Showing titles in Historical

A startling panorama of Los Angeles in the '50s. New Year's Eve as 1949 turns to 1950, Los Angeles: The City of Angels has becomes the city of the Angel of Death. Communist witch hunts and insanely violent killings are terrorising the community. Three men are plunged into a maelstrom of violence and deceit when their lives become inextricably linked as each one confronts his own personal darkness.

In the latest installment of this funny, charming and quirky series - longlisted for the acclaimed CWA Historical Dagger - our trio of redoubtable detectives are faced with the arrival in town of an escaped criminal with an unlikely penchant for boiling the heads of policemen... It's September...

Lottie Sprigg and her employer, Mrs. Moore, are guests at Vienna's opulent Schönbrunn Palace. But their visit goes awry when the corpse of a renowned psychoanalyst is found in the grounds. There's a handful of suspects and-tragically for Mrs. Moore—one of them is her beloved Prince Manfred.

As their mother Milly lies dying, the four Highdown Hall sisters gather at her bedside. For months, the youngest daughter, Zoe, has cared for Milly in the family home. The older sisters all have homes of their own, so Zoe will inherit the crumbling manor house and continue their mother’s legacy.

When Adeline Bertrand-Verdon, the haughty, conniving president of the Proust Association, is murdered, Inspector Jean-Pierre Foucheroux is called on to lead the investigation. Soon Inspector Foucheroux is overwhelmed by a seemingly endless list of suspects: from her assistant to her colleagues, her fiancé to her lover, almost everyone Adeline knew had motive to kill her.

Manhattan, 1850. Born out of wedlock to a wealthy socialite and a nameless immigrant, Cora Lee can mingle with the rich just as easily as she can slip unnoticed into the slums and graveyards of the city. As the only female resurrectionist in New York, she’s carved out a niche procuring bodies afflicted with the strangest of anomalies. Anatomists will pay exorbitant sums for such specimens—dissecting and displaying them for the eager public. Cora’s specialty is not only profitable, it’s a means to keep a finger on the pulse of those searching for her. She’s the girl born with two hearts....

Onetime adventurer and now amateur sleuth Lady Eleanor Swift is attending the annual royal regatta with her new pal Tipsy Fitzroy. Tipsy has Eleanor trussed up like a debutante in a new dress, determined to turn her into a proper society lady. Even Eleanor’s favorite companion, Gladstone the bulldog, has a new outfit for the occasion. But the sparkling prize-giving ceremony is interrupted when the devilishly handsome host gulps his glass of champagne on stage and collapses to the floor. The victim is none other than the king’s cousin, Lord Xander Taylor-Howard.

Christmas Eve, 1176. Brother Maurice, monk of Fairmore Abbey, awaits the night prayer bell. But there is only silence. Cursing his fellow brother Cuthbert’s idleness, he seeks him out—and in the darkness, finds him brutally murdered. Summoned from London to the isolated monastery on the Yorkshire Moors, Aelred Barling, clerk to the King’s justices, and his messenger Hugo Stanton, set about investigating the horrific crime. They quickly discover that this is far from a quiet monastic house.

This adventure transports Amelia Peabody and her husband Emerson to Amarna, the rustic desert site where the two archaeologists first met, beginning the 13-year association that would take them from mayhem to murder in the Egyptian outback.

Bodies from the Library brings into the daylight the forgotten, the lost and the unknown, and the 2023 volume is another indispensable collection for crime fans. The sixth volume of Bodies from the Library includes the usual eclectic mix of pre- and post-war stories by classic crime and thriller...

Benedict Cumberbatch plays the young, feisty, devastatingly acute Horace Rumpole in this collection of cracking cases, also starring Timothy West as the older Rumpole. Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders: It is the '50s, and two war heroes have been shot dead. Defending the suspect is deemed hopeless, so the case is handed to a novice. But the novice's superiors didn't count on the tenacity and wit of the young and hungry Horace Rumpole.

In the high summer of AD 77, Marcus Didius Falco is beset by personal problems. Newly bereaved and facing unexpected upheavals, it is a relief for him to consider someone else’s misfortunes. A middle-aged couple who supplied statues to his father, Geminus, have disappeared. They had a feud with a bunch of notorious freedmen, the Claudii, who live rough in the pestilential Pontine Marshes, terrorising the neighbourhood.

December 1864. As a cold winter wind scours the Worcestershire countryside, an excursion train comes through a tunnel in the Malvern Hills, only to be confronted by a blockage on the line ahead. The driver manages to slow the train down so that the impact is minimised, but the passengers are alarmed. The first person to alight is Cyril Hubbleday, the man in charge of the excursion. He walks to the front of the locomotive—and, as he is talking to the driver, fireman and guard, he is shot dead by a sniper.

It would seem that even a pretend engagement cannot keep Lady Rose Summer from trouble. Bored with endless parties, teas and balls, she befriends Dolly Tremaine, a beautiful young girl newly arrived from the country and overwhelmed by the demands of the Season. Their friendship is cut tragically...

Istanbul 1838. Lefevre, a French archaeologist, has arrived in Istanbul determined to uncover a lost Byzantine treasure. Yashim is hired to investigate him, but when the man turns up dead, there is only one suspect: Yashim himself. Once again, the investigator finds himself in a race against time to uncover the startling truth behind a shadowy secret society dedicated to the revival of the Byzantine Empire, caught in a deadly game deep beneath the city streets, a place where the stakes are high—and betrayal is death...

Kendrick Wroe is found dead in the frozen Shill Brook. Most suspect he has been poaching Lord Gilbert’s fish, though Sir Hugh finds reason to believe this may not be so … Then one of Kendrick’s friends is slain; another seems to be in mortal peril, and in an apparent attempt to throw Hugh off the scent, his comely daughter Bessie is abducted. As the town drops all to find her, the tension steadily increases

One murder mystery movie. Three Dahlias. And a whole cast of suspects... Ex child star Posy Starling is finally filming her dream role - Dahlia Lively in The Lady Detective movie. But things take a nightmare turn when a prop weapon is replaced with the real thing - with almost fatal consequences...

Super sleuth Sister Fidelma returns in SMOKE IN THE WIND, the eleventh perplexing historical mystery by Peter Tremayne, acclaimed author of SMOKE IN THE WIND, OUR LADY OF DARKNESS and many more. Sister Fidelma and her companion Brother Eadulf are on their way to visit the new Archbishop of...

A chance encounter with Autumn Moon, the most powerful courtesan on Paradise Island, leads magistrate Judge Dee to investigate the murder of a man who spent his last week alive with the infamous prostitute. When the lady herself is murdered, the mystery deepens, leading Dee through a tangled history of passion and betrayal.

Listeners have long wondered what befell the Emerson clan during the years before the Great War. Now, at last, the silence is broken, and the truth revealed of a perilous journey to a secret and mysterious place hidden deep in the heart of the unforgiving desert.