Showing titles in Historical

Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance.

At Black Rabbit Hall nothing much ever happens - time seems to move slower at this idyllic holiday home in Cornwall. Until the worst thing happens and for the Alton children time feels like it's stopped altogether. In the present day, Lorna Smith is searching for her perfect wedding venue and is inexplicably drawn to the now crumbling Black Rabbit Hall, unaware that her own history is locked up in those derelict walls....

Tragedy befalls the Carter family following an eventful visit from a Russian prince and a scandalous blackmail letter. The murder of Wally Carter generates a bewildering mystery - how does one shoot a man crossing a narrow bridge without being near the murder weapon when it is fired? The superlatively analytical Inspector Hemingway reveals his unnerving talent for solving a fiendish problem. 

England, 1586. Giordano Bruno returns to England to bring shocking new intelligence to Sir Francis Walsingham. A band of Catholic Englishmen are plotting to kill Queen Elizabeth and spring Mary Queen of Scots from prison to take the English throne in her place. Bruno is surprised to find that Walsingham is aware of the plot, led by the young, wealthy noble Anthony Babington and is allowing it to progress. His hope is that Mary will put her support in writing - and condemn herself to a traitor's death.

Only one woman can stop the world from descending into endless war, in the thrilling new series in the world of the Gas-Lit Empire The year is 2012. The nations of the world are bound together in an alliance of collective security, overseen by the International Patent Office, and its ruthless...

Greece, home of the ancient Olympic Games, is a favourite destination for Seven Sights Travel, a seedy company which provides escorted tours for wealthy travellers. When Marcus Didius Falco and Helena hear that a young girl and a newly-wed woman, both Roman visitors, have been murdered at Olympia, they both step in to investigate.

Dora Wildwood is escaping a most unsuitable marriage. She's on the first train to London, having smuggled herself out of the house at dead of night, like all the best books. She plans to go straight to her godmother Lady Dreda Uglow, the only woman she knows who seems to live life on her own terms, and ask to stay. Dora ducks into the London Library to hide, asking the quizzical but kind Ben Stark and the clever Miss Amani for help. And it is there, surrounded by books, where she should feel most safe, that Dora Wildwood most unfortunately stumbles across her first dead body.

It is the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. The days are short, the nights are for wild parties. A general has captured a famous enemy of Rome, and brings her home to adorn his Triumph as a ritual sacrifice. But the logistics go wrong.

'Baldacci is the master of American detective stories' – Jeffrey Archer, author of Nothing Ventured Private Investigator and WWII veteran, Aloysius Archer, returns to solve a new case in Hollywood in Dream Town, a riveting thriller from international number 1 bestselling author, David Baldacci...

Best-selling mystery author Elizabeth Peters has captured the hearts of thousands of readers with her spunky Victorian Egyptologist, Amelia Peabody Emerson. In Seeing a Large Cat, Amelia must ensnare a modern-day killer, a bogus spiritualist, and a predatory debutante in the awesome Valley of the Kings. Someone is sending ominous messages: "Stay away from tomb Twenty-A!" Intrigued, parasol-wielding Amelia won't rest until she finds the forbidden burial site.

1979. It is the winter of discontent, and reporter Allie Burns is chasing her first big scoop. There are few women in the newsroom, and she needs something explosive for the boys' club to take her seriously. Soon Allie and fellow journalist Danny Sullivan are exposing the criminal underbelly of respectable Scotland. They risk making powerful enemies - and Allie won't stop there.

Kate Ardleigh is everything the Victorian English gentlewoman is not - outspoken, free-thinking, American...and a writer of the frowned upon penny dreadfuls. Soon after her arrival in Essex, England, a body is unearthed in a nearby archeological dig - and Kate has the chance to not only research her latest story but to begin her first case with amateur detective Sir Charles Sheridan.

1924. Lady Eleanor Swift and her butler Clifford are touring the great, ancient sights of Egypt on a much-anticipated extended vacation. But when the pair arrive at the docks in Cairo expecting to board the luxurious paddle steamer advertised in their brochure, they are baffled by the crumbling old cruiser waiting for them. And things only go from bad to worse as death stalks the decks of the SS Cleopatra.

September, 1145. The body of a Templar knight is discovered in the Forest of Wyre on Worcestershire's northern border, and concealed upon his person is a bloodstained document that reveals the identity of a traitor. Undersherif Hugh Bradecote, Sergeant Catchpoll and Underserjeant Walkelin must discover who the dead man was and whether his death was personal, political or an outlaw killing.

Inspector Betty Church - one of the few female officers on the force - has arrived from London to fill a vacancy at Sackwater police station. But Betty isn't new here. This is the place she grew up. Time ticks slowly in Sackwater. Having solved the case of the missing buttons, Betty's called to the train station to investigate a missing bench. But though there's no bench, there is a body. A smartly dressed man, murdered in broad daylight, with two distinctive puncture wounds in his throat. While the locals gossip about the Suffolk Vampire, Betty Church readies herself to hunt a dangerous killer.

The follow-up to the best-selling Heresy sees the return of Giordano Bruno, religious exile and renegade monk…Autumn, 1583. As an astrological phenomenon heralds the dawn of a new age and Mary Stuart’s supporters scheme to usurp Elizabeth, a young maid is murdered, occult symbols carved into her flesh. Giordano Bruno is called on to use his cunning to infiltrate the plotters and find evidence against them. In fear for his life, Bruno discovers that the young woman’s murder could point to an even more sinister truth…

Summer 1924. On the eve of a glittering Society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again. Winter 1999. Grace Bradley, 98, one-time housemaid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet’s suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long consigned to the dark reaches of Grace’s mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge – something history has forgotten but Grace never could.

Murder's off the scale! Ginger Gold and her husband, Chief Inspector Basil Reed, enjoy a night out at the popular jazz club, the Cave of Harmony, run by the captivating Elsa Lanchester—a name well-known in London’s society pages in 1928. But after an evening of dancing and celebration, a band member plays a sour note and drops dead. What initially seems like a sudden, natural death soon turns sinister. A murderer is on the loose, and the Cave of Harmony is anything but harmonious.

London,1889: When a young labourer working on the construction of Tower Bridge is found fatally injured by Traitor's Gate, Scotland Yard turns to amateur detectives Emma Langley and Penny Green for help. Archie Mitchell survives long enough to reach hospital, but takes his secrets to the grave.

December 1899. After the death of her beloved grandmother, Cleopatra Fox moves into the luxury hotel owned by her estranged uncle in the hopes of putting hardship and loneliness behind her. But the poisoning of a guest on Christmas eve throws her new life, and the hotel, into chaos. Cleo quickly realizes no one can be trusted, not Scotland Yard and especially not the hotel’s charming assistant manager.