Amateur Sleuths Historical Crime Fiction

Just beyond the Gilded Age, in the mist-covered streets of New York, the deadly Spanish influenza ripples through the city. But with so many victims in her close circle, young socialite Allene questions if the flu is really to blame. All appear to have been poisoned - and every death was accompanied by a mysterious note.

A Riviera crime novel the way you want it to be! The newly married Kit Aston and Mary are back in their latest crime caper that takes you from a stag weekend in Scotland to the set of Alfred Hitchcock’s latest film and onto the gaming tables of Monte Carlo. When Kit and Mary join Agatha in Monte Carlo, they are shocked to discover that Prince Albert I has asked her to investigate unusual gambling activities in the casino. This becomes a murder investigation when Kit’s Uncle Alastair is accused of being a killer. The finger of blame points towards the mysterious Bluebeard Club. Can Kit ...

London's social season is in full swing, and Victorian aristocracy can't stop whispering about a certain gentleman who claims to be the direct descendant of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. But he's not the only topic of wagging tongues. Drawing rooms, boudoirs, and ballrooms are abuzz with the latest news of an audacious cat burglar who has been systematically stealing valuable items that once belonged to the ill-fated queen. Light gossip turns serious when the owner of one of the pilfered treasures is found murdered, and the mysterious thief develops a twisted obsession with Lady Emily Ashton.

As Paris rediscovers its joie de vivre, Tabitha Knight, recently arrived from Detroit for an extended stay with her French grandfather, is on her own journey of discovery. Thanks to her neighbor and friend Julia Child, another ex-pat who's fallen head over heels for Paris, Tabitha is learning how to cook for her Grandpere and Oncle Rafe and Tabitha's sojourn is proving thoroughly delightful. That is, until the cold December day they return to Julia's building and learn that a body has been found in the cellar.

Bubble, bubble, toil, and murder... When a woman is found dead near her village in Norfolk, the verdict is suicide. Not everyone agrees. Detective James Simpson is ordered to investigate and he brings Agatha Aston, Betty Simpson and Talleyrand the hound, with him. They stumble across a tale of murder that stretches back two centuries. Part occult story, part murder mystery - this creepy tale is steeped in witchcraft and strange rural festivals where everything is not as it seems. The second Agatha Aston murder mystery is full of laughs, twists and things that go bump in the night. Golden ...

In December 1893, Sherlock Holmes-adoring Londoners eagerly opened their Strand magazines-- anticipating the detective's next adventure-- only to find the unthinkable: his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, had killed their hero off. London spiraled into mourning -- crowds sported black armbands in grief -- and railed against Conan Doyle as his assassin.

England, 1936. On a clear autumn day, Kitty and her mischievous spaniel Bertie take a drive to a nearby village. After a long walk in the rolling country hills and lunch in a pretty tearoom, what could be nicer than to buy a couple of bottles of local cider for her husband—and partner-in-crime solving—Matt? Instead, she finds a body in the orchard… Kitty is shocked to discover Titus Blake dead, crushed by his own cider press.

When London’s finest jazz musicians, the Dizzy Heights, are booked to play the glitzy Midsummer Ball at a country house in Oxfordshire, they expect a weekend filled with flappers and toffs having a roaring good time. But the festivities at Bilverton House take a turn for the worse when the group are stranded by a summer storm. And when a member of the Bilverton family turns up dead in a locked room in an apparent suicide, Skins, Dunn and Ellie realize this is going to be a much tougher gig than they thought.

Inside the jar are several scrolls written by the Essenes 2,000 years earlier, before the Great Jewish Revolt, including one legendary scroll engraved on silver that speaks of what may be the great Lost Treasures of Solomon buried around Jerusalem—consistent with the predictions of the fabled Copper Scroll discovered in 1947 near the Dead Sea.

Dee has come to London to investigate the murder of a man he’d known during World War I when serving with the Chinese Labour Corps. No sooner has Dee interviewed the grieving widow than another dead body turns up. Then another. All stabbed to death with a butterfly sword. Will Dee and Lao be able to connect the threads of the murders—or are they next in line as victims?

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the tattered manuscript of Alan Conway's latest novel, she has little idea it will change her life. She's worked with the revered crime writer for years, and his detective, Atticus Pund, is renowned for solving crimes in the sleepy English villages of the 1950s. As Susan knows only too well, vintage crime sells handsomely. It's just a shame that it means dealing with an author like Alan Conway.... But Conway's latest tale of murder at Pye Hall is not quite what it seems.

When Hazel Nash was six years old, her father taught her: Mysteries need to be solved. He should know. Hazel's father is Jack Nash, the host of America's favorite conspiracy TV show, The House of Secrets. Even as a child, she loved hearing her dad's tall tales, especially the one about a leather book belonging to Benedict Arnold that was hidden in a corpse. Now, years later, Hazel wakes up in the hospital and remembers nothing, not even her own name. She's told she's been in a car accident that killed her father and injured her brother.

Father Jonah Barlow is dead. The respected Jesuit scholar of apocalyptic studies might have died from a fall in his apartment...or was he pushed? All that is known for sure is that the provocative manuscript he was working on—a book that promised to reveal the upcoming fulfillment of ancient and recent prophecies, including the shocking Third Secret of Fatima—is missing. Two female detectives take on the investigation as a possible homicide, turning to Vatican archivist Father Michael Dominic for his help, since Barlow sent the young priest the only other copy of the manuscript.

This captivating narrative follows Father Michael Dominic, the esteemed Prefect of the Vatican’s Secret Archives, as he uncovers a remarkable artifact lost to time—Leonardo da Vinci’s most ingenious invention, the Celestial Guardian. Initially heralded as a divine instrument capable of forecasting a catastrophic asteroid bound for Earth, Father Dominic's discovery soon unravels a more ominous reality: the Guardian’s ability to not just predict, but alter celestial events.

While watching the opera at La Fenice, Nancy Tremayne is shocked to see a woman fall to her death. But how did this tragedy occur? Newlywed Nancy is accompanying her art professor husband, Leo, on a work trip. As she explores Italy’s beautiful city on the water, she is increasingly compelled to uncover the mysterious circumstances surrounding the woman’s death. Leo is adamant it was an accident but his assistant, Archie, reluctantly helps Nancy. Nancy’s determination to reveal the facts puts her in harm’s way more than once....

She's used to temper tantrums, swearing, and threats, but finding a dead body is an entirely new low. She isn't interested in getting more involved than she already is in the investigation into the man she found's death. But when a few days later, she stumbles over a second body lying feet away from where she found the first, she can't avoid it. She knows the streets of her route and the people on them, but she is absolutely astonished when New Scotland Yard discovers the art gallery near where she found the bodies is a front for mixing up a new psychedelic drug.

An old World War II diary filled with cryptic clues launches two friends on an adventure around the world...but their path is fraught with danger and deception...and the treasure they seek can change everything for good - or evil. Father Michael Dominic and his journalist friend Hana Sinclair are off to follow a tantalizing lead: a Nazi journal revealing a holy relic’s hiding place

A curious priest uncovers a mystifying secret - one that leads to a long-buried relic some will do anything to possess. Can he outwit adversaries who will stop at nothing to keep him from revealing an object that challenges history as we know it? Father Michael Dominic discovers a strangely constructed 13th-century puzzle hidden deep within the Vatican Secret Archives.

1930: Miss Clara Vale, chemistry major turned detective, is taking a night off from sleuthing to attend the launch party of a new exhibition at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle. But when the piece de resistance, a rare ornate sarcophagus, is finally opened and it turns out the mummy inside it is a fake it looks like there is no rest for Clara after all... Later that night, she is summoned back to the museum and asked to investigate a series of stolen Egyptian artefacts.

Will the contents of dozens of old trunks filled with century’s old and fragile dresses, antique books and journals, and an even older jeweled sword, provide the answers to any of Mae’s well-guarded secrets?Sisters of the Heart is the fifth book in the ongoing story of the Engstrom family in the Mae’s Second Chance series. In the small ghost town of Mae’s Second Chance, where centuries old secrets remain hidden and the surrounding hills continue to guard another woman’s treasures, Julie Engstrom brings her family in search of a place that can replace what they had to leave behind....