Victorian Suspense

Arlette Montrose Banfield angered many marriageable women when she snagged the handsome Lewis Banfield - but were they angry enough to poison her? Mrs. Jeffries doesn't mind getting her hands dirty to uncover the greed behind her murder.

Mirabelle Daws traveled all the way from Australia to Sheridan Square to visit her sister - only to die in the middle of a locked garden. All the residents of Sheridan Square have a key to the garden - but no one seemed to know that Mirabelle was planning to arrive. So the question facing Mrs. Jeffries is: Who wanted to make sure that Mirabelle's visit was very, very short-lived?

Fourth in the series of Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mysteries, Anne Perry's Resurrection Row explores the dark undercurrents that run through the lives of the idle rich in Victorian England. After a wonderful night at the theatre, Thomas and Charlotte find themselves confronted with a corpse in the driver's seat of a cab. Even more shocking, it is the body of a peer who had been decently buried the week before.

Ghostly images appear and float across the stage, objects levitate into the air, and a beautiful assistant disappears inside a glass box, then reappears inside a second glass box. All while the audience at the Crystal Palace, including amateur investigator Mikaela Forsythe, watch the performance. Is it real? Then, an evening with her friend, Theodora Templeton, attending the one-night performance by master illusionist Jean Luc Betard, takes a ghastly turn and plunges Mikaela headlong into murder when the illusionist's young assistant is found dead at the end of his newest stunt.

Hannah Cameron was not well-liked, but who stabbed her in the back? To almost everyone, the answer was clear: she was killed by a burglar. This case is given to Inspector Nivens, so Mrs. Jeffries and the rest of the household must tiptoe around this case to find the real killer.

Tabitha and Wolf, eager to embrace their new life as a married couple, have agreed not to take on any new investigations for the time being. Instead, they want to enjoy a peaceful time as newlyweds, uninterrupted by murder and intrigue. However, their plans are abruptly disrupted when a figure from a previous investigation, Christopher Kit Bailey, reappears and pleads for their help. Despite their best intentions, they find themselves unable to turn him away and refuse the case.

The eccentric Olive Kettering swore someone was trying to harm her. Too bad no one listened, though plenty wanted her dead. When Olive is shot and killed, Mrs. Jeffries has no problem speaking her mind to see justice served.

Legendary thriller writer David Morrell transports listeners to the fogbound streets of London, where a killer plots to assassinate Queen Victoria. The year is 1855. The Crimean War is raging. The incompetence of British commanders causes the fall of the English government. The empire teeters. Amid this crisis comes opium-eater Thomas De Quincey, one of the most notorious and brilliant personalities of Victorian England. Along with his irrepressible daughter, Emily, and their Scotland Yard companions, finds himself confronted by an adversary who threatens the heart of the nation.

Sebastian Moncrieff is a villain, a traitor, and a pirate who has recently inherited an earldom he never wanted. As a man who’s committed every sin imaginable, he knows his only chance at redemption is the one woman who ever reached through to his soul of ice. He’s kidnapped Veronica Latimer once before, and was enchanted by everything about her. This time, when he takes her, he’ll have to admit that she’s kept his heart captive since the moment they met. But can he convince her to forgive his past in order to claim a future?

Some years ago, Cyrus Barker matched wits with Sebastian Nightwine, an aristocrat and sociopath, and in exposing his evil, sent Nightwine fleeing to hide from justice somewhere in the far corners of the earth. The last thing Barker ever expected was to encounter Nightwine again - but the British government, believing they need Nightwine's help, has granted him immunity for his past crimes, and brought him back to London.

Ledbury, December 1892. Detective Inspector Ravenscroft looks forward to spending a quiet Christmas with his family. Then he receives news that an old friend stands accused of a brutal murder. Ravenscroft and Detective Sergeant Crabb travel to the old Worcestershire market town of Bromsgrove to investigate. But events soon take a deadly dramatic turn. As the bad weather closes in on the two detectives, Ravenscroft begins to wonder whether they will make it home for Christmas.

For Kathryn Ardleigh and her newly Lorded husband Charles, a seaside holiday in Rottingdean is a much-needed respite. Known as Smuggler's Village, the cozy hamlet sits upon a labyrinth of hundred-year-old tunnels through which contraband goods were once smuggled in and out of England.

While attending an exhibition at the Crystal Palace, young cook Kat Holloway is approached by a woman in distress. Lady Covington is a wealthy widow convinced that her entire family is trying to kill her. Kat feels compelled to help, so she escorts the lady home to discover whether she is delusional or in true danger. When it quickly becomes apparent that the threat is all too real, Kat promises aid.

Vera Sorokina loves reading the penny dreadfuls and immersing herself in tales of adventure, mystery, and romance. Her own days are filled with the often mundane work of running the book and print shop she owns with her father. The shop offers her the freedom and income to employ and protect the poverty-stricken Londoners she’s come to care about, and it gives her father something to do other than long for their hometown of St. Petersburg. She is grateful for the stability in their lives, but she often feels lonely.

Stacie - Lady Eustacia Cavanaugh - is adamant marriage is not for her. Wealthy and well-born, she needs for nothing, and with marriage off the table, to give her life purpose, she embarks on a plan to further the careers of emerging local musicians by introducing them to the ton via a series of musical evenings. Yet despite her noble status, Stacie requires a musical lure to tempt the haut ton to her events, and only one musician commands sufficient cachet - the reclusive and notoriously reluctant Marquess of Albury.

Kathryn Ardleigh is becoming accustomed to the high-society circles of her recently Lorded husband Charles Sheridan. And she has found a kindred spirit in Jennie Jerome Churchill, whose carefree lifestyle has made her a frequent topic in the tabloids. But there is a more serious scandal threatening Jennie—and the political future of her son Winston. She is being blackmailed by someone who has made a heinous accusation—someone who claims to have proof that Winston's father was none other than the notorious Jack the Ripper...

William Day should be an acclaimed Arctic explorer. But after a failed expedition, in which his remaining men only survived by eating their dead comrades, he returned in disgrace. Thirteen years later, his second-in-command, Jesse Stevens, has gone missing in the same frozen waters. Perhaps this is Day’s chance to restore his tarnished reputation by bringing Stevens­—the man who’s haunted his whole life—back home. But when the rescue mission becomes an uncanny journey into his past, Day must face up to the things he’s­ done.

Successful businessman Jeremy Marks wasn't highly regarded by any of the members of the West London Archery Club. Most of them considered him a buffoon and a bore. But everyone was stunned when the fellow was murdered during a lull in the club's annual archery competition. He'd been shot with arrows from a longbow during a raging thunderstorm. But those who knew Marks well understood that the unkempt "court jester" persona adopted by the late, unlamented man was as fake as the smile he wore.

Callander Square is the second of Anne Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mysteries. Full of well-drawn and convincing characters, Callander Square offers a finely crafted recreation of Victorian England. The bodies of two newborn babies have been found in a park in the fashionable London neighborhood of Callander Square.

Shortlisted for the British Book Awards, Book of the Year, 2007.
Shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards, 2006
A cold October night, 1854. In a dark passageway, an innocent man is stabbed to death. So begins the extraordinary story of Edward Glyver, book lover, scholar and murderer.