Victorian English Mystery

Miss Ophelia Grey Must Fake a Courtship to Save a Man She Has Never Met! Miss Ophelia Grey is thoroughly relieved when Lord Marchmont decides their courtship should come to an end. However, she is utterly astonished when, within a few days, he is back at her side and begging for a second chance. Lord Peter Marchmont does not think that Miss Grey is the right match for him. Waking up to discover a note stating he must court Miss Grey otherwise his brother Edward will be ruined, Peter realizes he has no choice. Struggling to find answers, Peter eventually tells Miss Grey the truth and ...

Pembrokeshire, Wales, 2020. Serious illness has forced Eleanor Wilder to leave her life in London, close her antique shop and return to the family farm in Pembrokeshire. Her instinct is to hide from the world but when her parents bring her to a family reunion at the nearby house, Cliffside, she is transfixed by a set of old family photographs. One of the images is of a woman in theatrical dress, labelled ‘Esme Blood'—a name that is familiar to Eleanor through a set of Victorian tarot cards and diaries that she found through her shop.

In the summer of 1889 15 year old Sam Masters rescues 8-year-old Lady Olivia Susannah Charlton from a Cornish cove. He’s only interested in a smuggling mystery, she only cares for her precious doll. Sadness awaits each of them back home for Sam’s father has died in mysterious circumstances and Olivia’s father has disappeared. Sixteen years later, Sam has become a senior customs officer. Olivia’s seemingly conventional life as a writer of children’s fiction masks a secret passion for speed and risk-taking, fed by the devil-may-care Harold Jenkins, whose family now lives in ...

Five years after the infamous events of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sherlock Holmes again finds Sir Henry Baskerville his client, as the baronet comes to 221B Baker Street with a report of renewed preternatural goings-on at his home on the Devon moors, which, as in the previous case, seems to be connected to yet another long-buried legend within family history, this time concerning the strikingly beautiful first Lady Baskerville two centuries earlier, and the dark and fatal history which surrounded her. Telling of a terrifying menace which appears only in the nighttime, and which seems ...

After the final curtain of Swan Lake, an animated crowd exits the Mariinsky theatre brimming with excitement from the night's performance. But outside, the scene is somber. A ballerina's body lies face down in the snow, blood splattered like rose petals over the costume of the Swan Queen. The crowd is silenced by a single cry - "Nemetseva is dead!" When the dead ballerina's aristocratic lover comes begging for justice, Emily must apply her own set of skills to discover the rising star's murderer.

Twenty-seven -year-old Abigail Gifford, a writer, raised in a London orphanage, travels to Big Bend Texas to meet her biological aunt, Miss Hannah Comstock, her only living relative for the first-time, to learn more about her mother’s family. However, it turns out that Auntie Hannah, an outspoken Texas native battle-ax, who has invited Abigail to stay at her house for the summer, had, in fact, left for Mexico before her arrival to pursue an old lover of hers, leaving Abigail on her own to do, or to discover her surroundings with only Maggie, her aunt’s feisty Irish housekeeper to keep ...

London, 1882. Alec Lonsdale, a young reporter on the Pall Mall Gazette, is working on a story about a fatal house fire. But the postmortem on the victim produces shocking results: Patrick Donovan's death was no accident. But why would someone murder a humble shop assistant and steal part of his brain? When a second body is discovered, its throat cut, and then a third, Lonsdale and his spirited female colleague, Hulda Friederichs, begin to uncover evidence of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest echelons of Victorian society.

A severely mutilated body left beside the river near a bucolic village becomes the starting point for one of Sherlock Holmes’ most bizarre and disturbing cases, as the world’s foremost consulting detective departs from London to begin an investigation, that soon delves into what truly lies below the surface of idyllic country life, and uncovers a violation of one of mankind’s deepest and oldest taboos, in The Eaters of Men, the forty-fifth tale in C. Thorne’s The Continuing Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes!

Dr. Watson’s walk home to 221B Baker Street one afternoon is abruptly delayed as he comes upon the aftermath of the collapse of a building under construction in the heart of London. Rushing in to give aid to any survivors, Watson soon finds that Sherlock Homes has likewise been drawn to the scene, after hearing the cacophonous noise of the disaster as it unfolded. What begins as a straightforward rescue mission soon unfolds into a mystery with a deep darkness at its heart, as shocking facts arise unforeseen in The Riddle of the Three Builders, the fifty-fourth tale in author C. Thorne’s...

A visitor to Baker Street comes amid the rains of March in 1889, speaking of the shadowy world of séances and mediumship, subjects about which the ever-rational Holmes has little patience, nor is he any more approving when an accusation is made concerning his role in a past case that saw a convicted murderer hanged, yet when events unfold to draw Holmes to a manor in Wiltshire where the British Séance Society makes its headquarters, he soon finds himself caught up in a case that appears to Watson to have the involvement of the paranormal as its most likely explanation. It’s all inside ...

An abrupt summons to a secret meeting in the highest chambers of White Hall, the seat of the innermost workings of British government, soon informs Sherlock Holmes that a diabolically bold assassin stalks the visiting German Kaiser, grandson of Queen Victoria, and all signs are that this fearless hunter of men plans to launch his strike that very night at a reception following an opera. Thus brought into the matter with only hours to prepare and less time to act, Holmes must make use of his every talent to foil someone who promises to be among the more cunning foes he has faced in his ...

Antonia is haunted by a secret. Charles will soon be asking questions and she fears the answers will be devastating for their marriage. With her own guilt weighing heavily on her mind, Antonia and Charles stumble across the murder of frail, elderly Catherine Bacon. Though the killing is blamed on a passing dustman, Lord and Lady Danvers begin tracking clues through Victorian Canterbury. What they find leads to a shocking revelation and a chase scene across the rooftop of Canterbury Cathedral.

Harriet Andover had no intention of dying young like her silly siblings had. She intended to outlive them and outdo them as she always had. But Harriet discovers that the best intentions can lead to murder when she is strangled inside her mansion with a house full of holiday guests. As much as Inspector Witherspoon enjoys his job delivering justice, the last thing he wanted was a complicated murder case just a week before Christmas. He soon discovers that Harriet's own husband and grown stepchildren are not overcome with grief and neither are most of her friends.

When Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn are hired to find a girl from the upper classes who has gone missing in the East End, they assume her kidnapping is the work of white slavers. But when they discover five girls have been murdered in Bethnal Green, taunting letters begin to arrive in Craig's Court from a killer calling himself Mr. Miacca. Barker fears that Miacca might be part of the Hellfire Club, a group of powerful, hedonistic aristocrats performing satanic rituals.

Champagne corks only hint at the pressure that builds as this New Year’s witching hour approaches. Maggie Bixler, a saucy ghost who runs a spectral speakeasy in the gloomy basement of the old family home, was brutally betrayed and is ready to POP! She’s hired me, Seymour—part-time detective, full-time parakeet—to find who double-crossed her a hundred years ago. I’m game! (Get it?) Meanwhile, my former wife (and now owner) Sharon throws a wing-ding on New Year’s Eve and the whole town crashes the private party. Seymour Triplett’s the name. Once human and a full-time gumshoe, I ...

When a local publican is murdered, Inspector Witherspoon takes Mrs. Jeffries' advice to heart. He is going to trust his own instincts - but that keeps Mrs. Jeffries in the dark. She must rouse the household staff to action and hope the Inspector doesn't arrest the wrong person before they can solve the crime.

Late one moonlit night, Walter Hartright encounters a solitary and terrified woman dressed all in white. He saves her from capture by her pursuers and determines to solve the mystery of her distress and terror. Inspired by an actual criminal case, this gripping tale of murder, intrigue, madness and mistaken identity has never been out of print since its publication and brought Collins great fame and success.

A jilted noblewoman forced into a dual existence half in and half out of the ton is unexpectedly confronted by the nobleman who left her behind 10 years ago, but before either can catch their breaths, they trip over a murder and into a race to capture a killer.

The riveting tale of the Curse of the Stradivarius, unfolds poignantly as a gothic mystery book, set in 19th-century England and Italy during the early to mid-1800s.The narrative pivots around the extraordinary life of Franklin Ricketts, whose existence begins to take an eerie turn after inheriting his family estate in Worth. He forms a deeply rooted bond with fellow music enthusiast, William Bolton at Oxford University. Their shared admiration for the violin and piano intertwines their destinies, uncovering an ominous connection to the maddening suite "Areopagita" by Graziani. As Franklin ...

“Watson, wake up. We have a visitor.”,/ I felt the firm but friendly hand of Sherlock Holmes on my shoulder, forcing me awake. I pulled on my dressing gown and stumbled into the front room of 221B Baker Street. A young and exceptionally beautiful woman sat the sofa. “I have come to see you, Mr. Holmes, because the members of my family are conspiring to murder me.” “Are they now?” said Holmes. “And why would they want to do that?” “Because I am young, beautiful and brilliant; because I control the family estate following the recent death of my father; and because I utterly ...