Historical Thrillers Mystery Fiction

In The Limehouse Text, Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn discover a pawn ticket among the effects of Barker's late assistant, leading them to London's Chinese district, Limehouse. There they retrieve an innocent-looking book that proves to be a rare and secret text stolen from a Nanking monastery, containing lethal martial arts techniques forbidden in the West.

Atticus Riot took a bullet to his head the day his partner was killed. Three years later, Riot returns to San Francisco to put his ghosts to rest, but the abduction of an heiress snags his attention. Two ransom demands are delivered, and the husband of the abducted Isobel Kingston is hiding the truth. The clock is ticking. Can Riot find Mrs. Kingston in time, or will she become one more regret among many?

. Mister Slaughter opens in the emerging metropolis of New York City in 1702, and proceeds to take both Matthew and the reader on an unforgettable journey of horror, violence, and personal discovery. The journey begins when Matthew, now an apprentice problem solver for the London-based Herrald Agency, accepts an unusual and hazardous commission. Together with his colleague, Hudson Greathouse, he agrees to escort the notorious mass murderer Tyranthus Slaughter from an asylum outside Philadelphia to the docks of New York.

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.

Edinburgh, 1911: When Maud McIntyre and her lady’s maid, Daisy, form a detective agency, they never dream their first case will take place at a glamorous house in the Scottish Highlands. But when the duchess of Duddingston, concerned that a notorious jewelry thief will target her lavish weekend party, employs Maud to go undercover as a guest to find the culprit, the agency has its first case to solve....

The divine Phryne Fisher returns in the 15th seductive installment in the classic Phryne Fisher whodunnit series. This one includes shipboard romances, champagne cocktails, erotic photographers, jealous husbands, mickey finns, blackmail, and attempted murder.

The latest occurrence to disturb the peace in the quaint English village of Walmsley Parva hits rather too close to home - in fact, the prime suspect has taken up residence in Edwina's potting shed. Her elderly gardener Simpkins has been secretly sleeping there after a row with his disreputable brother-in-law and housemate, Hector Lomax. When Hector is found murdered, Constable Gibbs comes looking for Simpkins, last seen arguing with Hector the night before. Based on the sad state of her garden, Edwina has grave doubts that shiftless Simpkins could muster the effort to murder anyone.

England, 1882. Evelyn is bored with society and its expectations. So when her beloved sister, Rose, mysteriously vanishes, she ignores her parents and travels to London to find her, accompanied by the dashing Mr. Kent. But they're not the only ones looking for Rose. The reclusive young gentleman Sebastian Braddock is also searching for her, claiming that both sisters have special healing powers. Evelyn is convinced that Sebastian must be mad, until she discovers that his strange tales of extraordinary people are true.

When Senator Prescott Bush demands the mummified head of Pancho Villa for Yale's Skull & Bones Society's trophy case, a pulp writer named Lassiter winds up holding the bag. Craig McDonald is an award-winning journalist whose fiction has graced numerous anthologies of crime noir. Set in 1957, Head Games is a quirky, action-packed caper hailed as a "fun, deft debut" (Publishers Weekly).

From the authors of the best-selling series "Cherringham". It's Midsummer in Mydworth - and celebrated medium Bellamy Smythe is in town with his lucrative supernatural show, claiming he can contact the departed. Still deep in mourning from the loss of her father in the Great War, spinster Alice Wetherby is desperate to make contact with 'The Other Side' and Smythe is happy to oblige - even though Alice is quite broke. Suspecting that Alice is being played, Harry and Kat investigate.

At the end of her first unsuccessful season out in society, Lady Georgiana has all but given up on attracting a suitable man - until she receives an invitation to a masked Halloween ball at Broxley Manor. Georgie is uncertain why she was invited, until she learns that the royal family intends to marry her off to a foreign prince, one reputed to be mad.

Three murder mysteries. One diarist. Two brilliant but unlikely sleuths. Step into the dark heart of Restoration England with celebrated diarist, Samuel Pepys, and his loyal inquisitors, Abigail Harcourt and Jacob Standish, as they unravel deadly plotting behind respectable façades.

The unimaginable has happened: the world has been plunged into all-out nuclear war. Sailing near the Arctic Circle, the USS Nathan James is relatively unscathed, but the future is grim and Captain Thomas is facing mutiny from the tattered remnants of his crew. With civilization in ruins, he urges those that remain - 152 men and 26 women - to pull together in search of land. Once they reach safety, however, the men and women on board realize that they are the earth's last remaining survivors.

Read by actress Jessie Buckley (Hamnet, Wicked Little Letters) and featuring a foreword read by Harry Whittaker. This audiobook also includes a song composed and performed for this edition. Falling in love could be the biggest risk of all . . . When Sorcha O’Donovan encounters struggling...

New York City, 1972: A dabbler in mathematics and chess, Catherine Velis is also a computer expert for a Big Eight accounting firm. Before heading off to a new assignment in Algeria, Cat has her palm read by a fortune-teller. The woman warns Cat of danger. Then an antiques dealer approaches Cat with a mysterious offer: He has an anonymous client who is trying to collect the pieces of an ancient chess service, purported to be in Algeria. If Cat can bring the pieces back, there will be a generous reward.

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.

Are curses real? After a toymaker magician gives a lecture at a collector’s club soiree, an important spell is stolen and a man is found strangled. The investigation into his murder leads India and Matt to the colorful and dangerous world of the Romany gypsy where curses are used as weapons against their enemies. But nobody seems to know if curses are real or not. As Matt and India close in on the killer, old foes bring trouble into their lives. With the threat of exposure hanging over London’s magicians, disaster is never far away.

1899, South Africa: As the Boer War rages, Captain Ingo Finch of the Royal Army Medical Corps pieces together casualties at the front. Later, recovering in Cape Town, he is woken by local police. A British officer has been murdered, and an RAMC signature is required for the post-mortem. Shocked by the identity of the victim, the bizarre nature of the crime and what appears a too-convenient resolution, Finch turns detective. He is soon thrust into a perilous maze of espionage and murder.

On a snowy day in December 1946, Lane Winslow - a former British intelligence agent who’s escaped to the rural Canadian community of King’s Cove in pursuit of a tranquil life - is introduced to the local hot springs. While there, she overhears nearby patrons speaking Russian. When one of those patrons is found dead in the change room, Lane’s linguistic and intelligence experience is of immeasurable value to the local police force in solving the murder.

Samuel Charles Aubrey St. Aldwyn, Duke of Gravenhurst, is a radical rogue and champion of unpopular causes. No one would dream that he is also the author of a bestselling series of dark historical novels, a writer accused of corrupting the morals of the public, and a master seducer who counts among his passionate fans wellborn Miss Lily Boscastle. But Lily is no stranger to disrepute....