Historical Traditional Detectives

Kitchen maid Joan Hart and lady's maid Verity Hunter intend to enjoy their trip to the theater, especially as Verity's uncle Tommy is one of the leading men in the play. Act two of the play is curtailed when the lights come up in the interval, and the girls realize a man has been stabbed to death almost under their very noses. The case reunites the servant sleuths with their old ally, Detective Inspector Marks, and while the girls do their best to solve the case while keeping their jobs, the glitter and glamor of the theater may prove to be as dangerous as any battlefield.

A winter wedding. Venice, 1923. Posie Parker, London’s premier female private detective, is getting married. But on arrival in Venice, Posie finds she is walking into a nightmare. Her lodgings on the Grand Canal are consumed by fire, her famous fiancé is preoccupied, and most bizarrely of all, her hostess, the Countess Romagnoli, confesses she has a stalker and fears for her life.

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.

New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King garners widespread acclaim for her suspenseful novels rich with historical detail. Set in the vibrant Paris Jazz Age, The Bones of Paris introduces private investigator Harris Stuyvesant, an American agent who’s been given the plum assignment of locating beautiful young model Philippa Crosby. But when Philippa’s trail ends at the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in Montmartre, Stuyvesant discovers a world where art meets sexual depravity - and where a savage killer lurks in the shadows.

Hugh d’Avranches, Earl of Chester, is enraged when his hawk is killed by an arrow in the Forest of Delamere. When two poachers are caught, he orders their execution, yet neither of them fired the arrow. As Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret come to Cheshire to settle a series of disputes between Church and State, they are guests of the earl. But when they explore the castle and discover that the Prince of Gwynedd is being held there as a hostage, a number of questions arise.

Spiritualism has captured the public’s imagination. Séances are all the rage, and Detective Ian Hamilton’s otherwise sensible aunt Lillian is not immune to their allure. But for Ian, indulging her superstitions has its limits. When members of Lillian’s circle of séance friends begin turning up dead, Ian doesn’t need a medium to tell him these aren’t freak accidents.

On the north coast of Cornwall, an apparent act of mercy is repaid by an arrest for murder. Four young women have been accused of the crime. A shocked father calls in a favor at the Home Office. Scotland Yard is asked to review the case.

However, Inspector Ian Rutledge is not the first inspector to reach the village. Following in the shoes of a dead man, he is told the case is all but closed.

From the Supernatural Case Files of Sherlock Holmes London's most beloved detective encounters his most deadly foe, and the results will be unlike any Sherlock Holmes adventure before it!

When Sylvia Shipman's uncle plunges to his death on the eve of a catastrophic stock market crash, the verdict is suicide. But Sylvia doubts the official story after seeing a sinister stranger fleeing the scene. She doubts it even more after learning of her uncle's secret criminal connections. With the help of her family's attractive new chauffeur, the mysteriously capable Miles, Sylvia chases the true killer through the swanky jazz clubs and shadowed alleyways of 1920s New York.

A radio play version of the Sherlock Holmes adventure in which the Enfield Rope, a famous string of pearls, is substituted for counterfeits in an attempt to discredit the British Royal Family. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson must find the criminals responsible, and stop the scandal by recovering the genuine pearls. First published as a story in Secrets from the Deed Box of John H. Watson M.D.

When the village of Shrewsbury's own sheriff, Gilbert Prestcote, is taken prisoner by the Empress Maud's forces, its citizens are prepared to exchange him for a man of equal value they have within their possession. But soon after Prestcote arrives for the prisoner exchange, he dies. Was it death by natural causes or a most unnatural murder?

On a deserted road, late at night, Scotland Yard's Ian Rutledge encounters a frightened woman standing over a body, launching an inquiry that leads him into the lair of a stealthy killer and the dangerous recesses of his own memories in this 20th installment of the acclaimed New York Times best-selling series.

The handsome Viscount Trent finally makes up his mind to accede to the pleadings of his family and get married. He is twenty-seven and for a long time they have been begging him to take a wife and produce an heir to his illustrious title, his famous stately home and his vast estate. On the whole he finds debutantes extremely boring and has enjoyed a number of affaires-de-coeur with older married women. However there is one girl, Marigold Marlow, he considers outstanding and she is the acknowledged great beauty of the Season.

Holmes and Watson journey to the Lake District at the bidding of Squire Foley, who claims to be tormented by a man he believes he has killed in a duel. After an unsatisfactory conclusion they return to London, where they investigate the abduction of a woman in most peculiar circumstances.

When the Duke of Purbeck throws a house party to celebrate his daughter's 21st birthday and present her with a family heirloom, nobody expects that the weekend will end in murder. The fabled Belsingham pearls have a history steeped in blood and slaughter dating back more than a century - and now it seems they've claimed another life, when the interfering and opinionated Professor Coddington is found dead in the library with the pearls clutched in his hand.

Sir Charles Sheridan is many things - an amateur scientist, a renowned photographer, and a skilled detective. And due to Victorian customs, he will soon become a baron - rendering him unable to marry American writer Kate Ardleigh. But even as customs keep them apart, a good murder case always seems to bring them together. The Countess of Warwick, known affectionately as Daisy, is the subject of endless rumors about her unladylike ways and temperament. But what happens during a weekend party at her Easton estate is uglier than any rumor. First, a stable boy is killed.

It's with a heavy heart that Jane Austen takes up a new residence at Chawton Cottage in Hampshire. Secretly mourning the lost love of her life, she's stunned to learn that the late Lord Harold Trowbridge has made her heir to an extraordinary bequest: a Bengal chest filled with his diaries, letters, and most intimate correspondence. From these, Jane is expected to write a memoir of the Gentleman Rogue for posterity. But before she can put pen to paper on this labor of love, she discovers a corpse in the cellar of her new home.

Magdalene la Batarde is the madam of the Old Priory Guesthouse in Southwark. She and her women are expected to engage in a number of sinful activities, but bloody murder isn't one of them until Baldassare, the messenger, dies. Though Baldassare isn't a regular client of the Old Priory Guesthouse, Magdalene and her women refuse to allow his death to go unavenged. Of course, their efforts aren't completely altruistic.

Many of Holmes's more fantastic cases have yet to see publication, since their grotesque and outré nature would have stretched the reader's sensibilities beyond any normal boundaries. They are, in a word, unbelievable, and I have held these cases in abeyance at Holmes' request to protect both his reputation and my own small credibility as narrator.

In the Italian town of Ostia outside Rome, Falco appears to be enjoying a relaxing holiday. But when Helena arrives carrying a batch of past issues of the Daily Gazette with the intention of catching up on the latest scandal, Falco is forced to admit his real reason for being there. Infamia, the pen name of the gossip columnist for the Daily Gazette, has gone missing, and his fellow scribes have employed Falco to bring him back from his drunken truancy.