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Historical Mysteries

Mysteries that we feel are particularly noteworthy appear with a © in front of the author.

       New and Forthcoming in Historical Mysteries

June/July 2009

Abbott, Megan. Bury Me Deep (SS, 15.00) July. Edgar-winner Abbot uses the true life Arizona case of Winnie Ruth Judd for her fourth crime novel about a young woman in 1931 working at a medical clinic who is inadvertently part of a murder and becomes the tragic victim of gender inequality.

Airth, Rennie. The Dead of Winter (Vik, 25.95) July. John Madden, who has retired from Scotland Yard, investigates when a Polish woman who had worked for him is murdered in London in 1944 and uncovers a connection to a murdered Parisian furrier, a member of the Resistance, and a stolen cache of diamonds.

Akunin, Boris. Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel (RH, 14.00) Aug. Sister Pelagia is on her way to Palestine when a member of a rogue Jewish sect is murdered and she must discover the culprit in the third and final of the series.

Alexander, Tasha. A Fatal Waltz (HC, 13.95) July. Lady Emily Ashton must right a terrible wrong when she attends a house party at the country estate of a thoroughly unpleasant nobleman, and when the odious host is found murdered, suspicion falls on her friend’s husband.

Alleyn, Susanne. The Cavalier of the Apocalypse (STM, 24.95) July. When a murdered man is found in a Parisian cemetery in 1786, struggling writer Aristide Ravel recognizes the strange symbols surrounding the body to be Masonic in a prequel to Game of Patience.

Angela, Alberto. A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome (Europa, 16.00) June. Set during a 24-hour period in Rome in 115 A.D. this books takes us on a tour of the Eternal City from the opulent homes of the patrician classes to the crowded apartments of the poor, their quotidian lives--what people ate, drank, and wore—all are examined in fascinating detail. This is not a mystery, but it is fascinating reading.

Bowen, Rhys. Royal Flush (Brk, 24.95) July. Lady Georgiana goes home to Castle Rannoch after promising HRH that she will protect the Prince of Wales from a predatory divorcée, but her duties become more serious when Scotland Yard enlists her in a secret mission to protect the Prince during a hunting party at Balmoral.

_____. A Royal Pain (Brk, 7.99) July. Lady Georgiana has been asked by HRH the Queen of England to entertain a Bavarian princess, but the princess’s unwitting involvement with the Communist party and the discovery of a body in the bookshop make things very difficult for the impecunious peer.

Brett, Simon, Blotto, Twinks, and the Ex-King’s Daughter (Soho, 25.00) July. The first in a new comic series featuring the two grown children of the Duchess of Tawcester, are sent by their mother to rescue the ex-Princess Etheline of Mitteleuropa who has been kidnapped by thugs.

Calderón, Emilio. The Creator’s Map (Png, 15.00) July. A Spanish architect in Rome during the rise of fascism joins forces with a young librarian and an Italian prince as they seek to save a fateful map from the Nazis.

Cook, Thomas H. Master of the Delta (HMH, 13.95) June. When a man returns to his father’s Delta estate in 1954, he befriends the son of a notorious killer, but in helping the boy to investigate his father’s crimes, he turns up unexpected dark truths in the small southern town.

Doherty, P.C. The Magician’s Death (STM, 24.95) July. Hugh Corbett must find a murderer when a group of scholar’s convenes to crack the code of Roger Bacon’s Book of Secrets in the latest of the medieval series set in fourteenth-century England.

_____. Murder Imperial (IPG, 8.95) May. The first of four mysteries in the series set in fourth-century Constantinople, featuring Claudia, an agente in rebus politicis, who is called to investigate by the Emperor Constantine’s mother when the mysterious deaths of three courtesans in the Guild of Aphrodite create problems for her son’s attempt to consolidate power using the Christian Church. The three sequels are also available in paperback.

Dolnick, Edward. The Forger’s Spell (HC, 15.95) June. The true story of the Dutch painter Han van Meegeren who was able to fool the Nazis with his forgeries of Vermeer, and had to reveal his incredible hoax to save his life when he was put on trial for collaborating with the Nazis after WWII.

Downie, Ruth. Persona non Grata (STM, 24.00) July. The third in the excellent series featuring Roman military physician Gaius Petreius Ruso finds him and his companion headed for his family estate in Gaul where no one is happy to see either of them until the family’s chief creditor is murdered.

Gooden, Philip. The Durham Disappearance (Soho, 25.00) July. A Victorian mystery filled with séances, levitation, and murder, when a young couple investigate the murder of a famous medium.

Greenwood, Kerry. Murder on a Midsummer Night (PP, 24.95) July. Phryne Fisher investigates when a Melbourne antiques dealer commits suicide—or is it murder?—in the latest in this funny series set in 1920’s Australia.

Gregory, Susanna. A Vein of Deceit (IPG, 26.95) July. Matthew Bartholomew investigates when the murder of the pregnant wife of a wealthy landowner appears tied to missing money from the Cambridge college of Michaelhouse.

_____. The Westminster Poisoner (IPG, 24.95) June. In the fourth in the Restoration-based series Thomas Chaloner, the chief spy for the earl of Clarendon is given the job of solving the murders of two government clerks, suspected of having been poisoned by a third clerk. Gregory uses a classic detection plot device of providing a number of false endings.

Griner, Paul. The German Woman (HMH, 25.00) June. A sophisticated espionage novel that spans the period between the two wars, where a British spy becomes intrigued by the English widow of a German surgeon now living in London whose murky past makes him question his loyalties.

Haines, Kathryn Miller. Winter in June (HC, 13.99) June. Actress Rosie Winter joins a USO troupe setting sail from San Francisco to the Solomon Islands in 1943, but the discovery of a woman’s body floating near the ship and a deadly sniper attack underline the danger in the third in this light-hearted series filled with evocative period detail.

Hickman, Katie. The Aviary Gate (STM, 15.00) June. Set in Constantinople in 1599, this is the story of a British sea captain’s daughter held captive in the sultan’s harem; at once a love story and a detailed history of a fascinating epoch.

Hockensmith, Steve. The Crack in the Lens (STM, 24.95) July. Cowboys Big Red and Old Red return to the Texas hill country to investigate the murder of Old Red’s fiancée, a fallen woman whose death was swept under the rug by the local authorities in another funny mystery in the award-winning series.

Hoobler, Dorothy and Thomas. The Crimes of Paris (LB, 24.99) June. The true story of the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 and the efforts of Alphonse Bertillon, a pioneer in crime-scene investigation techniques to solve the crime, and whose first suspect was a young Spanish artist named Pablo Picasso.

Jecks, Michael. The King of Thieves (IPG, 24.95) May. Former Templar Baldwin de Furnshill is in France with the entourage of Prince Edward when it becomes clear that there is a murderer within their group in the latest in this fourteenth-century series.

Knight, Bernard. Crowner Royal (IPG, 24.95) June. Crowner John is called to London at the behest of King Richard and find that the Royal Court is a stew of murder, treason, blackmail, and theft in the latest in this series set in twelfth-century Exeter.

_____. The Manor of Death (IPG, 9.95) June. The citizens of Axmouth close ranks against county coroner Sir John de Wolfe when an unidentified young man is found murdered.

Levenson, Thomas. Newton and the Counterfeiter (HMH, 25.00) June. A fascinating look at a little-known aspect in the life of the great seventeenth-century scientist who left Cambridge to work as Warden of His Majesty’s Mint in 1695 where he crossed paths with the famous counterfeiter Thomas Chaloner.

Liss, David. The Devil’s Company (RH, 25.00) July. Benjamin Weaver returns in an adventure set in eighteenth-century London, where he goes undercover as a security man in the British East India Company’s headquarters when he is coerced by a wealthy merchant to discover why a man was murdered.

Lovesey, Peter. Abracadaver (Soho, 14.00) June. The reissue of a mystery featuring Sergeant Cribb of the Yard as he investigates a practical joker whose jokes turn murderous at various London music halls.

_____. Mad Hatter’s Holiday(Soho, 14.00) June. Sergeant Cribb is called in to investigate a gruesome murder among a group of holidaymakers in Brighton in 1882.

McIntosh, Pat. The Rough Collier (Soho, 13.00) July. A young notary in medieval Glasgow must save himself when he is accused of causing the death of a man by witchcraft.

_____. The Stolen Voice (Soho, 25.00) July. Gil Cunningham goes to Perthshire to investigate the case of a man who disappears for forty years and returns barely aged, and then suffers a succession of near-fatal accidents.

Morris, R.N. A Vengeful Longing (Png, 15.00) June. The second in the series set in nineteenth-century Russia and featuring Porfiry Petrovich, the policeman from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, who follows a trail that leads from an innocent box of chocolates to the squalid heart of St. Petersburg.

Newman, Sharan. The Outcast Dove (STM, 14.95) July. Catherine LeVendeur’s Jewish cousin needs her help when his father is facing grave problems and he must decide whether to reveal his religion to save himself in the latest in this series set in twelfth-century France.

Parker, Ann. Leaden Skies (PP, 24.95) July. Colorado saloon-owner Inez Stannert is in secret business partnership with the local madam, and when one of the prostitutes is murdered, she looks into the case, uncovering connections with local politicians, mine owners, and a zealous journalist.

Parker, Robert B. Brimstone (Put, 25.95) July. Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch decide to head north to Brimstone where they become deputy sheriffs, but the sanctimonious leader of a local church stirs up trouble leading to murder as the two struggle to keep the peace.

Pepper, Andrew. The Last Days of Newgate (IPG, 15.95) July. Set in London in 1829 featuring a vengeful and corrupt Bow Street Runner named Pike who is framed by his enemies and thrown into the notorious Newgate prison, where he plots to escape to Ulster to find the one who framed him.

_____. The Revenge of Captain Paine (IPG, 16.95) July. The sequel finds Pike a semi-respectable banker in London in 1835 when Sir Robert Peel asks him to investigate the murder of an unidentified man during a period of unrest among the working class.

Royal, Priscilla. Chambers of Death (PP, 24.95) Aug. Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal and her party take refuge at a Norfolk manor house during a journey, only to discover that all is not well with the inhabitants as the killing of a groom is the first in a series of grisly murders.

Saylor, Steven. The Triumph of Caesar (STM, 14.95) July.Julius Caesar’s wife Calpurnia asks Gordianus to investigate a possible conspiracy against the life of Caesar.

Shaffer, MaryAnn and Annie Barrows. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (RH, 14.00) May. Set in London in 1946 this epistolary novel is a delight and one of my favorite novels about war, friendship, love, and the importance of books. So what if it’s not a mystery—read it and be charmed yourself.

Thompson, Victoria. Murder on Bank Street (Brk, 7.99) June. The latest to feature midwife Sarah Brandt set in turn-of the-century New York who finds that the shocking revelations uncovered in the investigation of the murder of a doctor may destroy her.

_____. Murder on Waverly Place (Brk, 24.95) June. Sarah Brandt must solve a murder at a séance where everyone in the room is holding hands in order to protect her mother from scandal—or worse.

Upson, Nicola. Angel with two Faces (HC, 24.95) July. Spending the summer in Cornwall in 1935 writing her second mystery, Josephine Tey becomes embroiled in a dark mystery at a country house that hints at supernatural intervention.

_____. An Expert in Murder (HC, 13.95) June. The first in a new series set in the 1930’s featuring mystery writer Josephine Tey as the sleuth, who aids the investigation when a young woman is murdered in a crime that is tied to the world of the theater, and even, according to DI Archie Penrose to Tey’s own play, Richard of Bordeaux.

Wilson, Laura. The Innocent Spy (STM, 24.95) July. The first in a new series set in 1940 featuring a London police detective and an undercover MI5 agent who join forces when the body of a silent screen star is found impaled on a wrought iron fence and the case seems to have more to do with spies than gangsters.

April/May 2009

Atkins, Ace. Devil’s Garden ( Png, 24.95) Apr. Set in San Francisco in 1921, and featuring Dashell Hammett as the Pinkerton agent hired by the defense to investigate the death of an actress after silent-screen comedy star “Fatty” Arbuckle is accused of manslaughter, this noir has the attention to historical detail and the rich atmospheric effects that has become Atkins’ trademark.

Baruth, Philip. The Brothers Boswell (Soho, 24.00) May. A fascinating literary thriller set in London in 1763 featuring John Boswell, the younger brother of James Boswell the biographer of Samuel Johnson, whose obsession with his brother has turned murderous as he stalks him through the streets of London.

Benioff, David. City of Thieves (Png, 14.00) Apr. Set in Leningrad during the Nazi’s brutal siege, two young Russians imprisoned for looting are given the chance to save their lives by finding a dozen eggs for a Soviet colonel to use for his daughter’s wedding cake. A thriller that is by turns funny and horrifying.

Blair, J.M.C. The Lancelot Murders (Brk, 7.99) May. When Queen Guinevere’s father is murdered and Lancelot is accused of the crime, she asks Merlin to use his skills to prove his innocence. Although the characters are from Authurian legend, Merlin is presented as a scholar rather than a magician.

Bradley, Alan. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Delacorte, 23.00) Apr. A wonderful debut set in an English village in the 1950’s narrated by Flavia de Luce, an eleven-year-old sleuth who uses her skills at picking locks and eavesdropping behind doors to solve the mystery when a stranger is found dead in the cucumber bed after implicating her philatelist father in the theft of a priceless stamp and the death of a schoolmaster years before. I loved this.

Cameron, Kenneth. The Frightened Man (STM, 24.95) May. A reclusive writer in turn-of-the-century London is drawn into an investigation when the hideously mutilated body of a prostitute is found, suggesting that the long-gone Jack the Ripper has reappeared.

Cantrell, Rebecca. A Trace of Smoke (STM, 24.95) May. A debut historical mystery set in Berlin in 1931 with a crime reporter who investigates the death of her brother, a cross-dressing lounge singer at a seedy night club.

Davis, Lindsey. The Course of Honour (STM, 14.95) May. A re-issue of the tale of intrigue, treachery, and forbidden love between Vaspasian and a slave girl.

_____. Alexandria (STM, 24.95) May. Marcus Didius Falco, who often works as an informer for the Emperor Vaspasian, goes to Egypt where he finds himself embroiled in a murder when the Librarian of the great library of Alexandria is found dead under mysterious circumstances.

Depoy, Philip. The King James Conspiracy (STM, 25.95) May. In 1605 in Cambridge a group of scholars brought together at the behest of James I to translate the Bible into English are the victims of a murderous conspiracy that threatens the scholars and their new translation even as Deacon Marbury seeks outside help to protect the project and stop the killing.

Dickinson, David. Death on the Holy Mountain (Soho, 13.00) Apr. Lord Francis Powerscourt investigates when the theft of family portraits that looks like a prank leads to murder in the latest in this Edwardian series.

Dietrich, William. The Dakota Cipher (HC, 25.95) Apr. American ex-pat Ethan Gage returns home after his adventures with Napoleon in the Holy Land and embarks on a quest to find a legendary artifact known as Thor’s Hammer, but first he must investigate rumors of a tribe of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Indians for Thomas Jefferson in another rollicking historical adventure.

Downing, David. Silesian Station (Soho, 13.00) May. The second in the historical series set in Berlin in 1939 featuring British journalist John Russell who had hoped that having obtained an American visa would allow him to stay in Berlin with his actress girlfriend and son, but when she is arrested, he must agree to work for the Nazis in order to free her. Highly recommended.

Epperson, Tom. The Kind One (Pkt, 15.00) Apr. Set in Los Angeles in the 1930’s a noir thriller about a man suffering from amnesia who is having trouble reconciling his job as the right-hand man for a vicious and sadistic mobster with his feelings that he’s not really a bad person.

Falcones, Ildefonso. Cathedral of the Sea (NAL, 15.00) Apr. A stone mason arrives in Barcelona to work on the cathedral of Santa Maria del Mar, but falls in love with a Jewish woman and finds himself called before the Inquisition, headed by his adopted brother in a riveting historical thriller set in 14^th-century Spain.

Faye, Lyndsay. Dust and Shadow (SS 25.00) Apr. Penned by the loyal Dr. Watson, this is an account of Sherlock Holme’s investigation in Whitechapel to stop the gruesome murders of prostitutes by the monster known as Jack the Ripper. This is a well-researched debut with fascinating period details.

Frost, Mark. The Second Objective (HC, 7.99) May. A historical thriller set in the waning days of WWII when Hitler sent specially-trained German agents behind the American lines. Highly recommended.

Gregorio, Michael. A Visible Darkness (STM, 25.95) Apr. The third in this series set in Prussia during the Napoleonic Wars, featuring investigator Hanno Stiffeniis, who is ordered by the French forces to investigate the gruesome murders of girls hired to collect amber for the French. This is a historical series to check out, set in a fascinating time and place where the ideas of the modern world are clashing with a socially conservative society, written by a philosophy professor and his Italian wife.

Harding, Georgina. The Spy Game (STM, 24.00) Apr. A beautifully-written novel set in England in 1961about two children who become obsessed with cold war and World War II espionage when they mother, a refugee from eastern Germany, dies in an accident, constructing elaborate theories that she was an undercover spy who might even still be alive.

Hays, Tony. The Killing Way (STM, 24.95) Apr. The first in a new series set in Dark Age Britain, when the Arthurian legend was born, with Lord Arthur ap Uther asking a clerk who has lost an arm battling the Saxons to investigate the murder of a servant girl, whose body was found outside the home of Merlin, and whose death could discredit Arthur as he seeks to become the leader of the local tribes. Strong characterization and historical detail make this a standout.

Hockensmith, Steve. The Black Dove (STM, 13.95) May. Big Red and Old Red, cowboys who are devotees of Sherlock Holme’s “detectifying,” are in San Francisco looking for a job when the become the targets of a group of Chinese tong members.

Ifkovic, Edward. Lone Star (PP, 24.95) Apr. In a debut mystery set in 1955, Edna Ferber is on the film set of Giant when a young actress accuses actor James Dean of fathering her child, and when she is found dead, Dean is the prime suspect. Ferber decides to investigate to clear the actor’s name and save the film, and she discovers the rivalries, infidelities, and jealousies beneath the glittering façade of Hollywood.

Kellerman, Faye. The Quality of Mercy (HC, 12.95) Apr. A re-issue of Kellerman’s historical novel set in Elizabethan England featuring a young Spanish converso, who secretly helps those of her banned Jewish faith escape persecution and death, and who finds herself embroiled in murder when she becomes involved with a budding playwright.

Kent, Rebecca. Finished Off (Brk, 6.99) Apr. In the second in this cozy historical series set in Edwardian England, Headmistress Meredith Llewellyn investigates the death of a child’s parents.

King, Laurie R. The Language of Bees (BDD, 25.00) May. Sherlock Holmes’ son, Damien Adler, appears asking for help in finding his missing wife and child while Mary Russell, incognito, investigates a sinister Druidic cult that they had been part of.

Lake, Deryn. Death in Hellfire (A&B, 15.95) Mar. John Rawlings is asked to investigate a secret club known for its debauchery and shady goings-on that has attracted illustrious members of the British aristocracy and befriends Sir John Dashwood whose home is rumored to be the club’s meeting place in the latest in this eighteenth-century series.

Littell, Robert. The Stalin Epigram (SS, 26.00) May. Based on the life of Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, who was arrested and imprisoned by Stalin in 1934 and died in exile in 1938 after his poem critical of the régime was circulated secretly.

Morton, Kate. The Forgotten Garden (SS, 26.00) Apr. When a little girl is abandoned on a ship headed from England to Australia in 1913, the captain and his wife adopt the castaway, who returns to England as an adult to find out her real identity, but the mystery is not solved until her granddaughter finds a garden at a cottage on the cliffs of Cornwall.

Parker, Robert B. Resolution (Brk, 9.99) May. A greedy mine owner threatens a coalition of local ranchers in the town of Resolution forcing two gunslingers into a make-shift war. Spenser in the saddle, but that’s not a bad thing.

Penman, Sharon Kay. The Reckoning (STM, 17.95) Apr. The third and final installment of the medieval trilogy featuring Llewelyn, Prince of Wales, fighting to keep his Celtic society free and independent of the encroaching British empire of Edward I.

Perry, Anne. Buckingham Palace Gardens (BDD, 7.99) Apr. The latest Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mystery finds them hunting for a killer amid royal intrigues and East-end squalor.

_____. Execution Dock (Ball, 24.95) Apr. The latest William Monk crime novel set in Victorian London.

Pintoff, Stefanie. In the Shadow of Gotham (STM, 24.95) May. An award-winning debut mystery set in early twentieth-century New York where a police detective must find the killer of a Columbia graduate student who was brutally murdered in her bedroom with the help of Columbia’s noted criminologist, Alistair Sinclair.

Rabb, Jonathan. Shadow and Light (FSG, 26.00) Apr. Set in Germany in 1927, this sequel to Rosa ties the development of talking movies with the rise of Nazism, when policeman Nikolai Hoffner investigates the murder of an Ufa film studio executive, the trail leads to the sex and drug trade as well as the National Socialist German Wrokers Party and its local leader, Joseph Goebbels. PW gave this a starred review for its historical accuracy and fast-moving plot.

Saylor, Steven. The Venus Throw (STM, 14.95) Apr. Gordanius the Finder investigates when the Egyptian ambassador is murdered in the new edition of the fourth in this excellent series set in first- century Rome.

Shaw, Catherine. The Riddle of the River (F&M, 14.95) May. Cambridge investigator Vanessa Weatherburn is asked by the police to help them discover the identity of a young actress found drowned in the river in the fourth in this excellent series set at the end of the nineteenth century.

Simpson, Donna Lea. Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark (Sourcebooks, 6.99) Apr. The first in a Georgian mystery series featuring Lady Anne Addison, a bluestocking sleuth who arrives at Darkefell Castle after her friend asks her to investigate werewolf sightings, but the discovery of a woman’s body point her to a human murderer who threatens to strike again.

Smith, Tom Rob. Child 44 (GC, 7.99) Apr. A brilliant debut thriller set in 1953 in the Stalinist Soviet Union about a former war hero police detective who finds his whole world in jeopardy when he discovers that a serial murderer is at work—an unthinkable idea in a worker’s paradise. This will have you looking over your shoulder for many reasons. Highly recommended.

_____. The Secret Speech (GC, 24.99) May. Leo Demidov has been granted the authority to actually establish a homicide department in Moscow, but a series of mysterious deaths lead to a threat against his family and send him from Moscow to the Siberian Gulags to the center of the Hungarian uprising.

Summerscale, Kate. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher (STM, 16.00) Apr. The real-life murder case of a young boy in 1860 England led to a national obsession with crime and detection that may be seen in the works of Dickens and Wilkie Collins, and that ironically destroyed the career of the greatest detective in the land, Inspector Jonathan Whicher in a riveting historical true-crime thriller.

Todd, Marilyn. Blood Moon (Severn, 28.95) Apr. The second in the new series set in ancient Greece, where Spartan high priestess Iliona is called on to investigate three murders that may be the work of an Athenian agent seeking to destabilize the Spartan government. The first in the series, Blind Eye (Severn, 15.95), is available in paperback.

Waters, Sarah. The Little Stranger (Png, 26.95) May. A very creepy ghost story set in rural Warwickshire in the late 1940’s where a country doctor suspects that his patients living in a crumbling manor house are suffering from a malaise that is more than physical.

February/March 2009

Alexander, Robert. The Romanov Bride (Png, 14.00) Mar. A young German princess married to the Grand Duke Sergei of Russia, a tyrannical member of the Romanov court, finds herself drawn to a young Bolshevik in spellbinding tale of love and revolution.

Ash, Maureen. A Plague of Poison (Brk, 7.99) Mar. The third in the twelfth-century series finds Templar Bascot de Marins investigating when a squire is killed by a cake as an epidemic of poisoning spreads beyond the castle walls.

Banks, Russell. The Reserve (HC, 14.95) Feb. A haunting mystery set in 1936 in a remote area of the Adirondack Mountains where the death of her father sets a beautiful heiress spiraling out of control.

Bernhardt, William. Nemesis: The Final Case of Eliot Ness (Ball, 26.00) Jan. At the end of his life in the 1950’s, Ness reminisces with a biographer about a case in Cleveland in the 1930’s where he was forced to turn from a campaign to clean up corruption to catch a brutal killer leaving dismembered corpses all over the city.

Black, Benjamin. The Silver Swan (STM, 14.00) Feb. Pathologist Quirke agrees to help a friend cover up his wife’s apparent suicide plunging him into a web of drugs and illicit sex in Dublin in the 1950’s.

Bohjalian, Chris. Skeletons at the Feast (RH, 14.95) Feb. A suspenseful love story set during the waning days of WWII, with a group of Germans who are fleeing the battles along with a disguised Scottish POW, the lover a young Prussian woman, who must keep his secret safe from the Wehrmacht soldier who is in the group.

Bowen, Rhys. In a Gilded Cage (STM, 24.95) Mar. Jailed for a suffragette protest New York PI Molly Murphy is hired by a woman convinced that her husband is philandering. When the woman dies, and her husband blames the death on influenza, Molly decides to investigate.

_____. Tell Me, Pretty Maiden (STM, 6.99) Mar. Molly Murphy and police captain Daniel Sullivan investigate the identity of a young woman found unconscious in Central Park in this turn-of-the-century New York City series.

Brightwell, Emily. Mrs. Jeffries in the Nick of Time (Brk, 6.99) Mar. A train enthusiast is killed in his study while friends and neighbors were visiting downstairs in another case for the Victorian sleuth.

Clare, Alys. The Joys of my Life (Severn, 28.95) Feb. While meeting with Eleanor of Aquitaine to discuss a memorial chapel for Richard the Lionhearted, Sir Josse d’Acquin and Abesse Helewise are asked to investigate rumors that Richard was involved in obscene satanic rituals, rumors that may be true.

Clark, Cassandra. Hangman Blind (STM, 24.95) Feb. The first in a new series set in the turbulent period of Richard II’s reign featuring an abbess who comes across five bloody corpses hanging from a gibbet and then the brutally butchered body of a young man while traveling in York from the Abbey of Meaux to her childhood home. This debut has received wonderful reviews in the UK.

Dickinson, David. Death of a Pilgrim (Soho, 25.00) Feb. When a pilgrim is killed in Le Puy-en-Veley, France, Powerscourt is called in to investigate what soon becomes a series of murders on the road to the shrine at Campostela.

Dietrich, William. The Rosetta Key (HC, 7.99) Feb. Ethan Gage continues his pursuit of the Emperor Napoleon and the precious Egyptian relic whose owner has the power to rule the world in an historical thriller that combines suspense, military and cultural history, and a sly humor in an intelligent adventure.

Doherty, P.C. A Haunt of Murder (STM, 24.95) Mar. The Clerk of Oxford spins a ghostly tale of love and death as Chaucer’s weary pilgrims rest in a gloomy Kentish copse in the final tale of the series.

Downie, Ruth. Terra Incognita (STM, 15.00) Mar. Military physician Gaius Petrius Ruso is sent to the far reaches of Roman Britain where he is pulled into a murder investigation, and is horrified that his slave Tilla is involved with the main suspect, putting both their lives in jeopardy.

Dunn, Carola. The Bloody Tower (Kens, 6.99) Feb. Daisy Dalrymple’s research into the dark history of the Tower of London leads her into a modern-day murder investigation.

Franklin, Ariana. Grave Goods (Put, 25.95) Mar. When two skeletons are found at Glastonbury Abbey, Henry II calls on Adelia Aguilar to examine the bones to see if they could be the remains of Arthur and Guinevere in the third in the well-researched series.

_____. The Serpent’s Tale (Brk, 15.00) Feb. Adelia Aguilar, a medieval forensic pathologist, is asked to investigate the death by poisoning of one of King Henry II’s mistresses when suspicion falls on Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Goodwin, Jason. The Bellini Card (FSG, 25.00) Mar. The third in this series set in mid-nineteenth century Turkey finds the new sultan’s chief detective Yashim ordered to find Bellini’s vanished masterpiece that may have reappeared in Venice, but the search is complicated by a murderer who is cutting a swath through the art dealers and faded aristocrats searching for the painting.

Greenwood, Kerry. Murder in the Dark (PP, 24.95) Mar. When three people are kidnapped during a New Year’s extravaganza at a manor house, Phryne Fisher must put aside the cocktails and the elegant young men to find the hostages.

_____. Queen of the Flowers (PP, 14.95) Mar. Phryne Fisher is at the flower festival at St. Kilda’s when one of her flower maidens vanishes and she must confront elephants, brothel-life, and old lovers to find her and her missing adopted daughter.

Gregorio, Michael. Days of Atonement (STM, 14.95) Mar. Prussian magistrate Hanno Stiffeniis is asked by a detective from Napoleon’s occupying army to investigate when a mother and her children are found dead, but he finds that the powers of deduction that he learned from his late teacher Immanuel Kant cannot help him in concealing the resistance movement against the French.

Gores, Joe. Spade and Archer (Knopf, 24.00) Feb. A nicely imagined and execution of a prequel to The Maltese Falcon, filled with period detail.

Harwood, John. The Séance (HM, 25.00) Feb. A haunting tale of mystery, supernatural apparitions and murder set in Victorian England about a young woman who inherits a cursed manor house and must solve the mysterious disappearance of its former inhabitants. Harwood is a contemporary master of the British ghost story, giving it a psychological depth without sacrificing any of the chills and thrills.

Kane, Ben. The Forgotten Legion (STM, 25.95) Mar. A historical novel set in the late Roman Republic, featuring three gladiators and a prostitute, all slaves, who find themselves fighting the Parthians against overwhelming odds.

Kerr, Philip. The One from the Other (Png, 14.00) Feb. Former Berlin detective Bernie Gunther has reopened his agency in 1949, and a well-paid, seemingly simple job turns into a nightmare in a city where it’s hard to tell friends from enemies. Kerr is great.

______. A Quiet Flame (Put, 26.95) Mar. Gunther has traveled with other former Nazis to Argentina where the Perón government welcomes the Germans and is asked by the local police to investigate the murder of a young girl, a case that resembles a case he worked on in Germany in 1932. This is a compelling detective story that will have you thinking about the nature of human evil well after you finish. Highly recommended.

Liesche, Margit. Hollywood Buzz (PP, 24.95) Mar. Pucci Lewis is working undercover in Hollywood where the War Office is using the motion picture industry for propaganda purposes when a director is murdered in a case that may be tied to Bela Lugosi and his Hungarian housekeeper, a former resistance fighter.

_____. Lipstick and Lies (PP, 14.95) Mar. A WWII spy adventure featuring an elegant OSS agent, Pucci Lewis, who must infiltrate both a prison and Detroit high society to unmask a countess who is a German counter-agent.

Littell, Jonathan. The Kindly Ones (HC, 29.95) Mar. The fictional memoir of a former Nazi officer who has reinvented himself after the Second World War as a family man and entrepreneur in France, but whose life during the War, in Poland and the Ukraine, at Auschwitz and Cracow, at the Battle of Stalingrad, is a disturbing picture of genocidal evil, populated by the historical figures who brought this horror to the world.

O’Toole, G. J. A. The Cosgrove Report (Atl, 14.95) Feb. A historical thriller that deals with the motives behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, republished for the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, with a modern date investigator hired to read an nineteenth-century manuscript written by a Pinkerton agent who was hired to investigate rumors that John Wilkes Booth was still alive after his supposed death.

Pearl, Matthew. The Last Dickens (RH, 25.00) Mar. An historical thriller centered on Charles Dickens’s last unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood that begins in 1870 after the author’s death when his American publisher believes that a series of mysterious deaths may be connected to the solution of the novel’s puzzle in a case that sends him from Boston to England hunting for clues.

Perry, Anne. Buckingham Palace Gardens (Ball, 7.99) Mar. Thomas Pitt is called in when a business meeting with the Prince of Wales is interrupted by the discovery of the dead body of a prostitute in a linen closet.

_____. Execution Dock (Ball, 26.00) Mar. Now superintendent of the Thames River Police Force, Monk is charged with a nasty case of child pornography, a case that turns nastier when the accused is acquitted by a jury, despite Monk’s certainty that he is guilty.

Roberts, David. No More Dying (Soho, 25.00) Feb. A foreign plot to assassinate Winston Churchill sends Lord Edward Corinth to Buckinghamshire, where Verity Brown is interviewing US Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, and a string of murders that appear to involve Kennedy brings them together to kind a killer.

Sansom, C.J. Revelation (Vik, 25.95) Feb. When his close friend is murdered, Tudor attorney Matthew Shardlake vows to find the murderer, but his quest is interrupted when his mentor Archbishop Cranmer as him to join a probe of a religious lunatic with ties to the family of Henry VIII’s possible new wife, Catherine Parr in a maelstrom of political intrigue and spiritual strife.

_____. Winter in Madrid (Png, 15.00) Feb. A British spy is sent to Madrid in 1940, a city still suffering from the recently-ended Spanish Civil War, to investigate a shady British businessman who was a former schoolmate in a novel of intrigue set against the backdrop of the Second World War.

Simmons, Dan. Drood (LB, 26.99) Feb. A historical thriller based on the life and final work of Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, begun after Dickens and his young mistress were in a horrific train crash outside of London that may have led to Dickens obsession with the darkest of dark deeds and shaped the unfinished novel. Simmons is a master of well-researched suspense.

Smith, Anne Easter. The King’s Grace (SS, 16.99) Mar. The illegitimate daughter of King Edward IV, and the sister to the Princes in the Tower, begins to investigate when a young man appears claiming to be the youngest boy, seeking to claim the throne from Henry Tudor.

Tallis, Frank. Fatal Lies (RH, 15.00) Mar. Set in early twentieth-century Vienna, the third in the series features DI Reinhardt and Dr. Max Liebermann investigating the murder of a young Czech student at a military academy that is notorious for brutal and bizarre initiation rites for the students. A first-rate historical series with cameos by all of tth writers of the time, including Freud and Nietzsche.

Taylor, Andrew. The Judgement of Strangers (Hyp, 15.95) Feb. In the second in a trilogy a widowed parish priest in the London suburb of Roth with a dark past and a young son fascinated by Sherlock Holmes becomes involved with a series of murders.

_____. The Office of the Dead (Hyp, 15.95) Mar. The final novel in the Roth Trilogy finds the Cathedral Close menaced by death in the form of a double mystery connected to a doomed nineteenth-century poet-priest.

Winspear, Jacqueline. Among the Mad (Holt, 25.00) Feb. On Christmas Eve in 1931, Maisie Dobbs witnesses a suicide, leading to her involvement in uncovering a conspiracy headed by a madman who threatens to commit murder on an unimaginable scale.

Young, Robyn. The Fall of the Templars (Dutton, 25.95) Feb. The third in this series about the Knights Templar focuses on the last days of the Templars, who return to Europe after the Crusades to a political system that is reluctant to have these powerful religious warriors home again.

New and Forthcoming in Historical Mysteries

December 2008/January 2009

Arruda, Suzanne. The Leopard’s Prey (NAL, 23.95) Jan. Jade del Cameron has returned to British East Africa where she must clear her fiancé’s name when a coffee merchant is found dead and he is the chief suspect.

_____. The Serpent’s Daughter (NAL, 14.00) Dec. On holiday in Tangier with her mother, Jade del Cameron must save them both when her mother is kidnapped and she is accused by the French authorities of the murder of

a man whose body she discovered in a series of ancient tunnels.

Barnes, Jonathan. The Sonambulist (HC, 14.95) Jan. An original debut set in the early twentieth century with a stage magician and detective who begins to investigate a series of bizarre murders, linked by blood and poetry.

Boyne, John. Next of Kin (STM, 15.95) Jan. Set in 1930’s London as the abdication is taking place and featuring an upper-class cad who feels that murder may be his only option when he is disinherited by his late uncle. An unflinching look at the British aristocracy at a time of crisis.

Casey, Donis. The Drop Edge of Yonder (PP, 14.95) Jan. Alafair Tucker vows to find the culprit when her daughter is wounded during an outing where a man is murdered and his fiancée assaulted before he can murder again to keep her from identifying him.

_____. The Sky Took Him (PP, 24.95) Jan. Alafair Tucker travels to her sister’s home in Enid, Oklahoma in the fall of 1915 to help out with her dying husband, but the disappearance of her niece’s scoundrel husband sets her own a course with blackmail, murder, and family secrets from the past.

Chupack, Edward. Silver (STM, 14.95) Jan. Pirate Long John Silver, on his way to London and the hangman’s noose, recounts his life as an orphan, a pirate captain, and a murderer on the high seas. A witty romp based on Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island.

Cornwell, Bernard. Agincourt (HC, 27.95) Jan. An historical adventure set in the battlefields of France in 1415 as the English battle their French adversaries.

_____. Sword Song (HC, 13.95) Jan. Alfred of Wessex and his follower Uhtred must fight against the ferocious Vikings who are arriving to plunder London and enslave Saxons.

D’Almeida, Sarah. Dying by the Sword (Brk, 7.99) Dec. Richelieu is investigating a plot against the life of the king while the Musketeers race to save Porthos’s servant from the gallows.

Davies, David Stuart. Without Conscience (STM, 23.95) Dec. In the second of the series set in London in 1942, PI Johnny Hawke has a case that leads him to a psychopathic deserter who will do anything to enjoy his freedom.

Donnelly, Jennifer. The Winter Rose (Hyp, 16.95) Jan. In 1900 an aristocratic woman receives her medical degree and goes to work in London’s Whitechapel district helping the indigent, and when she saves the life of a gangster, her life changes irrevocably.

Fleming, James. White Blood (SS, 14.00) Nov. In this suspenseful historical novel set in Russia in 1914, at the beginning of the Great War, a naturalist and his cousin take refuge in his family’s country house along with a motley collection of old aristocrats, but the arrival of two soldiers, one of whom may be a Bolshevik, threatens to destroy them all.

Frazer, Margaret. The Apostate’s Tale (Brk, 7.99) Jan. Dame Frevisse must investigate when a young woman who arrives at St. Frideswide is truly repentant or simply hiding after being involved with some dangerous schemes.

Fulmer, David. The Blue Door (HM, 13.95) Jan. Set in Philadelphia in 1962 featuring a boxer working for a PI who stumbles on to a cold case involving the frontman for a soul group.

_____. Lost River (HM, 25.00) Jan. When a man is found dead in a Storyville brothel, the madam asks creole detective Valentin St. Cyr to investigate in the latest set in early-1900’s New Orleans.

Gabaldon, Diana. Lord John and the Hand of Death (BDD, 11.00) Dec. A collection of three tales of intrigue and suspense featuring Lord John Grey, eighteenth-century British soldier and investigator.

Greenwood, Kerry. Death by Water (PP, 24.95) Dec. A steamship company hires Phryne Fisher to work undercover on a luxury cruise to New Zealand after a series of jewel thefts occurs among the first-class passengers.

Harris, Robert. Conspirata (SS, 26.00) Nov. The second in the trilogy focused on the rise of Rome’s most brilliant politician, Cicero. If you enjoyed I, Claudius, you’ll enjoy this saga of political intrigue, treachery, and murder.

Houghtenberg, Sara. Pictures at an Exhibition (RH, 24.95) Jan. A French-Jewish gallery owner survives WWII, but must search frantically for the art stolen by the Nazis in this affecting debut novel.

Jacoby, Karl. Shadows at Dawn (Png, 29.95) Dec. A history of the most infamous chapter in Tucson’s history, the Camp Grant Massacre, the murder of 150 Apaches, mostly women and children, by a group of Mexicans, Americans, and Tohono O’odham Indians in April, 1871. A fascinating look at the borderlands area told from the perspective of each of the four groups involved in the atrocity.

Jecks, Michael. The Prophecy of Death (TSP, 24.95) Nov. Baldwin and Simon return from France and find themselves involved in deadly intrigue at the Court of Edward II in fourteenth-century England.

Jones, J. Sydney. The Empty Mirror (STM, 24.95) Jan. When his model becomes the latest in a series of brutal murders in Vienna in 1898, the artist Gustav Klimt, his attorney, and a criminologist join forces to find the culprit. This gives a strong sense of the intellectual and cultural milieu of the cosmopolitan city.

Lawrence, Margaret. Roanoke (BDD, 24.00) Jan. A well-researched historical thriller that sheds light on what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke, as a young man is sent to the New World to help fill the coffers of the aging Queen Elizabeth.

Martin, Andrew. Murder at Deviation Junction (HM, 13.95) Jan. The latest to feature railway detective Jim Stringer who must discover who killed the body found in a snowdrift hit by a train in the bitter winter of 1909. A fascinating look at cutting age technology in Victorian England.

Newman, Sharan. The Shanghai Tunnel (STM, 7.99) Jan. A widow returns to California after her husband dies in China and discovers that he had a number of dangerous enemies who now are after her.

Pattison, Eliot. Bone Rattler (Per, 14.95) Jan. A Scottish doctor is sent to the New World as an indentured servant after the Battle of Culloden and witnesses a series of murders and apparent suicides on the voyage out and continues to investigate when he arrives in colonial New York in a wilderness populated by savages of all cultures.

Pearce, Michael. A Dead Man in Barcelona (Soho, 25.00) Dec. An Englishman—a prominent Gibralter businessman—is found dead in a jail cell in Barcelona shortly after the riots in 1912 where Catalonian conscripts rebelled at being sent to Spanish Morocco, so the British send Seymour of the Special Branch to discover what happened.

Peters, Elizabeth. Lion in the Valley (HC, 19.95) Dec. A hardcover reissue of a favorite Amelia Peabody mystery set in late nineteenth-century Egypt.

Petit, Caroline. Deep Night (SOHO, 24.00) Dec. Leah Kolbe escapes from Hong Kong to Macau when the Japanese occupation arrives in 1937, but returns when she agrees to spy for the British. I loved the first in this series.

Randisi, Robert. Hey There (You with the Gun in your Hand) (STM, 24.95) Dec. The members of the Rat Pack ask a pit boss at the Sands Casino to help retrieve a potentially damaging photo of Sammy Davis Jr., but he finds a dead body instead of a photo and soon is embroiled in a double cross.

Richards, Linda L. Death was in the Picture (STM, 24.95) Jan. The second in the series set in 1930’s Hollywood finds PI Dexter Theroux on both sides of an investigation into the mysterious death of a starlet who was last seen with a screen star.

Roberts, John Maddox. SPQR XII: Oracle of the Dead (STM, 24.95) Dec. Decius is a magistrate in southern Italy—supposedly calmer than Rome—but when a murder occurs at a pre-Roman cult site, the Oracle of the Dead, built below a temple of Apollo, he must find the culprit before more bloodshed occurs, some of which could be his.

_____. SPQR XI: Under Vesuvius (STM, 14.95) Dec. Now a travelling judge, Decius and his wife visit the resort area of Campania where the murder of a priest’s daughter has the populace up in arms against a young man that Decius thinks is innocent of the murder.

Saylor, Steven. Murder on the Appian Way (STM, 14.95) Jan. A quality paperback reissue of the acclaimed series set in Rome in the first century B.C.E.

Scott, Manda. Dreaming the Bull (BDD, 6.99) Dec. The Celtic Queen Boadica fights to keep the British Isles from the conquering Roman Legions in the first of the trilogy.

Stuckart, Diane A. S. Portrait of a Lady (Brk, 14.00) Jan. Leonardo da Vinci asks his apprentice to go undercover after the death of two female servants in the household of the Duke of Milan in the second in the series set during the Italian Renaissance.

_____. The Queen’s Gambit (Brk, 7.99) Jan. The first in a new series featuring Leonardo da Vinci and his apprentice who investigate when one of the chess pieces in a living chess game created for the Duke of Milan is murdered.

Taylor, Andrew. Bleeding Heart Square (Hyp, 25.95) Jan. When an aristocratic lady flees her abusive husband in 1934, she rents a room in a decaying area of London where a mystery haunts the neighborhood, the disappearance of a middle-aged spinster who vanished four years earlier.

Todd, Charles. A Matter of Justice (HC, 23.95) Jan. When a London businessman is murdered in a medieval tithe barn on his Somerset estate, Scotland Yard’s Inspector Ian Rutledge is sent to investigate the death of a man universally disliked.

_____. A Pale Horse (HC, 14.95) Jan. Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge is assigned the case of murder in Yorkshire when a man’s body is found in the ruins of Fountains Abbey, wearing a hooded cloak and a gas mask.

Winspear, Jacqueline. An Incomplete Revenge (STM, 14.00) Nov. Maisie Dobbs has a relatively straightforward case to check into a land purchase in the hop-growing area of Kent, but a series of petty crimes in a picturesque village signal a darker criminal element at work.