Historical Detective

When a 12 year old boy steps into a gents-only private club and begins to fire a handgun at the clientele, a bizarre investigation into a brutal murder commences, one that is destined to change Richard Rayner’s life forever. During the subsequent Inquiry, Scotland Yard’s most successful detective and his close friend and confidante, Henry Bustle, recover an ancient Egyptian relic that quickly becomes the focal point of other murders, robbery, extortion and kidnapping. The Pharaoh Hunter is a story of intrigue and mind baffling mystery, set against a background of personal emotional ...

In this daring debut, Susan Elia MacNeal blends meticulous research on the era, psychological insight into Winston Churchill, and the creation of a riveting main character, Maggie Hope, into a spectacularly crafted novel.

In this dual collection of short stories, Alexander McCall Smith brings his trademark humor and warmth to inventive tales of spying and vengeance. In one story, a spy dropped deep into enemy territory manages to disguise himself—quite convincingly—as a nun. In another, an invitation to join the Vatican Secret Service sends a prospective operative down a rabbit hole of controversy and confusion. A third story finds an author, on the brink of public ruin, seeing the error of his ways after an act of kindness saves the day.

"The Ravenscrofts didn't seem that kind of person. They seemed well balanced and placid..." And yet, twelve years earlier, the husband had shot the wife, and then himself - or perhaps it was the other way around, since sets of both of their fingerprints were on the gun, and the gun had fallen between them. The case haunts Ariadne Oliver, who had been a friend of the couple. The famous mystery novelist desires this real-life mystery solved, and calls upon Hercule Poirot to help her do so.

Although it is autumn in the small English town of Bishop’s Lacey, the chapel is decked with exotic flowers. Yes, Flavia de Luce’s sister, Ophelia, is at last getting hitched, like a mule to a wagon. “A church is a wonderful place for a wedding”, muses Flavia, “surrounded as it is by the legions of the dead, whose listening bones bear silent witness to every promise made at the altar.”

No one escapes Dante’s villa. Not alive. From Kenneth R. Overman, award-winning author of A Lion in Spring, comes another gripping standalone thriller of espionage, vengeance, and survival, in which a college professor is the only thing standing between a brutal trafficker and mass murder. While leading a student trip through Spain, Professor Nathan Radcliff stumbles into a nightmare. A terrified Romanian girl begs for help, and Nathan, without knowing it, disrupts one of the largest human trafficking networks in Europe. Mistaken for an undercover agent, he’s abducted and taken to the ...

Overthrow a government. Destabilize the world. And it all starts with a single murder. From Kenneth R. Overman, award-winning author of the Nathan Radcliff Thriller series, comes a heart-pounding international suspense novel where history, power, and terror collide on the edge of Europe and the Middle East. When the president of a small island bank is found dead under suspicious circumstances, Professor Nathan Radcliff is pulled back into a world of secrets and shadows. The murder points to a treasure buried beneath an ancient graveyard near Istanbul, hidden since 330 A.D. and powerful ...

When crime creeps into the drawing rooms of the elite, even Sherlock Holmes must tread carefully. In this new collection, Watson recounts cases where Holmes was drawn into the glittering — and treacherous — world of London’s high society. Behind every curtsey and champagne toast lies scandal, deception, and murder. From grand balls to fox hunts, country estates to gentlemen’s clubs, the great detective must navigate etiquette as deftly as evidence, with Watson as his ever-steady guide through a landscape of whispered threats and deadly secrets. A vanished viscount. A deadly ...

Sir Charles Cartwright should have known better than to allow 13 guests to sit down for dinner. For at the end of the evening one of them is dead - choked by a cocktail that contained no trace of poison. Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective. But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder.…

Cyrus Barker is undoubtedly England's premiere private enquiry agent. With the help of his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, he's developed an enviable reputation for discreetly solving some of the toughest, most consequential cases in recent history. But one evening in 1888, Robert Anderson, the head of Scotland Yard's Criminal Investigation Department (CID), appears at Barker's office with an offer.

July 1912. Lady Hardcastle and her tenacious lady’s maid, Florence Armstrong, are enjoying a convivial gathering at the home of their dear friends, the Farley-Strouds. The only fly in the idyllic ointment seems to be the lack of musical entertainment for the forthcoming summer party—until, that is, Lady Hardcastle’s brother Harry calls with news of a murder.

Selchester Castle in 1953 sits quiet and near-empty, its corridors echoing with glories of the past. Or so it seems to intelligence officer Hugo Hawksworth, wounded on a secret mission and now reluctantly assuming an altogether less perilous role at Selchester.

The weathered remains of Eleanor Gray are found on a Scottish mountainside, and her mother, the domineering Lady Maude Gray, requires delicate treatment. This is a case that will lead Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard to Scotland, where his harrowing journey to find the truth will drag him back through the fires of his past into secrets that still have the power to kill.

It's October 1814. London suddenly finds itself in the grip of a series of heinous murders eerily similar to the Ratcliffe Highway murders of three years before. In 1811, two entire families were viciously murdered in their homes. A suspect - a young seaman named John Williams - was arrested. But before he could be brought to trial, Williams hanged himself in his cell. The murders ceased. But when the lead investigator is killed in the same brutal way three years later and others possibly connected to the original case meet violent ends, the city is paralyzed with terror once more.

The Sovereign Order of Monte Cristo begins with a condensed retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, related through the voice of Sherlock Holmes. It includes exhilarating new adventures, characters, and ideas, carrying the reader through books I and II and into book III of an ever-expanding new series based on the classic. The author consulted the original French as well as the oldest English translations of The Count of Monte Cristo, but the style of the retelling, in the distinctive voice of Sherlock Holmes, constitutes a new work. Books II and III, incorporated herein,...

The tenacious Lizzie Bennet has earned her place at Longbourn, her father’s law firm. Her work keeps her busy, but luckily it gives her plenty of reasons to consult with Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, a stern but secretly softhearted solicitor at Pemberley. Lizzie is hired to investigate a deadly warehouse fire and to find the mysterious woman who was spotted at the scene moments before the flames took hold. But when the case leads to the sitting room of a woman Darcy once proposed marriage to, the delicate balance between personal and professional in their relationship is threatened.

No one is who they seem Private Investigator Wyatt Thomas takes a seductive journey through the dark, glittering streets of New Orleans, where passion and danger collide. Wyatt is no stranger to the Crescent City’s secrets, but when a mysterious voodoo mambo draws him into the heart of the French Quarter’s underworld, he finds himself entangled in a web of deceit, lust, and murder. As the nights grow hotter, so do the stakes, and Wyatt must navigate the twisted desires of the city’s most dangerous inhabitants. But in the world of the Night People, no one is who they seem—and Wyatt ...

When Kendra Donovan is approached by Mrs. Gavenston with an unusual request - to find her business manager, Jeremy Pascoe, who recently vanished - the FBI agent is eager to accept the challenge. To Kendra's way of thinking, spending her time locating a missing person suits her more than perfecting her embroidery, painting watercolors, practicing on the pianoforte, or any of the other activities that are socially acceptable for young ladies in the early 19th century. Unfortunately, the missing person's case turns into a murder investigation after Kendra finds the man stabbed to death.

In the West End, a renowned Italian escape artist dies spectacularly on stage during a performance - immolated in a gleaming copper cauldron of his wife’s design. In Cambridge, the runaway daughter of a famous don is found drowned, her long blonde hair tangled in the Jesus Lock on the River Cam. And in Baker Street, a mysterious locksmith exacts an unusual price to open a small silver box sent to Watson.

As Police Superintendent Thomas Pitt investigates the leak in the Colonial Office, he quietly looks into the tragic death of his childhood mentor, Sir Arthur Desmond. Pitt believes he was murdered and that the crime is connected with the treachery in the government. He makes little progress...until a second murder reverberates through London.