Showing titles in Historical

Sussex, November 1959. There’s a chill in the air at the Lewes bonfire celebration. Carnival floats fill the narrow streets, fireworks crackle overhead, and Flora and Jack feel the heat of the burning torches lining the streets. But when Trevor French, chief of the Grove Bonfire Society, tumbles from his parade float, they know something is afoot. Trevor didn’t just fall – and amidst the crowds, his killer slips away through the smoke-filled night.

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.

Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, will not do the bidding of Hell and Fury Hawes. It does not matter how difficult it is to find new murder mysteries to investigate, especially ones where the victim was stabbed with a chisel. She absolutely refuses to lift a finger to help him figure out who killed one of his associates.

In her best-selling Amelia Peabody mysteries, author Elizabeth Peters has created an award-winning mixture of vivid archeological detail, finely-tuned suspense, and witty romance. This, the 12th Amelia Peabody mystery, opens in 1914. As the tides of war rise, Egypt is threatened by attacks. Espionage abounds, pulling in several members of the Peabody Emerson household even as they embark on a new archeological season.

The Allies are desperate to stop neutral Turkey supplying vital materials to the Nazis - materials which could help them win the war. But then a British agent makes a fatal mistake and disappears in Istanbul. In England, detective-turned-spy Richard Prince - back from a clandestine mission in Nazi-occupied Europe - is hunting for his lost son. Before long he is drawn into a dangerous follow-up operation, posing as a journalist in Turkey. The mission soon goes wrong.

Charlie Matters' life has always been a fight for survival. Orphaned with no prospects, Charlie steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he can enlist in the battle against the Germans.

She's an unconventional lady who has traveled the world, practices the art of self-defense most excellently, and has an interesting tattoo in—ahem—a very unusual place. He's a former member of the Metropolitan Police, now a private investigator, who grew up on the poverty-ridden streets of Edinburgh and has worked the dangerous back alleys of London's notorious East End. A vicious murder brings them together in a race against time that takes them from the sordid back streets of London into the elite private clubs of the powerful and rich.

Ruth discovers a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore of her beach home. Within it lies a diary that expresses the hopes and dreams of a young girl. She suspects it might have arrived on a drift of debris from the 2011 tsunami. With every turn of the page, she is sucked deeper into an enchanting mystery. In a small cafe in Tokyo, 16-year-old Nao Yasutani is navigating the challenges thrown up by modern life. In the face of cyber-bullying, the mysteries of a 104-year-old Buddhist nun and great-grandmother, and the joy and heartbreak of family, Nao is trying to find her own place - and voice - through a diary.

It sounds idyllic: a leisurely drive through the sun-drenched landscape of Provence. But Charity's dream holiday turns into a nightmare when she becomes embroiled in a sinister plot to kidnap a young boy. She soon finds herself in a deadly pursuit and must uncover whom to trust...and whom to fall for.

It's not unusual for spies to have secrets, but Henry Hunter has more than most, and after he is stopped by British Intelligence at Croydon airport on the eve of the Second World War, he finds he has even more. In March 1941 in Berlin, haunted by a dark episode from his past, he makes a fateful decision resulting in a dramatic journey to the Swiss frontier, with a shocking outcome.

April 1928: Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher is visited in London by her young cousins. On the list of must-see sites is the Crystal Palace. Discovering that her children's nanny, Nanny Gilpin, has never seen the Palace, Daisy decides to make a day of it - bringing her cousins, her three-year-old twins, her step-daughter Belinda, the nurserymaid, and Nanny Gilpin. Yet this ordinary outing goes wrong when Mrs. Gilpin goes off to the ladies room and fails to return. When Daisy goes to look for her, she doesn't find her nanny but instead the body of another woman dressed in a nanny's uniform.

Swordsman Richard Hughes has arrived on the banks of the Grand Canal looking for a simpler life, only to be plunged—alongside Phillip de Chambray, a remarkable woman unable to show her true self—into the thick of the murkiest, most dangerous European politics, at a moment when someone is trying to destroy the opera, and Venice itself.

When Inspector Shanti de Silva moves with his English wife, Jane, to his new post in the sleepy hill town of Nuala, he anticipates a more restful life than police work in the big city entails. However an arrogant plantation owner with a lonely wife, a crusading lawyer, and a death in suspicious circumstances present him with a riddle that he will need all his experience to solve. Set on the exotic island of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) in the 1930s, Trouble in Nuala is an entertaining and absorbing mystery spiced with humor and a colorful cast of characters.

When a mysterious invitation arrives for Miss Phryne Fisher from an unknown Captain Herbert Spencer, Phryne's curiosity is excited. Spencer runs a retreat in Victoria's spa country for shell-shocked soldiers of the First World War. It's a cause after Phryne's own heart but what could Spencer want from her? Phryne and the faithful Dot view their spa sojourn as a short holiday but are quickly thrown in the midst of disturbing Highland gatherings, disappearing women, murder and the mystery of the Temperance Hotel.

September, 1940. The sun is shining, and in the midst of the good weather Londoners could be mistaken for forgetting their country was at war - until the familiar wail of the air-raid sirens heralds an enemy attack. The Blitz has started, and normal life has abruptly ended - but crime has not. That night a man's body is discovered in an unmarked van in the back streets of West Ham. When Detective Inspector John Jago is called to the scene, he recognises the victim: local justice of the peace Charles Villiers. The death looks suspicious, but then a German bomb obliterates all evidence.

How long can you pretend to be mad without going mad? Two English pilots are forced to find out when they are shot down behind enemy lines in 1944. The area is swarming with German troops, so, unable to escape, they ditch their clothing and personal belongings, pose as German soldiers, and board a train carrying wounded SS men home from the eastern front.

Edinburgh, 1869: Modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson is adjusting to her new life in Victorian Scotland. Her employers know she’s not housemaid Catriona Mitchell—even though Mallory is in Catriona’s body—and Mallory is now officially an undertaker’s assistant. Dr. Duncan Gray moonlights as a medical examiner, and their latest case hits close to home. Men are dropping dead from a powerful poison, and all signs point to the grieving widows… the latest of which is Gray’s oldest sister. Poison is said to be a woman’s weapon, though Mallory has to wonder if it’s as simple as that.

A onetime Crusader turned Benedictine monk, Brother Cadfael is a most unusual detective. Living a quiet life as a monastery herbalist, he spends his days ministering to his brothers using the medical skills he acquired in the Holy Lands—but his worldly knowledge and wide experience of human nature are frequently called upon when there is a murder to solve....

Rome, once mighty, lies in ruins. The city swarms with suffering and degradation, her citizens living in the shadow of the ruthless Borgia family. Only one man can free the people from the Borgia tyranny - Ezio Auditore, the master assassin.

Ezio's quest will test him to his limits. Cesare Borgia, a man more villainous and dangerous than his father, the Pope, will not rest until he has conquered Italy. And in such treacherous times, conspiracy is everywhere - even within the ranks of the Brotherhood itself.

An intriguing invitation from H. G. Wells brings Dr. Watson face to face with a man who claims to be a time traveler from ancient Rome. The 'time traveler' wants to change history and seeks Watson's help. Skeptical, Watson dismisses him, and he vanishes in a blinding flash of light. But when the light fades, Watson and Wells make a shocking discovery.