Historical Thriller Suspense

A collection of stories capturing what it means to be a cowboy.

As Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes embark on their 11th adventure together, they find themselves immersed in the world of silent filmmaking. Here, the pirates are real—and unlike the shooting done with a camera, this sort can be deadly.

London, 1850: A young Charles Lenox struggles to make a name for himself as a detective...without a single case. Scotland Yard refuses to take him seriously and his friends deride him for attempting a profession at all. But when an anonymous writer sends a letter to the paper claiming to have committed the perfect crime - and promising to kill again - Lenox is convinced that this is his chance to prove himself. The writer's first victim is a young woman whose body is found in a naval trunk, caught up in the rushes of a small islets in the middle of the Thames.

In this Edgar Award-nominated mystery, John Maddox Roberts takes listeners back to a Rome filled with violence and evil. Vicious gangs ruled the streets of Crassus and Pompey, routinely preying on plebeian and patrician alike. So the garroting of a lowly ex-slave and the disembowelment of a foreign merchant in the dangerous Subura district seemed of little consequence to the Roman hierarchy.

When a man’s naked corpse is found strapped to a waterwheel, newly appointed Inspector Haze is called upon to investigate the crime. With the help of American surgeon Captain Redmond, he delves into the life of Frank Darrow, a man who inspired such hatred, his mere death wasn’t enough to satisfy his killer. Finding few clues and no obvious motive for the murder, Redmond and Haze must peel away the layers of Frank Darrow’s relationships to get to the shocking truth, while also coming to terms with unexpected developments in their own lives.

It's 1194, and Sir Faucon de Ramis, the shire's newly appointed keeper of the pleas, must do his duty and make an official declaration of the cause of a miller's death. Saddled with a clerk who names Faucon his "penance", the shire's first crowner must thread the tangled relationships between the sheriff, the village of Priors Holston, and the priory that once ruled it. As a simple task takes a turn to the political, what seems obvious isn't, and what appears safe turns out to be more dangerous than he could imagine.

When the body of a young woman is found near the ruins of a haunted abbey, everyone assumes she died of fright. A postmortem examination tells a different story. Not only was Elizabeth Barrett poisoned, but the lethal dose of cyanide must have been administered by someone close to her - someone she trusted, who may have known her secret. As Captain Redmond and Constable Haze delve into the victim's seemingly ordinary life, they learn she wasn't the proper, biddable wife everyone believed her to be.

Argyll, Scotland. July 1832. After a trying few months in Edinburgh, Kiera and her husband and investigative partner, Sebastian Gage, are eager to escape to the Highlands with their three-month-old child. Kiera is overjoyed for her cousin Rye and her friend Charlotte, who are being wed in a private ceremony at the estate of Rye's great-uncle, the Marquess of Barbreck, in what seems to be the perfect wedding party. But when Kiera is invited to peruse Barbreck's extensive art collection, she is disturbed to discover that one of his most priceless paintings seems to be a forgery.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched an attack against U.S. naval forces stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. But what if the Japanese followed up their air assault with an invasion and occupation of Hawaii? This is the question explored by Harry Turtledove in Days of Infamy, with frightening implications.

With Mrs. Hudson gone from their lives and domestic chaos building, the last thing Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, need is to help an old friend with her mad and missing aunt. Lady Vivian Beaconsfield has spent most of her adult life in one asylum after another, since the loss of her brother and father in the Great War. And although her mental state seemed to be improving, she’s now disappeared after an outing from Bethlem Royal Hospital...better known as Bedlam.

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, a baffling cipher found near the body. As Langdon and gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, sort through the bizarre riddle, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci, clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

In spring a young man’s fancy will turn to love, and the Honorable Phillip Petrie is no exception. Daisy’s chum is totally smitten with Miss Gloria Arbuckle, daughter of a millionaire Yank. But before the enthusiastic suitor can pop the question, his beloved is abducted. As a distraught Mr. Arbuckle begins assembling the ransom, Phillip enlists Daisy to help him recover his missing sweetheart.

Determined to find the men responsible for her disgraced father's murder, Lady Arianna Hadley disguises herself as a man and contrives to be hired as a chef in one of London's aristocratic households. But when the prince regent is poisoned by Arianna's special chocolate dessert, she finds her own quest has become intertwined with a far more deadly intrigue. The earl of Saybrook is asked by the government to investigate. When someone tries to kill them both, they become reluctant allies in the hunt to discover what evil is afoot.

Amelia Prentice is recovering from the worst two years of her life. First her daughter and then her parents have died, leaving her without any surviving relatives. As she gets ready to put the family home, a vast Victorian house in Windsor, on the market, she fulfils her mother’s last request to clear out the attic, and she discovers a strange box of Victorian photographs.

Nominated for both the Agatha and Anthony awards, national best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert introduces a garden club of lady sleuths in Depression-era Alabama. The Darling Dahlias have just inherited a new clubhouse and garden, complete with two beautiful cucumber trees. But before long, these genteel ladies must unravel the mystery about what’s buried beneath one of these trees and the enigma of the dead body that soon turns up.

Berlin, 1933. Aspiring actress Clara Vine arrives in Berlin to find work at the famous Ufa studios. Through a chance meeting, she is unwillingly drawn into a circle of Nazi wives, led by Magda Goebbels. British Intelligence officer Leo Quinn sees Clara as the perfect recruit to spy on her new elite friends. But then Magda reveals to Clara a dramatic secret and entrusts her with an extraordinary mission.

Some debts you cannot repay, even if you live forever. Seasoned imperial officer Marcus Sempronius Gracchus leads the 9th Roman Legion into a bloody battle against a fierce barbarian tribe. It's a battle he won't survive. When he awakens three days later, clawing his way from a shallow grave, Marcus must face the reality of his new existence. He will never see the afterlife...but that won't stop him from dying time and again over the next 2,000 years.

The edge of the Roman Empire is a volatile place; the tribes of the North dwell near its borders. These hinterlands are the homeland of Gaius Petreius Ruso's slave, Tilla, who has scores of her own to settle there: Her tribespeople, under the leadership of the mysterious Stag Man, are fomenting a rebellion, and her former lover is implicated in the murder of a soldier. Ruso, once again pulled into a murder investigation, is appalled to find that Tilla is still spending time with the prime suspect.

The sisters at a lonely Cornish convent share a chilling secret they cannot confess...Sister Sophia is dead. Another disappears. And a mysterious last letter from a dying nun is sent to the prioress. Sister Joan has faced her own demons. Now she is sent to the convent to investigate, as well as teach the local children. There are whispers of virgin sacrifice and suicide, and the mother prioress certainly wears pink nail varnish. And who is the young man hiding in the bracken?

Once he was a young, happily married businessman. Then he lost his wife to human madness and that young man was gone, replaced by the Loner, the wandering son of legendary gunfighter Frank Morgan and the current occupant of a cell in Hell Gate prison. The Loner’s crime? He looked too much like an outlaw who escaped from this very prison. So the Kid teams up with a fellow inmate with an escape plan, vowing to hunt down a look-alike killer on the loose.