Showing titles in Historical

Spanning events over thirty years, Volume I of The Papers of Sherlock Holmes relates narratives of Holmes and Watson's days in Baker Street, as well as particulars of Holmes's supposed retirement. Follow along as The Master and his Boswell travel from the streets of London to the Kent countryside, to Oxford and Sussex. Written in traditional canonical style, these stories provide fresh details of Holmes's world. Join us as we climb the seventeen steps to the Baker Street sitting room, where Holmes and Watson prepare to begin their next adventure. The game is afoot!

The year 1940: Her mother just killed in a blackout accident, and her rector father and brother MIA in France, Wilhelmina Harkness finds herself homeless, penniless, and the recipient of an unwanted marriage proposal for “propriety’s sake”. Instead of being married off, she leaves small village life behind, reinvents herself as “Billie”, and accepts her aunt’s invitation to live with her in Kingston-Upon-Hull...a coastal industrial town about to be bombed relentlessly by the Germans.

Rowland Sinclair is an artist and a gentleman. In Australia's 1930s, the Sinclair name is respectable and influential, yet Rowland has a talent for scandal. He relies on the Sinclair fortune to indulge his artistic passions and friends: a poet, a painter and a brazen sculptress. Mounting tensions fuelled by the Great Depression take Australia to the brink of revolution, but Rowland Sinclair is indifferent to the politics...until a brutal murder exposes an extraordinary and treasonous conspiracy.

It is 1946, and war-weary young ex-intelligence officer Lane Winslow leaves London to look for a fresh start. When she finds herself happily settled into a sleepy hamlet in the interior of British Columbia surrounded by a suitably eclectic cast of small-town characters, she feels like she may finally be able to put her past to rest. But then a body is discovered, the victim of murder, and although she works alongside the town's Inspectors Darling and Ames to discover who might have possibly have motivation to kill, she unknowingly casts doubt on herself.

Dallas, November 2, 1963. Wayne Tedrow, Jr., has arrived to kill a man. The fee is $6,000. He finds himself instead in the middle of a cover-up following JFK’s assassination. There follows a hellish five-year ride through the sordid underbelly of public policy via Las Vegas, Howard Hughes, Vietnam, CIA dope dealing, Cuba, sleazy showbiz, racism and the Klan. This is the 1960s under Ellroy’s blistering lens, the icons of the era mingled with cops, killers, hoods and provocateurs.

The audience was merry indeed when a third devilish imp bounded onstage to join the two that had been written into the script. But backstage all was uproar. The third demon seemed too much like the real thing. Even Nicholas Bracewell, the company mainstay, was shaken when, next time the play was given, only one devil appeared. The second, poor fellow, was now only a little red heap backstage. Murdered.

Familie Rath steuert auf ein dramatisches Ende zu: Gereon hat nach der Rückkehr aus den USA ein Versteck in Rhöndorf bei Bonn bezogen und schlägt sich nach Berlin durch, um Charly beizustehen. Sie muss Hannah Singer aus den Wittenauer Heilstätten befreien und Fritze verteidigen, der unter Mordverdacht gerät. Der Judenhass wächst und mit der Reichsprgromnacht kulminiert eine Entwicklung, die Charly vorhergesehen und Gereon lange geleugnet hat.

Accompanied by her loyal maid and friend, Cecily Nugent, they arrive at Selfridges giggling with excitement, but unknown to them, their afternoon of delights was to take a very different turn. Yet again, Camille and Cecily are called upon to utilize their sleuthing skills to find a murderer.

Believers in the theory of nominalism have set some Cambridge colleges at the throats of those who believe them to be heretics, and Michael, the senior proctor, has his work cut out to keep the peace. When a nominalist is murdered during a riot, Michael is certain he will easily find the killer amongst the Dominicans, but before he can get any sense out of them his junior proctor, Walcote, is found hanged, and he discovers that his trusted ally had arranged secret meetings at the St Ragelund Convent....

October 1924. After their magical wedding, Kitty Worthington and her husband, Inspector Robert Crawford Sinclair, head to Paris for their honeymoon. Art museums, haute couture, French cuisine. Wondrous nights. It’s everything Kitty has always dreamed of and more. But then a body drops putting a damper on things. At least this time, it’s a matter for the French police. There’s no need for Kitty and Robert to get involved. Things change, however, when a dear friend becomes the chief suspect, and she begs Kitty for help. Unable to walk away, she and Robert agree to investigate.

1935. As Europe prepares itself for a calamitous war, six homicidal lunatics - the so-called 'Devil's Six' - are confined in a remote castle asylum in rural Czechoslovakia. Each patient has their own dark story to tell, and Dr Viktor Kosárek, a young psychiatrist using revolutionary techniques, is tasked with unlocking their murderous secrets. At the same time, a terrifying killer known as 'Leather Apron' is butchering victims across Prague. Successfully eluding capture, it would seem his depraved crimes are committed by the devil himself.

The fourth chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew continues the adventures of the 14th-century Cambridge physician when he is called to attend to two deaths from some poisoned wine. The opening of a new and very well-endowed college has created petty infighting amongst the academics as new appointments are made. The winter and spring have been appallingly wet, there is a fever outbreak amongst the poorer townspeople and the country is not yet fully recovered from the aftermath of the plague.

Blackstone and the Rendezvous with Death is an expertly plotted Victorian mystery that will keep listeners guessing to the last minute. The body of a young man fished out of the Thames is of little interest to Londoners caught up in the excitement of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Yet to Inspector Sam Blackstone, the case is as puzzling as any he has ever come across. Why should a corpse dressed in the rags of a commoner have the face of a gentleman? And if this man does belong to noble stock, why has no one come forward to claim the body?

Policeman Nick Rhea has been posted to the country with his wife, Mary, and their three small children. They move into the police house, high on a ridge overlooking the moors. It sits on the edge of the village of Aidensfield - 'probably the most beautiful site in the country'. In the beautiful North Yorkshire countryside of the 1960s, Constable Nick's roles are as varied as the eccentric villagers. He handles every encounter with his characteristic humour, humanity and professionalism.

AD 173. The Danube lies frozen. On its banks gather the clans of Sarmatia, their riders winter starved by sickly herds and blighted crops. Petty feuds cast aside and their disparate numbers united in the face of a great enemy. For across the frozen waters stands the mighty Roman Empire, and its Legion marches ever closer.

1929: Miss Clara Vale is a woman ahead of her time. Rather than attending Oxford to bag an eligible Duke (as her mother, Lady Vale, so desperately hoped), she threw herself into a degree in chemistry, with aspirations to become a scientist in her own right. But the world isn't ready for Clara. Unable to land a job in science because she's a woman, she is stuck behind the desk at a dingy London library. Until her estranged Uncle dies suddenly, leaving her his private detective agency, and laboratory, in his will.

Summer 1911. A scorching heatwave engulfs the quiet town of Littleton Cotterell and brings about an unusually early harvest. The villagers are thrilled, but events quickly turn sour when one of them turns up dead in an apple orchard, stabbed through the heart. Amateur sleuth Lady Hardcastle and her trusty lady’s maid, Flo, suddenly have a juicy case on their hands. Might the mysterious stranger they recently met in the village be to blame?

2 CHILDREN FOR SALE. In 1931, near Philadelphia, ambitious reporter Ellis Reed photographs the gut-wrenching sign posted beside a pair of siblings on a farmhouse porch. With the help of newspaper secretary Lily Palmer, Ellis writes an article to accompany the photo. Capturing the hardships of American families during the Great Depression, the feature story generates national attention and Ellis's career skyrockets. But the piece also leads to consequences more devastating than he and Lily ever imagined - and it will risk everything they value to unravel the mystery and set things right.

It's 1922, and Americans are drinking in speakeasies, dancing to jazz, stepping quickly to the tempo of modern times. Beside the Mississippi, the ancient city of Cahokia lives on—a teeming industrial metropolis, containing every race and creed. Among them, peace holds. Just about. But that body on the roof is about to spark off a week that will spill the city's secrets, and bring it, against a soundtrack of wailing clarinets and gunfire, either to destruction or rebirth.

London, 1667. In the court of Charles II, it's a dangerous time to be alive. A wrong move could lead to disgrace, exile or death. The discovery of a murder at Clarendon House, the palatial home of one of the highest courtiers in the land, could have catastrophic consequences. James Marwood, a traitor's son, is ordered to cover up the murder. But the dead man is Edward Alderley, the cousin of one of Marwood's acquaintances. Cat Lovett had every reason to want her cousin dead. Since his murder, she has vanished, and all the evidence points to her as the killer.