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Historical Mysteries

Mysteries that we feel are particularly noteworthy appear in red.

       New and Forthcoming in Historical Mysteries

February/March 2010

 

Atkins, Ace. Devil’s Garden (Brk, 15.00) Apr. A fascinating look at the Roaring Twenties in San Francisco when silent screen star Fatty Arbuckle is accused of manslaughter in the death of a starlet and the Pinkerton agent hired by the defense is Dashiell Hammett.

 

Bebris, Carrie. The Intrigue at Highbury (STM, 22.99) Mar. The most faithful to the spirit of Jane Austen, the fourth in the series featuring Mr. and Mrs. Darcy as sleuths eschews magic for close questioning and deductive reasoning joins together the Darcys and the Knightleys, after the Darcys are robbed of some valuable heirlooms when they alight from their coach to help a young woman in distress who promptly disappears.

 

Blair, J.M.C. The Pendragon Murders (Brk, 7.99) Feb. When King Arthur’s potential heirs begin to die mysteriously, only Merlin can prove that the deaths are not the work of the plague, but of something far more sinister.

 

Blake, Sarah. The Postmistress (Put, 25.95) Feb. Set on the eve of the United States’ entry into WWII, this evocative novel begins when the postmistress of a small town on Cape Cod fails to deliver a letter and the consequences of her action bring the war closer when an American radio announcer arrives after returning from Europe where she has been recording stories of refugees trying to escape Europe.

 

Blum, Deborah. The Poisoner’s Handbook (Png, 25.95) Feb. the fascinating story of a pair of forensic experts in Jazz Age New York who investigate untraceable poisons in an effort to end what had been the perfect crime, and who discover also that many cases of poisoning are the result of heretofore-unknown industrial toxins. A fascinating science book that reads like a mystery novel.

 

Bowen, Rhys. In a Gilded Cage (STM, 7.99) Mar. Irish/American sleuth Molly Murphy is on the trail of an orphan’s rightful inheritance in the latest in this series set in early twentieth-century New York.

 

______. The Last Illusion (STM, 24.99) Mar. Molly Murphy’s fiancé wants her to go into a less-unconventional line of work than being a PI, but when they attend a magic show and the magician’s assistant dies while being sawn in half, she takes on the job of investigating a series of acts of sabotage among magicians in the latest in this series set in turn-of-the-twentieth-century New York.

 

Bradley, Alan. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (BDD, 15.00) Feb. A brilliant debut set in the English countryside after WWII where a young girl who is fascinated by chemistry finds a body in the kitchen garden of the family’s manor house and fears that her father may have been involved. Highly recommended.

 

_____. The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag (BDD, 24.00) Mar. Precocious Flavia de Luce investigates when a famous TV puppeteer who agrees to put on a show for the village while awaiting repairs to his ailing van is murdered mid-performance in the second of this excellent series.

 

Cleverly, Barbara. A Darker God (BDD, 15.00) Apr. Archaeologist Laetitia Talbot agrees to help DCI Percy Montacute of Scotland Yard when the stabbed body of an English classics scholar turns up at a rehearsal of an English production of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon in the third in this series set in Athens in 1928.

 

Dean, Anna. Bellfield Hall (STM, 23.95) Feb. The first in a new Regency series featuring Dido Kent, a woman of a certain age, who journeys to Bellfield Hall at the request of her niece, whose fiancé has inexplicably called off their engagement, but the discovery of a body of an unknown woman in the shrubbery demonstrates that something sinister is happening.

 

Dickinson, David. Death of a Pilgrim (SOHO, 14.00) Mar. Lord Francis Powerscourt is called in when a pilgrim is killed in the south of France on his way to Santiago de Campostela, Spain.

 

_____. Death of a Wine Merchant (SOHO, 25.00) Mar. When a wealthy wine merchant is found with a gun, apparently having killed his brother and refuses to talk, his solicitor calls in Lord Francis Powerscout to investigate.

 

Dietrich, William. The Dakota Cipher (HC, 9.99) Feb. Nicholas Gage ventures into the U.S territory of the Louisiana Purchase in the latest in this series set in Napoleonic times.

 

Doherty, P.C. The Spies of Sobeck (STM, 24.99) Feb. Ancient Egyptian judge Amerotke returns in a baffling case where Nubian terrorists bent on breaking Nubia away from Egypt have committed a series of inexplicable locked-room murders

 

Franklin, Ariana. Grave Goods (Brk, 15.00) Mar. Adelia Aguilar is sent to Glastonbury by King Henry II to investigate some recently uncovered bones that may be those of King Arthur, and if so, it would help him unite the kingdom.

 

Goddard, Robert. Long Time Coming (BDD, 15.00) Mar. In a irresistible thriller that moves in time between 1976, when a man assumed killed in the blitz reappears after 36 years in an Irish prison and 1940, when he was working for an Antwerp diamond merchant and preparing to leave for America. Now he needs the help of his nephew to prove that a Picasso collection rightly belongs to the family of the diamond merchant. Highly recommended.

 

Goodwin, Jason. The Bellini Card (STM, 15.00) Mar. Ottoman Empire investigator Yashim is sent from Turkey to Italy to investigate a crime that is creating political tensions between the two countries.

 

Hand, Dana. Deep Creek (MH, 25.00) Feb. This crime novel, based on historical fact begins in 1887 with the discovery of the bodies of Chinese gold miners, massacred in a canyon along Idaho’s Snake River, as an Idaho lawman hired by the gold company joins forces with a métis guide to solve the crime.

 

Harris, Robert. Conspirata (SS, 26.00) Feb. This story of treachery, vengeance, and violence based on the life of the brilliant Roman orator Cicero will finally appear in February.

 

Kane, Ben. The Silver Eagle (STM, 25.99) Mar. Set in the tumultuous days of the Roman Republic, a brother and sister who have been separated try to become reunited as the sister uses her social status as the mistress of a powerful ally of Julius Caesar to search for her brother, a gladiator turned legionnaire.

 

Kerr, Philip. If the Dead Rise Not (Put, 26.95) Mar. German detective Bernie Gunther has been expelled from Argentina and has moved to Havana in 1954 where he encounters a killer from his days as a hotel detective in Berlin in 1934.

 

_____. A Quiet Flame (Png, 15.00) Mar. Bernie Gunther escapes the chaos of post-WWII Berlin and flees to Argentina where he is recruited to help track down a vicious serial killer—but in the shadows of Peron’s Buenos Aires lurks a government-sanctioned killing machine that makes the Nazis look almost benign. This is excellent.

 

McDonald, Craig. Print the Legend (STM, 24.99) Feb. Set during a conference of Hemingway scholars in 1965, this Hector Lassiter mystery raises a little-discussed theory of Hemingway’s suicide in 1961—that his wife killed her husband as an act of mercy.

 

McMahon, Katharine. The Crimson Rooms (Put, 25.95) Feb. A barrister working in London shortly after WWI takes on the defense of a veteran accused of murdering his young wife, but as she is preparing her case a woman appears on her doorstep with a six-year-old boy, whom she claims is the son of her brother killed in the Great War.

 

Mills, Mark. The Information Officer (RH, 25.00) Feb. A spy thriller set on the island of Malta during WWII, where a serial killer preying on the bar girls of the capital city might tip the precarious support of the islanders against the British who need the strategic Mediterranean island in their fight against the Axis powers.

 

Nova, Craig. The Informer (RH, 26.00) Feb. A sophisticated, unconventional police procedural set in Germany during the Weimar Republic, where a homicide detective in Berlin’s serious crimes section hunts for a serial killer who leaves his victims bodies in the Tiergarten.

 

Parris, S.J. Heresy (BDD, 24.95) Feb. A compelling debut centered on the astronomer Giordano Bruno, who was excommunicated and hunted by the Inquisition for his discovery of a heliocentric universe, and who flees to England, where he is recruited by Walsingham to spy on Catholic Oxford scholars suspected of plotting treason.

 

Pattison, Eliot. Eye of the Raven (Counterpoint, 26.00) Jan. The second in the series featuring Highland Scot Duncan McCallum, exiled to the colonies who must investigate when a British officer is found dead and his friend Conawago is accused of the murder.

 

Peace, David. Occupied City (RH, 25.95) Feb. Set in Tokyo in 1948, this literary thriller tells the story of the murder of twelve people and a bank robbery from the point of view of various witnesses who offer dramatically different perspectives on the horrific crime.

 

Perry, Anne. Execution Dock (BB, 7.99) Mar. The most recent William Monk crime novel set in Victorian London.

 

_____. The Sheen on the Silk (Ball, 27.00) Mar. Set in thirteenth-century Byzantium, this mystery is centered on the bitter divisions between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Church, which turns into a bitter political power struggle as well.

 

Roberts, John Maddox. SPQR XIII: The Year of Confusion (STM, 24.99) Feb. Decius Metellus investigates the deaths of two astronomers working on the new calendar that Caesar is instituting, in a case that has political ramifications as dissent and disquiet are rampant in Rome.

 

Sansom, C.J. Revelation (Png, 16.00) Mar. In the fourth in this series set in Tudor England, barrister Matthew Shardlake is defending a religious fanatic being held at Bedlam, but the murder of an old friend sends him looking for a killer at the Royal Court.

 

Simmons, Dan. Black Hills (LB, 25.99) Feb. A tale of supernatural suspense set on the American frontier, with a Sioux warrior who is haunted by the ghost of General Custer, and who decides to take back his people’s legacy in 1936, on the day that FDR is coming to dedicate the sculptures on Mount Rushmore.

 

_____. Drood (LB, 15.99) Feb. A fascinating novel that explores the last years of the life of novelist Charles Dickens, narrated by his friend and rival Wilkie Collins, exploring the ways that the changes in his life after a traumatic railway accident may provide the key to his unfinished work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

 

Stanley, Kelli. City of Dragons (STM, 24.99) Feb. The first in a new series set in San Francisco in 1940, featuring a former escort who has reinvented herself as a PI, and who after witnessing the shooting of a Japanese man on a crowded Chinatown street, decides to investigate, encountering racism and sexism at every turn. A stellar debut.

 

Tallman, Shirley. Scandal on Rincon Hill (STM, 24.99) Mar. In the fourth in the series set in 19th-century San Francisco attorney Sarah Woolson investigates when a botanist is murdered and than his friend falls victim to the same killer, and the police accuse Chinese immigrants of being the killers despite a complete lack of evidence.

 

Todd, Charles. The Red Door (HC, 24.99) Jan. Scotland Yard’s Ian Rutledge investigates the disappearance of a missionary, who walks out of a London clinic after falling ill, but when the missionary reappears, Rutledge must investigate the bludgeoning death of the wife of another member of the family. This is a particularly strong entry in a first-rate series.

 

Wishnia, Kenneth. The Fifth Servant (HC, 25.99) Feb. A new historical crime thriller set in 16th-century Prague with a Jewish sexton and his rabbinic mentor who have three days to investigate the death of a Christian girl whose body is found outside of a Jewish store before the authorities threaten retribution against the entire Jewish community.

 

 

October/November 2009

 

Alexander, Bruce. Blind Justice (Brk, 15.00) Oct. A reissue of the first in the eighteenth-century English series featuring Sir John Fielding, the founder of the first police force, the Bow Street Runners.

 

Bayard, Louis. The Black Tower (HC, 14.99) Oct. Legendary Paris policeman Louis Vidocq appears in this mystery that takes place in 1818 where he enlists a medical student to help him solve the dangerous mystery of the dauphin, the youngest son of Louis XVI, presumed to have died years before, but new evidence suggests otherwise. I loved this.

 

Bernhardt, William. Nemesis (BDD, 7.99) Oct. America’s most famous lawman, Elliot Ness, takes on the case of a serial killer in this stand-alone historical thriller.

 

Brightwell, Emily. Mrs. Jeffries and the Yuletide Weddings (Brk, 23.95) Nov. The Inspector is investigating the murder of a middle-aged spinster, killed during preparations for a Christmas wedding, but the witnesses are uncooperative and the case is difficult, so Mrs. Jeffries and the below-stairs staff step in to help him out.

 

Challis, Joanna. Murder on the Cliffs (STM, 24.99) Nov. The first in a new series featuring the young writer Daphne du Maurier as the sleuth who discovers the body of a beautiful young woman at the foot of a Cornish cliff and then later discovers that the young victim was engaged to marry the aristocratic owner of an Elizabethan mansion in the area.

 

Cussler, Clive and Justin Scott. The Wrecker (Put, 27.95) Nov. In 1907, a year of financial panic and labor unrest, detective Isaac Bell is sent to find a mysterious saboteur who is attacking the railroad and may be planning an attack against the entire country.

 

Finch, Charles. The Fleet Street Murders (STM, 24.99) Nov. Amateur sleuth Charles Lenox returns to London at Christmas in 1866 after two journalists are murdered and it appears that the crime may impact his political aspirations and disrupt his wedding plans.

 

Fink, Jon Stephen. A Storm in the Blood (HC, 14.99) Oct. A fascinating look at terrorism in early twentieth-century England where the murder of three policemen in 1910 leads to a search for two immigrants from Latvia, part of a revolutionary group, that culminated in a pitched gun battle in the streets of London.

 

Fleming, James. Cold Blood (SS, 15.00) Oct. In the second in the series set in revolutionary Russia, Charlie Doig returns to avenge his family’s murder at the hands of the Bolsheviks, and at the same time steal a treasure in hidden Tsarist gold.

 

Goyer, Tricia and Mike Yorkey. The Swiss Courier (Revell, 13.99) Oct. A novel set in Germany in 1944, shortly after an attempt on Hitler’s life leads him to place spies in key positions to hunt out anyone with even the smallest amount of Jewish blood, with a Swiss-American OSS agent who is asked to help rescue a German physicist who is working on the atomic bomb while she struggles to discover who is trustworthy in the dangerous undertaking.

 

Hamilton, Barbara. The Ninth Daughter (Brk, 14.00) Oct. The first in a new series featuring Abigail Adams as the sleuth in a mystery that begins in 1773 when a murder takes place in the Massachusetts home of a fellow member of the Sons of Liberty, an anti-British patriotic group, and places her husband John under suspicion of murder as well as treason.

 

Harris, C.S. What Remains of Heaven (NAL, 23.95) Nov. Sebastian St. Cyr is asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury to investigate when two corpses are found in an ancient crypt, and his investigation leads to some of the Prince Regent’s closest cronies.

 

_____. Where Serpents Sleep (NAL, 7.99) Nov. Sebastian St. Cyr is asked by the Prince Regent’s cousin to investigate the murder of eight prostitutes in a case that takes him from London’s seedy East End to a mansion in Mayfair.

 

Harris, Robert. Conspirata (SS, 26.00) Nov. The second in the trilogy about political power struggles in ancient Rome, featuring the world’s first professional politician—Cicero.

 

Harwood, John. The Séance (HM, 13.95) Oct. A young woman is bequeathed a decaying mansion in the English countryside, filled with mysteries and dark magic, and she vows to find the truth at the heart of the apparitions, the disappearances, and the villainy surrounding her. A wonderfully atmospheric Victorian gothic tale.

 

Havill, Steven F. Race for the Dying (STM, 25.99) Oct. A departure for Havill both in time and place, this stand-alone mystery is set in the timber country of Washington state in 1908, where a young doctor discovers that the physician who as asked him to join his practice is defrauding patients by operating a mail-order diagnosis service, complete with expensive, worthless medication.

 

Jacoby, Karl. Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History (Png, 17.00) Nov. This history of the infamous Camp Grant Massacre of 1871 where a group of Americans, Mexicans, and Tohono O’odham Indians murdered 150 Apache men, women, and children is a grimly fascinating glimpse of the early years of the Old Pueblo.

 

Kanon, Joseph. Stardust (SS, 27.95) Oct. When an army officer is called to Hollywood in 1945 after his brother has been fatally assaulted, he enters the glitzy world of the Hollywood studios to find out why, and discovers that the Communist witch-hunts are beginning to shake up the movie business. Highly recommended.

 

Kent, Kathleen. The Heretic’s Daughter (GC, 13.99) Oct. A mother and daughter are caught up in the hysteria and fear of the witch trials in the Massachusetts village of Salem, and the mother asks her daughter to commit an act of heresy to save the family in a horrific story of family love and sacrifice.

 

Kertes, Joseph. Gratitude (STM, 26.99) Oct. Set in Hungary in March 1944 this novel tells the story of a wealthy Jewish family struggling to survive during the horrifying period when over half a million Hungarian Jews were murdered.

 

Kingsbury, Kate. Decked with Murder (Brk, 14.00) Nov. Cecily’s preparations for Christmas at the Pennyfoot Hotel are interrupted when a former employee is found dead in her duckpond, and his former wife, head maid at the hotel, is the chief suspect.

 

_____. Ringing in Murder (Brk, 6.99) Nov. The Christmas mood is destroyed at the Pennyfoot Hotel when a fire breaks out upstairs and kills two guests.

 

Lawton, John. Second Violin (AtlM, 14.00) Oct. Set in London in 1938 and featuring Inspector Troy newly promoted to the murder squad at Scotland Yard who is put in charge of rounding up German and Italian “enemy aliens” only to discover that his brother is among the group.

 

Medieval Murderers. King Arthur’s Bones (IPG, 14.95) Nov. The five writers who make up this group—Michael Jecks, Bernard Knight, Susanna Gregory, Ian Morson, and Philip Gooden—each write a part of the wole novel about the apparent discovery of skeletal remains of King Arthur discovered in Glastonbury in 1191, a discovery with far-ranging political consequences.

 

Perry, Anne. A Christmas Promise (Ball, 18.00) Nov. Set in Whitechapel in 1883, 13-year-old Gracie Phillips encounters a woebegone child who is looking for her uncle’s donkey that disappeared around the same time as her uncle was killed and the two turn detective to find both the animal and the killer.

 

Robbins, David L. The Broken Jewel (SS, 25.00) Nov. A riveting novel of war, love, and adventure set against the backdrop of the Los Baños prison raid, where American fliers went behind Japanese lines to rescue over 2,000 American prisoners held in the Philippines in 1945.

 

Rowland, Laura Joh. The Cloud Pavilion (STM, 24.99) Nov. Samurai detective Sano Ichiro is asked by his estranged uncle to find his missing daughter in the latest in the series set in Japan in the eighteenth century.

 

_____. The Fire Kimono (STM, 14.99) Oct. Samurai Sano Ichiro must confront secrets of his own past when a skeleton is found with mysterious links not only to the shogun, but to Sano’s mother as well.

 

Schenkar, Joan. The Talented Miss Highsmith (STM, 35.00) Nov. Mystery novelist Patricia Highsmith, creator of the completely amoral hero-criminal Tom Ripley was a fascinating figure in American letters, a woman with a bizarre personal life and a prolific writing life as we find from this literary biography.

 

Sidebottom, Harry. Fire in the East (Png, 25.95) Oct. The first in a series set in third-century Rome featuring a general named Ballista sent to shore up Rome’s border defenses against the onslaught of the barbarians in a gripping adventure story of treachery and courage in a time of bloody warfare.

 

Stoker, Dacre and Ian Holt. Dracula the Undead (Dut, 26.95) Oct. Written by the great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, and based on Stoker’s own handwritten notes, this sequel begins with the son of Jonathon and Mina Harker discovers that someone is hunting down those who defeated Dracula twenty-five years before.

 

Swerling, Beverly. City of God (SS, 16.00) Nov. The latest installment in the series set in New York in the mid-nineteenth century. For fans of Victoria Thompson.

 

Teran, Boston. The Creed of Violence (PGW, 25.00) Nov. Set during the Mexican Revolution of 1910, this suspense novel features an unlikely duo—a man caught smuggling weapons into Mexico from Texas and a Texas lawman who wants to use his knowledge of the smugglers to stop the arms trade. Teran is brilliant at creating fast-moving thrillers set on the gritty edge of society, and this spy novel will keep you up at night.

 

Tremayne, Peter. Council of the Cursed (STM, 24.99) Nov. Sister Fidelma is asked to accompany the Irish delegation to a church council in Burgundy, and when one of the delegates is found murdered, she and Brother Eadwulf are plunged into a maelstrom of intrigue and treachery.

 

_____. Dancing with Demons (STM, 13.99) Nov. Fidelma is asked to investigate when the High King of Ireland is killed and while the murderer is found by the body, the motive remains unknown.

 

Westerson, Jeri. The Serpent in the Thorns (STM, 24.99) Oct. The second in the series set in fourteenth-century London finds Crispin Guest investigating the murder of one of three couriers from the French king transporting a relic sent as a peace offering to the English king only to become himself a suspect in the crime.

 

_____. Veil of Lies (STM, 14.99) Oct. A brilliant debut set in fourteenth-century London featuring a disgraced knight, stripped of his land and his titles, who must survive by his wits. When he is asked by a wealthy merchant who suspects that his wife is unfaithful, to investigate, he lands in the middle of a murder inquiry.

 

Winspear, Jacqueline. Among the Mad (STM, 14.00) Nov. Maisie Dobbs faces the most cunning criminal of her career—a madman who wants to blow up not only himself but all of London.

 

August/September 2009

 

Albert, Susan Wittig. The Tale of Applebeck Orchard (Brk, 23.95) Sept. An arson fire of a haystack leads to complications in the normally-peaceful village of Sawrey among both the animals and the people, particularly since reliable witnesses say the fire was the work of a mournful ghost.

 

_____. The Tale of Briar Bank (Brk, 7.99) Sept.  When a villager is found dead under a tree, Miss Potter agrees to look into the matter when the villagers believe that his death was related to a treasure he had dug up.

 

Alexander, Tasha. Tears of Pearl (STM, 24.99) Sept. In Turkey on her honeymoon, Emily investigateswhen a harem girl is discovered murdered in the Topkapi Palace and a British embassy worker recognizes her as his own daughter kidnapped twenty years earlier.

 

Alfieri, Annamaria. City of Silver (STM, 24.95) Aug. A debut mystery set in the Peruvian city of Potosí in the seventeenth century, where the Abbess of the local convent must prove that a girl in her care who died mysteriously was murdered after she is accused of burying a suicide in hallowed ground.

 

Arruda, Suzanne. The Leopard’s Prey (NAL, 15.00) Sept. The latest in the series set in East Africa after WWI finds Jade working to clear the name of her beau who is suspected when a merchant’s body is found at a coffee plantation.

 

_____. Treasure of the Golden Cheetah (NAL, 24.95) Sept. Jade is working on a safari for a Hollywood film shoot, and when the film’s backer is stabbed by a native man she fears a killer using a fatal native curse. An appealing heroine and a fascinating setting make this series a standout.

 

Atkinson, Michael. Hemingway Delights (STM, 24.95) Aug. Set in Key West in 1956, this debut features Ernest Hemingway as the sleuth who investigates when a friend, a part-time smuggler, is found impaled on a harpoon.

 

Benn, James R. Blood Alone (Soho, 14.00) Sept. Billy Boyle is in Sicily on a mission to enlist the cooperation of the Sicilian Mafia on behalf of the Allies during the Italian campaign of WWII.

 

_____. Evil for Evil (Soho, 24.95) Sept. When Browning rifles are stolen from the US Army base in Northern Ireland during WWII, Billy Boyle is sent to prevent a German-sponsored IRA uprising, but he finds himself torn given his Boston-Irish background.

 

Brandreth, Gyles. Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile (SS, 14.00) Sept. The third in the late-Victorian series concerns a series of mysterious deaths plaguing a French acting troupe that Wilde encounters aboard ship in 1883.

 

Clare, Alys. Out of the Dawn Light (Severn, 27.95)  The first in a new series set in eleventh-century England a time in which the clash between the old pagan ways and Christianity still was strong as a young girl with special gifts joins two young men who need her help looking for a special treasure.

 

Cleverly, Barbara. Folly du Jour (RH, 14.00) Aug. Joe Sandilands is sent to France when British diplomat George Jardine is in jail in Paris suspected of having murdered an aristocratic ex-soldier in a box at the Paris Opera.

 

Culhane, Patrick. Red Sky at Morning (HC, 7.99) Aug. A young officer assigned to an ammunitions ship in 1943 is faced with a volatile situation with a group of racist officers and an all-black crew, a murderous situation.

 

Donaghue, Emma. The Sealed Letter (HMH, 13.95) Sept. Based on a scandalous divorce case that gripped London in 1864, the story of two friends, one of whose marital unhappiness leads to an affair with an army officer.

 

Douglas, Carole Nelson. Good Night, Mr. Holmes (STM, 14.99) Sept. A reissue of the first book  featuring Irene Adler, the American opera singer who remains THE woman for Sherlock Holmes and a brilliant detective in her own right.

 

Dunn, Carola. Black Ship (STM, 13.99) Sept. When her husband inherits a large house near Hampstead Heath in 1925, Daisy is pleased, but the discovery of a body leads to rumors of an international liquor-smuggling operation in the neighborhood complete with American gangsters.

 

_____. Sheer Folly (STM, 24.99) Sept.  While working on a book on architectural follies, Daisy and her friend Lucy go to Appsworth Hall, where the famous grotto explodes with a one of the guests at the country house inside.

 

Eisdorfer, Erica. The Wet Nurse’s Tale (Put, 24.95) Aug. A lower-class woman in Victorian London is a wet nurse after her baby is born, breast-feeding children of the wealthy, but when her father sells her baby to a woman whose own baby recently died she finds herself plunged into a terrifying journey to rescue him.

 

Ellory, R.J. A Quiet Belief in Angels (Put, 24.95) Sept. A haunting novel that begins in rural Georgia in the 1940’s where a teenager seeks to protect his community from a murderer who is killing and mutilating young girls.

 

Fate, Robert. Baby Shark’s Jugglers at the Border (SCB, 14.95) Sept. Set in Texas in 1958, a young female PI and her boss investigate when his wife, a Dallas stripper, is found murdered, and find themselves propelled on a high-octane chase across West Texas.

 

Finch, Charles. The September Society (STM, 13.95) Aug. Gentleman-detective Charles Lenox returns to Oxford to investigate the disappearance of a young student in the second in this excellent series set in Victorian England.

 

Gordon-Smith, Dolores. As if by Magic (Soho, 25.00) Aug. When a friend of Jack Haldean’s, freezing and hungry, breaks into a stranger’s house, he witnesses a murder, but no one believes him in the third of this Golden Age series.

 

Humbert, Agnès. Résistance (STM, 15.00) Aug. An art historian during the Nazi occupation of Paris, the author and others formed an organized resistance that was later betrayed to the Gestapo, when she was captured and imprisoned. Published first in 1946, this is translated for the first time.

 

Izner, Claude. The Disappearance at Pere-Lachaise (STM, 24.99) Sept. Bookseller Victor Legris  helps when a former mistress disappears in her husband’s tomb at the Père-Lachaise cemetery and her corpse is later found in an overgrown backyard in the second in this charming series set in fin-de-siècle Paris.

 

_____. Murder on the Eiffel Tower (STM, 13.99) Sept.  A prize-winning debut mystery set in  Paris featuring bookseller Victor Legris, who investigates when a woman collapses and dies on a viewing platform of the newly-built Eiffel Tower.

 

Lake, Deryn. Death and the Black Pyramid (Severn, 28.95) Sept. Apothecary John Rawlings investigates a murder at an inn during a journey by carriage to the West Country in the latest in this series set in Georgian England.

 

Lehane, Dennis. The Given Day (HC, 15.99) Sept. The story of two Boston families—one white, one black—caught up in the social unrest that occurred at the end of World War I when the United States was transformed completely.

 

Levi, Lia. The Jewish Husband (Europa, 15.00) Sept. When a Jewish professor in Rome in 1938 falls in love with a woman from a prominent Roman family, he renounces his religion to marry her, but as fascism takes over Italy, he finds his compromise becomes more painful and more difficult.

 

Mantel, Hilary. Wolf Hall (HH, 27.00) Sept. A look at the court of  Henry VIII and ambitious politician Thomas Cromwell willing to gamble his life to win the volatile king’s favor by helping him to put aside his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

 

Miller, Lee. Roanoke (Hach, 15.99) Sept. A fascinating look at the mystery of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colony that disappeared with all 115 colonists and their belongings in 1587 in a historical study that reads like a novel filled with intrigue, espionage, sabotage, Native American politics, and treachery.

 

Myers, Beverle Graves. Her Deadly Mischief (PP, 24.95) Sept. In the fifth in the series set in fifteenth-century Venice, where castrato Tito Amato witnesses the murder of a courtesan in one of the boxes and begins an investigation that leads to his wife’s return to the Jewish ghetto and a reconciliation with her family.

 

Parker, I. J. The Convict’s Sword (Png, 15.00) Aug. Lord Sugawara Akitada in eleventh-century Japan must find the killer of a man condemned to exile for a crime he did not commit, while his retainer investigates the death of a blind street singer with a mysterious past.

 

Patterson, James and Richard Dilallo. Alex Cross’s Trial (LB, 27.99) Aug. Set in 1906 in Mississippi, this is a story of racism and the pursuit of justice as a Washington D. C. attorney fights the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.

 

_____ and Martin Dugard. The Murder of King Tut (Hach, 26.99) Sept. The mystery of the death of the boy king whose tomb was discovered in 1922 is tackled by Patterson using all of the available data from Carter’s excavation journals to modern forensic science.

 

Pérez-Reverte, Arturo. The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet (Put, 25.95) Sept. Captain Alatriste finds himself embroiled in intrigues at court when he makes the mistake of falling for a beautiful actress who is a royal favorite.

 

_____. The King’s Gold (Plume, 15.00) Sept. Captain Alatriste is hired by the King of Spain to protect the Spanish Crown and its dominion over the wealth of the Americas in the seventeenth century in a case involving contraband gold and a Spanish galleon from the West Indies.

 

Randisi, Robert J. You’re Nobody ‘til Somebody Kills You (STM, 24.99) Sept. In the latest Rat Pack mystery, Eddie G has been enlisted to help Marilyn Monroe, who thinks that someone is following her.

 

Reese, James. The Dracula Dossier (HC, 14.99) Sept. Abraham Stoker, a Victorian writer, visits Whitechapel late one night and becomes involved in a mystery when a prostitute is found murdered and he becomes a suspect. His attempts to clear his name from the murders that are ascribed to Jack the Ripper form the basis of his most famous novel, Dracula.

 

Russell, Sheldon. The Yard Dog (STM, 24.99) Sept. Set at the end of WWII at a German POW camp in Oklahoma, this historical mystery features a railroad special agent who uncovers a conspiracy involving Nazi prisoners and a plan to sell stolen art in America.

 

Scarrow, Simon. The Eagle’s Prophecy (STM, 14.95) Aug. Centurions Macro and Cato are asked by the imperial secretary in Rome to rescue an imperial agent who has been captured by pirates.

 

Stott, Rebecca. The Coral Thief (RH, 25.00) Sept. A young English scientist traveling to Paris in 1815 is the victim of a beautiful woman who steals a priceless coral specimen, but when the chief of the Bureau de la Sûreté tries to enlist him to trap the thief, he makes a decision that will affect his life.

 

Tobin, Betsy. Ice Land (Png, 15.00) Sept. An epic adventure of forbidden love and jealousy set in Iceland in 1000 AD, a country on the brink of war and threatened by the encroachment of Christianity.

 

Whyte, Jack. Order in Chaos (Put, 26.95) Aug. The final volume in the Templar trilogy finds Sir William St. Clair fleeing France with the Temple’s treasure steps ahead of King Philip IV’s army and arriving in Scotland to support Robert Bruce at the Battle of Brannockburn.

 

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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 14th-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.