Historical Detective

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.

Resourceful Bingo Riggs and his partner, Handsome Kusak, are in the sucker-bait business, snapping candid pics of tourists off Central Park. Their fly-by-night enterprise can be irresistible to souvenir lovers, but with one camera in a pawnshop and their developing room in the bathtub of a two-room dump near Hell’s Kitchen, their venture is wretchedly underexposed - until they stumble upon an insurance fraud scheme between the allegedly dead eccentric Mr. S. S. Pigeon and his business partner and beneficiary.

In the summer of 1932, Maisie Dobbs' career takes an exciting new turn when she accepts an undercover assignment directed by Scotland Yard's Special Branch and the Secret Service. Posing as a junior lecturer, she is sent to a private college in Cambridge to monitor any activities "not in the interests of His Majesty's government". She soon finds herself investigating a web of activities being conducted by the emerging Nazi Party.

Maggie Hope has come a long way since serving as a typist for Winston Churchill. Now she's working undercover for the Special Operations Executive in the elegant but eerily silent city of Paris, where SS officers prowl the streets in their Mercedes and the Ritz is draped with swastika banners. Walking among the enemy is tense and terrifying, and even though she's disguised in chic Chanel, Maggie can't help longing for home.

Hugh and Ellen Kerr promised themselves this time they would get it right. Not only was it their daughter’s first Halloween celebration, they were going to hold the party in Lodi, California, far from the Los Angeles debacle which had ruined last year’s celebration. Everything seemed to be going their way when they discovered an old mansion they could rent and transform into a spooky haunted house. The owner of the property, Lob Finnian, a former Major League baseball player, seemed eager to help and with the assistance of family and friends, decorations and Halloween-themed games were ...

Murder on an Island is a captivating murder mystery set on a secluded island off the coast of New England during the vibrant 1920s. This novel by Maxwell Hastings immerses readers in the intriguing world of high society and hidden secrets. Laura Kitteredge, a once-celebrated actress now shunned due to her engagement to the infamous James Stephenson, is invited to perform in a charity play on the Island. The island, beautiful yet isolated, becomes the perfect backdrop for a series of mysterious events and simmering tensions among the cast. As rehearsals begin, underlying jealousies and ...

Some secrets refuse to stay buried... When Liv returns to her grandmother Eleanor's Victorian mansion in Heartwood Haven, she expects to find solace among the herb gardens and faded memories. Instead, she discovers a body among the rosemary—Walter Pembroke, head of the Historical Society, clutching a mysterious document that could change everything. As Liv reluctantly steps into her inheritance, she finds herself at the center of a town divided between preservation and progress. The suspicious Detective Marcus Rivera considers her the prime suspect, while the Knitting Circle's whispers ...

"Prepare to be swept away by Admit to Mayhem (Lillian Dove Mystery Series Book 1), a thrilling blend of mystery and humor. Lillian Dove is determined to turn her life around. But her plans are derailed when she stumbles upon a house fire and becomes a witness to arson. Caught between a determined detective, a crime ring with secrets to protect, and her own shadowy past, Lillian must use her sharp wit and keen eye for detail to unravel the mystery. As she delves deeper into the case, Lillian finds herself playing a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse. With each clue she uncovers, the danger ...

India, 1922: Bombay’s only female solicitor Perveen Mistry is attending a lavish fundraiser for a new women’s hospital specializing in maternal health issues when she witnesses an accident. The grandson of an influential Gujarati businessman catches fire—but a servant, his young ayah, Sunanda, rushes to save him, selflessly putting herself in harm’s way. Later, Perveen learns that Sunanda, who’s still ailing from her burns, has been arrested on trumped-up charges made by a man who doesn’t seem to exist.

Empire of the Dead A Sherlock Holmes: Zombie Slayer Mystery Book Nine in the Bestselling Series New York City, 1900. The Gilded Age is cracking at the edges. Beneath the marble facades and gaslit boulevards, something unspeakable stirs. Holmes and Watson arrive in Manhattan expecting a quiet beginning to their American lecture tour. Instead, they’re swept into a chilling mystery when the daughter of a powerful railroad tycoon vanishes from her Fifth Avenue mansion—without a trace. The case deepens when a mutilated corpse is discovered in Central Park… a policeman, half-devoured, with ...

Baghdad is holding a secret superpower summit, but the word is out, and an underground organization in the Middle East is plotting to sabotage the talks. Into this explosive situation appears Victoria Jones, a young woman with a yearning for adventure who gets more than she bargains for when a wounded spy dies in her hotel room. The only man who can save the summit is dead. Can Victoria make sense of his dying words? "Lucifer...Basrah...Lefarge."

On holiday on the Cornish Riviera, Hercule Poirot is alarmed to hear pretty Nick Buckley describe her recent "accidental brushes with death". First, on a treacherous Cornish hillside, the brakes on her car failed. Then, on a coastal path, a falling boulder missed her by inches. Later, an oil painting fell and almost crushed her in bed. So when Poirot finds a bullet hole in Nick's sun hat, he decides that this girl needs his help. Can he find the would-be killer before he hits his target?

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.…

Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was damning: only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity, and the means to administer the fatal poison. Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven guilty: Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows.

"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.

A mystery novel set in Chadlands, England, during the late 1910s. Prepare to be swept away into the enigmatic world of "Tragedy at Chadlands," where the picturesque facade of an ancestral estate hides dark secrets and tragic histories. Sir Arthur Gainsborough, a kind-hearted baronet, struggles with the ghostly legacy of the Grey Room, a place riddled with unexplained deaths. As family and friends gather under one roof, the tension mounts when an ominous event propels them into a web of intrigue, ensuring that the past will not stay buried for long. As the novel unfolds, you'll meet Sir ...

World War II has finally come home to Britain, but it takes more than nightly air raids to rattle intrepid spy and expert code breaker Maggie Hope. After serving as a secret agent to protect Princess Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, Maggie is now an elite member of the Special Operations Executive–a black ops organization designed to aid the British effort abroad–and her first assignment sends her straight into Nazi-controlled Berlin, the very heart of the German war machine. Relying on her quick wit and keen instincts, Maggie infiltrates the highest level of Berlin society, gathering information to pass on to London headquarters. But the secrets she unveils will expose a darker, more dangerous side of the war–and of her own past.

Women rich and poor come to her, desperate and in dire need of help – and discretion. Dolly Merishaw is a midwife and an abortionist in Victorian Toronto, but although she keeps quiet about her clients’ condition, her contempt for them and her greed leaves every one of them resentful and angry. So it comes as no surprise to Detective William Murdoch when this malicious woman is murdered. What is a shock, though, is that a week later a young boy is found dead in Dolly’s squalid kitchen.

A detective mystery crime thriller set in London during the early 20th century. On a fateful morning in June 1912, the quiet, ominous streets of London reveal a sinister secret to Mullins, a hardworking sub-editor for the Watchman newspaper. As he finishes a late shift, an encounter with Policeman Etheridge drags him into a chilling murder investigation. The victim is an unidentified man, discovered with a clue that leads Mullins into the depths of a mystery brimming with deceit, scandal, and peril. Determined to uncover the truth, Mullins partners with the named individual on the cryptic ...

December 1918: As a difficult year draws to a close, there is much to celebrate for 19-year-old Phoebe Renshaw and her three siblings at their beloved family estate of Foxwood Hall. The dreadful war is finally over; eldest daughter Julia's engagement to their houseguest, the marquis of Allerton, appears imminent; and all have gathered to enjoy peace on Earth, goodwill toward men. But the peace of Foxwood Hall is shattered on the morning of Boxing Day, when the marquis goes missing.