Showing titles in Historical

Oxford, 1583. Giordano Bruno, a radical thinker fleeing the Inquisition, is sent undercover to Oxford to expose a Catholic conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth. But he has his own secret mission at the University, which must remain hidden at all costs. When a series of hideous murders are committed, Bruno is compelled to investigate. What he finds makes it brutally clear that the Tudor throne itself is at stake....

The year is 1920: Flying in the face of convention, legendary American adventuress Beryl Helliwell never fails to surprise and shock. The last thing her adoring public would expect is that she craves some peace and quiet. The humdrum hamlet of Walmsley Parva in the English countryside seems just the ticket. And, honestly, until America comes to its senses and repeals Prohibition, Beryl has no intention of returning stateside and subjecting herself to bathtub gin.

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.

It's March 1934, and Josephine Tey is travelling from Scotland to London to celebrate what should be the triumphant final week of her celebrated play, Richard of Bordeaux. However, a seemingly senseless murder puts her reputation, and even her life, under threat.

Recently, there had been some strange goings on at Styles St Mary. Evelyn, constant companion to old Mrs Inglethorp, had stormed out of the house muttering something about "a lot of sharks". And with her, something indefinable had gone from the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt security; now the air seemed rife with suspicion and impending evil.

When famed psychic Alicia Lysander is brutally attacked after leaving a seance at the home of an earl, Jason Redmond and Daniel Haze must retrace her movements to determine who might have had a motive to want Alicia dead. As they delve into the private life of the woman who had not only become a friend but had also helped Daniel to rescue his abducted daughter, they uncover buried secrets, bitter rivalries, and unexpected betrayals.

October 1912. The inhabitants of Littleton Cotterell emerge from their homes after a week of torrential storms to the gruesome news that one of Sid Hyde’s prized sheep has been mauled to death. As rumours abound of a vicious beast stalking the Gloucestershire countryside in search of prey, Lady Hardcastle and her fearless lady’s maid, Florence Armstrong, set out to find what is surely a rational explanation. Then Hyde himself is brutally killed in a similar attack, and the villagers go from curious to terrified.

July 1346. The Hundred Years' War has begun, and King Edward and his lords are on the march through France. But this war belongs to the men on the ground. Swept up in the bloody chaos, a tight-knit company from Essex must stay alive long enough to see their home again. With sword, mace and longbow, the Essex Dogs will fight, from the landing beaches of Normandy to the bloodsoaked field of Crécy.

Cleo’s holiday with her family to the seaside resort town of Brighton is everything she hoped it would be…until she receives a blackmail note. The blackmailer demands Cleo help her or a story revealing Cleo’s investigating will appear in the newspaper. With her uncle warning her to keep her detecting activities private, Cleo agrees to meet the blackmailer when they return to London. But when the woman is seen getting on the train but not off, Cleo grows concerned.

As the inferno of the Great Fire devours London in 1666, another firestorm rages in the tranquil village of Brampton, where Pepys’s sister, Paulina, stands accused of witchcraft. Pepys summons his inquisitors, Abigail Harcourt and Jacob Standish, plunging them into the heart of the witch-hunt. Can Abigail, Pepys’s astute housemaid, and Jacob, his awkward yet eager protégé, unravel a web of whispers, gossip and lies to clear Paulina’s name?

December 1918: There is much to celebrate for 19-year-old Phoebe Renshaw and her three siblings at their beloved family estate of Foxwood Hall. The war is finally over; eldest daughter Julia’s engagement to the Marquis of Allerton appears imminent; and all have gathered to enjoy peace on earth, good will toward men. But the peace is shattered on Boxing Day, when the Marquis goes missing and macabre evidence of foul play turns up in gift boxes given to lady’s maid Eva Huntford and a handful of others.

The first in an exciting historical mystery series set in the home of Agatha Christie. Tucked away among Devon's rolling green hills, Mallowan Hall combines the best of English tradition with the modern conveniences of 1930. Housekeeper Phyllida Bright, as efficient as she is personable, manages the large household with an iron fist in her very elegant glove. In one respect, however, Mallowan Hall stands far apart from other picturesque country houses....

Sherlock Holmes is dead. Days after Holmes and his arch-enemy Moriarty fall to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls, Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York. The death of Moriarty has created a poisonous vacuum which has been swiftly filled by a fiendish new criminal mastermind who has risen to take his place.

As Sylvia and Miles prepare for their wedding day, tragedy threatens. With the life of a member of the wedding party in danger, can Sylvia catch a murderer and get to the bottom of one final mystery?

It is 1890, and in the days before Christmas, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are visited at Baker Street by a new client. Eve Allerthorpe, eldest daughter of a grand but somewhat eccentric Yorkshire-based dynasty, is greatly distressed, as she believes she is being haunted by a demonic Christmas spirit. Her late mother told her terrifying tales of the sinister Black Thurrick, and Eve is sure that she has seen the creature from her bedroom window. What is more, she has begun to receive mysterious parcels of birch twigs, the Black Thurrick’s calling card.

Notting Hill, London. Lou Parker's famous mother walks out of their pink front door and doesn't return home by midnight, or the midnight after... Looking after her little brother, trying to piece together where their mother might be, Lou ventures into a different world - far from the fancy terraces - filled with ramshackle antique shops, shadowy figures. A place where time seems to have stopped. And Lou must protect her brother. At all costs. Twenty-one years - 7665 midnights - later. The new owner of a Notting Hill house starts excavating a basement, oblivious to what might lie beneath.

December 1940. With the Luftwaffe pounding the city nightly, Londoners seek refuge in underground stations. Aldwych has been taken out of service to provide shelter for the British Museum's priceless Elgin Marbles, as well as civilians escaping the bombing. When the body of a young man is discovered on the tracks, wearing evening dress but barefoot, Detective Chief Inspector Coburg and Sergeant Lampson are on the case. Before long, more bodies are discovered, and Coburg's wife Rosa becomes a target for the brutal killer.

Frances Wynn, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, enjoys more freedom as a widow than she did as a wife. After an obligatory year spent mourning her philandering husband, Reggie, she puts aside her drab black gowns, leaving the countryside and her money-grubbing in-laws behind. With her young daughter in tow, Frances rents a home in Belgravia and prepares to welcome her sister, Lily, arriving from New York - for her first London season. But no sooner has Frances begun her new life than the ghosts of her old one make an unwelcome appearance....

It is 1864 when Lizzie Martin takes up the post of companion to a wealthy widow who is also a slum landlord. Lizzie is intrigued to learn that her predecessor disappeared, supposedly having run off with an unknown man. But when the girl's body is found in the rubble of one of the recently demolished slums around the prestigious new railway station at St Pancras, Lizzie begins to wonder exactly what has been going on.

England, 1351. The Pestilence has ravaged the land. Villages lie abandoned but for crows and corpses. Highways are patrolled by marauders and murderers. In these dark and dangerous times, the wise keep to themselves. But Gerard Fox cannot afford to be wise. The young knight has been robbed of his ancestral home, his family name tarnished. To regain his lands and reputation, he sets forth to petition the one man who can restore them. Fate places Fox on the wrong road at the wrong time as he hurtles towards a chance encounter.

The Earl of St. Merryn needs a woman. His intentions are purely practical - he simply wants someone sensible and suitably lovely to pose as his betrothed for a few weeks among polite society. He has his own agenda to pursue, and a false fiancée will keep the husband-hunters at bay while he goes about his business. The simplest solution is to hire a paid companion. Finding the right candidate proves more of a challenge than he expected.

It’s just before Christmas, 1953. Grasby and Juggers are investigating a puzzling murder in the remote village of Uthley’s Bay. A fisherman has been found dead on the beach, with a stocking wound tight round his throat. Hundreds of pairs of stockings, in neat cellophane bags, soon wash up on the shore. A blizzard cuts off Grasby and Juggers from help, and the local innkeeper is murdered. Any remaining Christmas cheer goes up in smoke as the villagers refuse to talk, leaving the two detectives chasing false leads in the snow.

Mr. Stamford meets Sherlock Holmes while studying at St. Bartholomew's Medical College in London. With his intense stare and unorthodox methods of doing things, Holmes has already gained a reputation as an eccentric but brilliant man. When suspected intruders are sighted at the British Museum, Holmes is called upon to give his opinion of what happened. But before he can come to any conclusions, something horrifying happens—one of the great treasures of the world, the priceless Rosetta Stone, is stolen from the museum.

The options for the penniless daughter of a deceased earl are few indeed in Regency England. So, following the suspicious death of her father, the Earl of Morton, and the discovery that she and her much younger sister have been left without income or home, Lady Caroline takes a post as a lady's companion to the wealthy widow Frogerton. Just as Caroline is getting accustomed to her new position, her aunt, Lady Eleanor Greenwood, invites her and her employer to a house party in the countryside to celebrate her youngest daughter's birthday. But all is not well at the Greenwood estate.

This collection of recordings about Brother Cadfael—a Benedictine monk and amateur sleuth in the 12th century—are performed here by the ideal actor. Sir Derek Jacobi, who portrayed Cadfael in several television adaptations, captivates listeners with his renderings of Monk's Hood, Saint Peter's Fair, The Heretic's Apprentice, The Potter's Field, The Summer of the Danes, and Brother Cadfael's Penance.

Spring, 1543. King Henry VIII is wooing Lady Catherine Parr, whom he wants for his sixth wife. Archbishop Cranmer and the embattled Protestant faction at court are watching keenly, for Lady Catherine is known to have reformist sympathies. Matthew Shardlake, meanwhile, is working on the case of a teenage boy who has been placed in the Bedlam insane asylum, before his terrifying religious mania leads to him being burned as a heretic.

Amelia Peabody inherited two things from her father: a considerable fortune and an unbendable will. The first allowed her to indulge in her life's passion. Without the second, the mummy's curse would have made corpses of them all.

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius. Warlock Holmes is an idiot. A font of arcane power, certainly. But he's brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn't deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of 1,000 demons and his stalwart companion. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety and save him from a gruesome death every now and again.

Full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of the first five Falco novels by Lindsey Davis, starring Anton Lesser as Marcus Didius Falco.

Forensic pathologist Richard Pryor uses his 'golden handshake' to set up in private practice with scientist Angela Bray. A friendly coroner gives them a start, and when two women both claim that human remains found near a reservoir are their relatives, the dilemma is given to them to investigate. Set in 1950’s post-war Britain, this thrilling new series is set during the emergence of forensic science.