![]() |
![]() |
Your cart is empty |
||
Books > Fiction > Genre fiction > Crime & mystery > Historical mysteries
The spellbinding SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER and RICHARD AND JUDY BOOKCLUB PICK about old family secrets 'A captivating mystery: beautifully written, with a rich sense of place, a cast of memorable characters, and lots of deep, dark secrets' Kate Morton, bestselling author of The Clockmaker's Daughter 'Absolutely her best yet' Lisa Jewell, bestselling author of The Family Upstairs 'A wonderful, romantic, compelling mystery. Eve Chase has something of the poet in her: her descriptions of a remote manor house nestling in an ancient forest are worth reading for themselves, but the plotline of The Glass House is utterly absorbing in its own right. We loved it' Richard and Judy Book Club 'The Glass House is not really about a murder, or a creepy house, but about families - the ones we're born into, the ones we make and especially the ones we flee' New York Times _______ The truth can shatter everything . . . When the Harrington family discovers an abandoned baby deep in the shady woods, they decide to keep her a secret and raise her as their own. But within days a body is found in the grounds of their house and their perfect new family implodes. Years later, Sylvie, seeking answers to nagging questions about her life, is drawn into the wild beautiful woods where nothing is quite what it seems. Will she unearth the truth? And dare she reveal it? _______ 'I adored this beautifully-written, riveting mystery' Rosie Walsh, bestselling author of The Man Who Didn't Call 'So beautifully and insightfully written, with characters I grew to love. A compelling, moving story that kept me turning the pages right to the very last' Katherine Webb, author of The Legacy Praise for Eve Chase 'Enthralling' Kate Morton 'Simply stunning' Dinah Jefferies 'The most beautiful book you will read this year' Lisa Jewell 'Filled with intrigue' Clare Mackintosh 'Exquisite and evocative' Sarah Vaughan
The Toerten Project: Murder and Crime Mysteries from a Bauhaus Estate takes readers beyond the chaste white facades of the world-renowned Bauhaus Settlement by Walter Gropius. 10 quirky narratives about mysterious entanglements, morbid secrets, and grisly intrigues.
'Deep-diving and elegant' Margaret Atwood 'Takes the gothic genre by the scruff of the neck' Bernadine Evaristo ----- 'They say I must be put to death for what happened to Madame, and they want me to confess. But how can I confess what I don't believe I've done?' 1826, and all of London is in a frenzy. Crowds gather at the gates of the Old Bailey to watch as Frannie Langton, maid to Mr and Mrs Benham, goes on trial for their murder. The testimonies against her are damning - slave, whore, seductress. And they may be the truth. But they are not the whole truth. For the first time Frannie must tell her story. It begins with a girl learning to read on a plantation in Jamaica, and it ends in a grand house in London, where a beautiful woman waits to be freed. But through her fevered confessions, one burning question haunts Frannie Langton: could she have murdered the only person she ever loved? A haunting tale about one woman's fight to tell her story, The Confessions of Frannie Langton leads you through laudanum-laced dressing rooms and dark-as-night alleys, into the heart of Georgian London. WINNER OF THE COSTA BOOK AWARDS FIRST NOVEL PRIZE 2019 SHORLISTED FOR HWA DEBUT CROWN 2020 WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE MONTH ----- 'A dazzling page-turner' Emma Donoghue 'A star in the making' Sunday Times 'Gothic fiction made brand new' Stef Penney 'Dazzlingly original' The Times 'A heroine for our times' Elizabeth Day
Late October 1909, and the season of ghouls and things that go bump in the night has descended on the village of Littleton Cotterell. Lady Hardcastle and her trusted lady's maid, Florence, find themselves hosting a colourful cast of actors whose spooky moving picture, The Witch's Downfall, is being shown to mark Halloween. But things take a macabre turn when the first night's screening ends with a mysterious murder, and the second night with another...One by one the actors turn up dead in ways that eerily echo their film. With the police left scratching their heads, Lady Hardcastle calls upon her amateur sleuthing skills to launch an investigation, with Flo's able assistance. Surrounded by suspects both human and supernatural, Lady Hardcastle must use a little trickery of her own to unmask the murderer.
Private investigator Jennie Redhead finds her loyalties divided when she investigates the decades-old murder of a college student. Oxford, 1974. In the cellars beneath St Luke's College, a sealed medieval ventilation shaft is opened up to reveal human bones. Two bodies, buried thirty years apart, but is there a connection ... Desperate to protect the College's reputation - and finances - the bursar, Charlie Swift, hires his old friend, private investigator Jennie Redhead, to find out the identities of the two victims. But as Jennie pieces the clues together, it becomes increasingly clear that Charlie knows rather more about the murders than he's admitted. As she uncovers a series of scandals stretching back more than sixty years, Jennie is forced to question how well she really knows her old friend Charlie Swift - and whether she can trust him...
Grieving the loss of wife and mother, Aidan and Melangell visit the renowned spiritual retreat center on the British island of Lindisfarne so Aidan can share with bright eight-year-old Melangell one of the places that inspired Jenny to write her books. There they meet up with Jenny's friend Lucy, a Methodist minister, who is teaching a course on the local Northumbrian saints. Lucy has brought Rachel, a troubled teenager, to the Holy Island in hopes that the remoteness and peace of the location will help her. But when Rachel is found dead on the beach, everyone on the island is under suspicion. As investigators and Rachel's "friends" come to the island, Aidan and Lucy learn more about Rachel, and Lucy's past as a policewoman is revealed. And so Aidan is drawn into his second mystery. Masterfully told by award-winning author Fay Sampson, Death on Lindisfarne explores the complicated motivations of fallen people against the backdrop of ancient holiness.
August 1895. When the Museum Detectives are asked to investigate a vandalised dinosaur skeleton at the Natural History Museum, there is evidence that the fossil-hunting mania of the notorious Bone Wars in America may have reached British shores. But for Daniel Wilson, famed for his involvement in the Jack the Ripper case, and renowned archaeologist Abigail Fenton, events soon take a sinister turn . A museum attendant is found dead by the famous theatre manager Bram Stoker, who may be more involved than he is willing to admit. Facing pressure from both an overseas business and a local celebrity, Wilson and Fenton must rely on their talents and instincts to solve their most intriguing case yet.
"Holmes and Watson accompany a woman on a quest which leads them through the dark heart of London to a one-legged man, a mysterious and terrifying creature, and an incredible tale of greed and revenge."-School Library Journal "The immense talent, passion and literary brilliance that Conan Doyle brought to his work gives him a unique place in English letters."-Stephen Fry "Holmes has a timeless talent, passion and literary brilliance that puts him heads, shoulders and deerstalker above all other detectives."- Alexander McCall Smith Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four is the second novel in the Sherlock Holmes series, following the enormously successful novel A Study In Scarlet. With the mysterious disappearance of a British Indian army officer, a one-legged hooligan, a stolen treasure, and a nefarious pact between four con-men, this novel of revenge and love is an exquisite classic of crime fiction. In the infamous opening of the novel, Dr. Watson finds Sherlock Holmes in his Baker Street home, bored and in the process of taking cocaine. Dr. Watson finally confronts his friend, and Holmes retorts that he does not do well in moments of tedium; luckily the doldrums are evaporated with the arrival of a beautiful woman at the door of Baker Street; she is Mary Morstan, a character that Sherlock Holmes fans are very acquainted with as she eventually becomes the wife of Dr. Watson. Mary asked for the help in a very strange case; years ago her father disappeared from his post in India as an army officer, a few years later she began receiving an exquisite pearl in the mail on an annual basis for the past six years. Mary revealed a letter to Holmes from the sender of the pearls, asking to meet in person for clues to her father's disappearance and the motive behind the pearls. When they meet Thaddeus Sholto, Holmes and Watson are snarled into a web of a dangerous hunt and a morass of intrigue including a secret Indian treasure, four ex-cons, a one-legged gangster. The Sign of the Four, one of the most popular of the Sherlock Holmes crime novels, has been adapted into numerous film and TV productions. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Sign of the Four is both modern and readable.
Fresh, funny crime series for fans of Jasper Fforde and M.C. Beaton. 'Delightful and original ... A series that could well become a cult' DAILY MAIL. 125 Gower Street, 1882. Queen Victoria may sit on the throne and Robert Peel's bobbies walk the street, but London is still haunted by the spectre of Spring-heeled Jack. The demons of vice and poverty rule the capital: ruffian gangs, pickpockets, prostitutes and vagrants clog the streets with their iniquity. But in one particular Gower Street residence - home to the famous personal investigator Sidney Grice - order presides. Until, that is, the arrival of his ward March Middleton and the vicious Whitechapel murder that follows hard on her heels... Set between the refined buildings of Victorian Bloomsbury and the stinking streets of London's East End, The Mangle Street Murders is for those who like their crime original, atmospheric, and very, very funny. Praise for THE MANGLE STREET MURDERS: 'Funny, fresh and sharply plotted ... Starring a detective duo to rival Holmes and Watson' GOODREADS. 'Kasasian's sparkling debut introduces a memorable new detective duo' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. 'Grice and Middleton promise to become a positive treat' DAILY MAIL. Read the whole series: THE MANGLE STREET MURDERS THE CURSE OF THE HOUSE OF FOSKETT. DEATH DESCENDS ON SATURN VILLA. THE SECRETS OF GASLIGHT LANE. DARK DAWN OVER STEEP HOUSE.
ENGLAND, 1930. Grieving widows are a familiar sight on London's Necropolis Railway. So when an elegant young woman in a black veil boards the funeral train, nobody guesses her true purpose. But Rachel Savernake is not one of the mourners. She hopes to save a life - the life of a man who is supposed to be cold in the grave. But then a suspicious death on the railway track spurs her on to investigate a sequence of baffling mysteries: a death in a blazing car; a killing in a seaside bungalow; a tragic drowning in a frozen lake. Rachel believes that the cases are connected - but what possible link can there be? Rich, ruthless and obsessed with her own dark notions of justice, she will not rest until she has discovered the truth. To find the answers to her questions she joins a house party on the eerie and remote North Yorkshire coast at Mortmain Hall, an estate. Her inquiries are helped - and sometimes hindered - by the impetuous young journalist Jacob Flint and an eccentric female criminologist with a dangerous fascination with perfect crimes... Mortmain Hall is at once a gripping thriller and a classic whodunit puzzle: a Golden Age Gothic mystery, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.
From New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd comes a haunting tale that explores the impact of World War I on all who witnessed it--officers, soldiers, doctors, and battlefield nurses like Bess Crawford. Though the Great War is nearing its end, the fighting rages on. While waiting for transport back to her post, Bess Crawford meets Captain Alan Travis from the island of Barbados. Later, when he's brought into her forward aid station disoriented from a head wound, Bess is alarmed that he believes his distant English cousin, Lieutenant James Travis, shot him. Then the Captain is brought back to the aid station with a more severe wound, once more angrily denouncing the Lieutenant as a killer. But when it appears that James Travis couldn't have shot him, the Captain's sanity is questioned. Still, Bess wonders how such an experienced officer could be so wrong. On leave in England, Bess finds the Captain strapped to his bed in a clinic for brain injuries. Horrified by his condition, Bess and Sergeant Major Simon Brandon travel to James Travis's home in Suffolk, to learn more about the baffling relationship between these two cousins. Her search will lead this smart, capable, and compassionate young woman into unexpected danger, and bring her face to face with the visible and invisible wounds of war that not even the much-longed for peace can heal.
Queen Marie of Roumania, granddaughter to both Victoria, Empress of the British Empire, and Alexander II, Tsar of Russia, is in need of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes' services. The Queen, a famous beauty who has transformed Roumania from a quiet backwater into a significant force, invites the pair to Bran castle, the ancient fortress that sits on the border with the newly regained territory of Transylvania. The threat the Queen fears is dubious: shadowy figures, vague whispers, dangers that may only be accidents. But a young girl is involved. So, putting aside their doubts, Russell and Holmes set out to investigate the mystery in a land of long memory and hidden corners, from whose churchyards the shades creep.
Scotland, 1850. The penalty for murder is death by hanging. Why then employ a young defence lawyer with no trial experience who is surely destined to fail? And why does his client refuse to tell him what happened on the night the crime took place? "Edward Kane and the Parlour Maid Murderer" follows the young Advocate, Edward Kane, and his manservant, Mr Horse from the great houses of Edinburgh to the taverns and alleyways of the Old Town in search of answers - and defence. Written by Ross Macfarlane QC ("Noted legal expert" - Legal 500), the novel evokes the sights and sounds of Victorian Scotland, introducing a rich cast of characters.
A circus arrives in Durham in the 1790s and the whole town is excited. until the body of a Shaker girl is found beaten. 1790s. The circus has arrived in Durham, Maine. Before weaver Will Rees is able to take in its spectacle, he spots Magistrate Hanson - the man he blames for his family's having to flee Dugard two years earlier. On his journey home he encounters Shaker brothers searching for a girl from their Zion community. Despite women not being allowed inside the circus, Leah had snuck out to visit it. They quickly come across her lifeless body beaten and thrown into a farmer's field on the road leading to the circus. Bored of his household chores, Rees begins investigating at the expense of his home life. He becomes entranced by the lives of the circus performers, including the charismatic horse rider and tightrope walker. Is his longing for his old journeyman's life causing him to take his eye off the case, and can he stay out of Hanson's way and keep his family safe?
Every gift has a price . . . every piece of lace has a secret. Towner Whitney, the self-confessed unreliable narrator, hails from a family of Salem women who can read the future in the patterns in lace, and who have guarded a history of secrets going back generations. Now the disappearance of two women is bringing Towner back home to Salem--and is bringing to light the shocking truth about the death of her twin sister.
The peaceful atmosphere of the Reverend Mother's annual retreat is shattered by sudden, violent death in this gripping historical mystery. 1920s. Cork, Ireland. The Reverend Mother regrets the bishop's decision to invite the five candidates for the position of Alderman of the City Council to join them for their annual retreat. Constantly accosted by ambitious, would-be politicians hoping to secure the bishop's backing, she's finding the week-long sojourn at the convent of the Sisters of Charity anything but peaceful. What she doesn't expect to encounter however is sudden, violent death. When a body is discovered in the convent's apple orchard cemetery, blown to pieces by a makeshift bomb, it is assumed the IRA are responsible. But does the killer lie closer to home? Was one of the candidates so desperate to win the election they turned to murder? Does someone have a hidden agenda? Once again, the Reverend Mother must call on her renowned investigative skills to unearth the shocking truth.
December, 1917. Ada Hobbes arrives on a frosty morning to clean the house owned by Dr Tindall, a surgeon at the Edmonton Military Hospital. She is shocked to find the blood-covered body of her employer who has been hacked to death. A horrific scene awaits Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion and Sergeant Joe Keedy. Someone clearly enjoyed killing the doctor. Their investigation takes them far out of London and on the trail of a very different Dr Tindall, one who was not the respectable local GP everyone thought he was. Marmion and Keedy will need to sift through a number of likely suspects to find the killer behind this gruesome murder.
From the winner of the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition comes another tantalising Golden Age wartime mystery. **DON'T MISS THE LASTEST JOSEPHINE FOX MYSTERY, A CONFLICT OF INTERESTS. OUT NOW!** PRAISE FOR THE JOSEPHINE FOX SERIES: 'Terrific ... captures brilliantly the atmosphere of wartime Britain' ANN CLEEVES 'Feisty, determined and brave - I loved Josephine Fox' JUDY FINNIGAN 'A complete delight ... sings with authenticity' CAZ FREAR DECEMBER 1942. As the war rages on, the accidental death of a young man is almost unremarkable. Except this young man was patrolling the grounds of Hursley Park House, where teams are designing crucial modifications to the Spitfire - and he was found clutching part of a blueprint. JANUARY 1943. Josephine Fox is given a code name and a mission as she is seconded to Hursley: uncover the network responsible for information leaks to the enemy. And when the dead man's father visits Bram Nash convinced that his son was innocent of espionage and the victim of murder, her friend is also drawn into the investigation. But as Jo and Bram circle closer to the truth, danger is closing in around them... *INCLUDES AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT THE NEXT JOSEPHINE FOX MYSTERY, A CONFLICT OF INTERESTS*
Who really killed the princes in the tower? Was Richard III truly the ogre of legend and Shakespeare's play. - a wicked uncle who murdered his nephews to steal the crown of England? Inspector Alan Grant is not so sure. Laid up in hospital with a broken leg, he becomes obsessed with unravelling this most enduring of historical mysteries. As he investigates with the help of an enthusiastic young American scholar, he unearths long-buried intrigues and comes to a startling conclusion. |
![]() ![]() You may like...
Durable-Strategies Dynamic Games…
David W.K. Yeung, Leon A. Petrosyan
Hardcover
R2,875
Discovery Miles 28 750
Spatial Interaction Models - Facility…
Lina Mallozzi, Egidio D'Amato, …
Hardcover
R4,002
Discovery Miles 40 020
Dynamic Oligopolies with Time Delays
Akio Matsumoto, Ferenc Szidarovszky
Hardcover
R3,144
Discovery Miles 31 440
Analysis as a Life - Dedicated to…
Sergei Rogosin, Ahmet Okay Celebi
Hardcover
R3,409
Discovery Miles 34 090
Operator Theory and Harmonic Analysis…
Alexey N. Karapetyants, Vladislav V. Kravchenko, …
Hardcover
R6,433
Discovery Miles 64 330
|