet this is nothing compared with the lethal fate that threatens Ramses.