Amateur Sleuths Historical Crime Fiction

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.

Harrow-on-the-Hill, March 1836: In a sense, orphans Ollie, John and Arthur have always been treasure hunters. The mudlarks have gone from a hardscrabble life scavenging the banks of the Thames for bits and bobs to becoming students at a boarding school outside of London, thanks to the kind and generous intercession of Charles Dickens. But now they're missing—as is, apparently, a treasure map. When Charles arrives at the school, he's hit with another twist—the servant girl who was allegedly in possession of the map has been strangled in the icehouse.

Charles Dickens is one of the most famous and influential writers in English literature, and Heather Redmond's delightful series asks what if Dickens had also solved crimes? Now, the third book in the acclaimed A Dickens of a Crime series reimagines Dickens' most famous story, A Christmas Carol, as a murder mystery with Dickens himself as the sleuth.

London, January 1836: Just weeks before the release of his first book, Charles is intrigued by an invitation to join the exclusive Lightning Club. But his initiation in a basement maze takes a wicked turn when he stumbles upon the corpse of Samuel Pickwick, the club’s president. With the victim’s blood literally on his hands, Charles is locked away in notorious Newgate Prison. Now it’s up to Kate to keep her framed fiancé from the hangman’s noose.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

New York, January 1896: Arthur Conan Doyle, the renowned creator of Sherlock Holmes, arrives at the Britannic Hotel with his wife, Louisa, ready to begin his first American tour. While he prepares his lectures, Louisa becomes mesmerised by this brash, vibrant, dangerous city, especially when a woman's brutally butchered corpse is found in a Bowery alley and Louisa is convinced from the artist's sketch in the paper that she'd seen the victim at the hotel.