Amateur Sleuths Historical Crime Fiction

In 1930s London, celebrity psychiatrist Anselm Rees is discovered dead in his locked study. There seems to be no way a killer could have escaped unseen. There are no clues, no witnesses, and no evidence of the murder weapon. Stumped by the confounding scene, the Scotland Yard detective on the case calls on retired stage magician turned part-time sleuth Joseph Spector. Spector has a knack for explaining the inexplicable, but even he finds that there is more to this mystery than meets the eye.

Stag Maguire, a burnt-out journalist , agrees to help a friend move. They find an urgent message - HELP ME - written on a piece of silk tacked behind a long-forgotten portrait. The message from an address in Berlin is urgent, though it had to have been written pre-World War II. Curious, Stag and his friend trace it to an apartment, a sealed time capsule that has not been lived in since 1942. And from one phone call, the men unleash a nefarious plot and brutal security forces long thought vanquished. Stag finds himself pitted against a vestige of the Third Reich....

Judith Jonson has been a widow for five years. At first, she hoped Dan would return, but her dream turned to a nightmare as the war ended, and she had to accept her beloved husband was never coming home. Then one day she sees a picture in the paper - the aftermath of a dramatic robbery in London's West End - and Judith can't believe her eyes. It's Dan, she'd stake her life on it - or rather his life, the traitor. Betrayed and desperate for answers, Judith begins a hunt for the man she thought she married. And in amongst the lowlifes of the East End's gangland underworld she finds more than she bargained for.

It is May 1911 when Daniel Pitt is summoned to a murder scene in the slums of London's East End. He fears the victim is his friend Toby Kitteridge, but relief is quickly followed by dismay when Daniel identifies the dead man as Jonah Drake, a distinguished senior barrister who has been killed with a double-edged sword. But what was Drake doing in Mile End? And does their head of chambers, Marcus Fford Croft, know more than he is willing to admit? With the police holding out little hope of finding Drake's killer, Daniel and Kitteridge rise to the challenge.

London, 1936 Lena Aldridge is wondering if life has passed her by. The dazzling theatre career she hoped for hasn’t worked out. Instead, she’s stuck singing in a sticky-floored basement club in Soho, and her married lover has just left her. She has nothing to look forward to until a stranger offers her the chance of a lifetime: a starring role on Broadway and a first-class ticket on the Queen Mary bound for New York. After a murder at the club, the timing couldn’t be better and Lena jumps at the chance to escape England. Until death follows her onto the ship.

In 1974, Roy Frady was a perfect cop. Now he's perfect fodder for one of Maggie MacGowen's documentaries. Frady worked narcotics in the 77th Street Precinct as part of a unit nicknamed the Four Whoresmen, a bunch of hard-drinking, womanizing cops that included Maggie's current lover, homicide Detective Mike Flint. They were successful at shutting down the drug trade in their district until a series of brutality charges brought about their downfall.

London, June 1835: In the interest of being a good neighbour, Charles checks in on Miss Haverstock, the elderly spinster who resides in the flat above his. But they find her decomposing corpse propped up, adorned in a faded wedding gown. As news of an escaped convict reaches the couple, Charles expects the prisoner, Ned Blood, may be responsible. But Kate suspects more personal motives. When a local blacksmith is arrested for the murder, his wife begs Charles and Kate to help.

In the winter of 1835, young Charles Dickens is a journalist on the rise at the Evening Chronicle. Invited to dinner at the estate of the newspaper's co-editor, Charles is smitten with his boss' daughter, vivacious 19-year-old Kate Hogarth. They are having the best of times when a scream shatters the evening. Charles, Kate and her father rush to the neighbours' home, where Miss Christiana Lugoson lies unconscious on the floor. By morning she is dead.

New York City, 1933: King Kong is premiering at Radio City Music Hall, and Fay Wray is about to become the most famous actress on earth. So what's she doing hanging around a rundown Manhattan speakeasy? This Hollywood scream queen has come to see Jimmy Quinn, a limping tough guy who knows every gangster in New York - and does his best to steer clear of them all. A blackmailer has pictures of a Fay lookalike engaged in conduct that would make King Kong blush, and Fay's movie studio wants the threat eliminated.

It's been a year since Leo Stanhope lost the woman he loved and came closing to losing his own life. Now he is determined to keep his head down and stay safe. But Leo's hopes for peace are shattered when the police unexpectedly arrive: a woman has been found murdered at a club for anarchists, and Leo's address is in her purse. When Leo is taken to the club by the police there is a man there from his past who knows Leo's birth identity. And if Leo does not provide him with an alibi for the night of the killing, he is going to share this information with the authorities.