British Historical Mysteries

The options for the penniless daughter of a deceased earl are few indeed in Regency England. So, following the suspicious death of her father, the Earl of Morton, and the discovery that she and her much younger sister have been left without income or home, Lady Caroline takes a post as a lady's companion to the wealthy widow Frogerton. Just as Caroline is getting accustomed to her new position, her aunt, Lady Eleanor Greenwood, invites her and her employer to a house party in the countryside to celebrate her youngest daughter's birthday. But all is not well at the Greenwood estate.

Beneath the dreaming spires of Cambridge, a centuries-old secret is about to bleed into the present. When controversial poet Alastair Finch falls to his death from a university tower, sharp-tongued academic Dr. Eleanor Croft is implicated. But Finch's death is no simple feud gone wrong. It's the key to unlocking the deadly legacy of the Pelican Society – a clandestine organization that has manipulated history from the shadows for generations. Framed for murder and with only 48 hours left, Eleanor must decipher a trail of cryptic clues Finch left behind: hidden verses laced with historical...

Time has moved on for Quirke, the world-weary pathologist first encountered in Christine Falls. It is the middle of the 1950s, that low, dishonourable decade; a woman he loved has died, a man he once admired is dying, while the daughter he for so long denied is still finding it hard to accept him as her father. When an old acquaintance approaches him about his wife's apparent suicide, Quirke recognizes trouble but, as always, trouble is something he cannot resist.

Crime-scene photographers Sarah, Hugh, and Mick are summoned to the goriest crime scene they've ever encountered. A pub owner named Harry Warbrick has been found hanged. His murder becomes a sensation because he was England's top hangman. Sir Gerald, owner of the Daily World, announces that they‚ meaning Sarah and her friends‚ will investigate and solve Warbrick's murder before the police do. She and her friends discover a connection between Warbrick's murder and the most notorious criminal he ever executed: Amelia Carlisle.

In an untouched corner of Craynebrook, the lifeless body of a local farmer is found, his blood mingling with the mud of Blackbird Farm. For Detective Inspector Matthew Stannard, still nursing wounds from a brutal assault, this grisly scene marks the beginning of an investigation unlike any he’s worked on before.

With the end of the war, the victorious Germans now occupy a defeated Great Britain. In London, decorated detective John Henry Rossett, now reporting to the Nazi victors, lies in a hospital bed recovering from gunshot wounds. Desperate to avoid blame over the events that led to the shooting, his boss, Ernst Kohler, covers up the incident. But when Koehler's wife and daughter are kidnapped by American spies, the terrified German turns to the only man he trusts to help him.

Life on the streets of London’s East End in 1921 presents thirteen-year-old Malcolm Roberts with a daunting array of challenges. Trying to stand up to bullies is hard enough. And pluck can backfire. While trailing some suspicious youths in Whitechapel, he stumbles upon a back-alley plot to purge Limehouse of its Chinese inhabitants. Malcolm cannot imagine what he could do about it. Like most of his schoolmates, he is tempted to lose himself in play and books. But his home life has changed. His mother is two years in the grave and his father fights an ongoing battle with shell shock and ...

A young widow desperate to escape. A past that won’t let her go. The year is 1841. Victoria is on the throne, but women are not in control of their own destiny. Elisabeth Godwin is facing a grim future after the death of her husband. Her brother-in-law is desperate to avoid ruin and determined to remove the threat she poses to him, leaving an escape to the colonies as her only option. An epic voyage in a crowded sailing ship brings its own challenges, from ferocious storms to social rivalries and single men in want of a wife. But the greatest challenge of all will be figuring out who her ...

January 1941. The Luftwaffe continues its assault on Britain from the sky, but ATA pilot Lizzie Hayes is grounded after a crash. Itching to be of use, she hears that DI Kember is investigating the death of a coal miner in Kent and sees her chance to help. They discover the miner died from carbon monoxide poisoning but Kember instinctively suspects foul play. Was it an accident, or murder?

MURDER AT MARLEY CHASE by MARILYN CLAY is book ten in the popular JULIETTE ABBOTT REGENCY MYSTERY SERIES. Whilst Lord Marley prepares for the important Derby he is hosting at his large country estate Marley Chase, located near London, his lady wife is in the midst of readying their sumptuous mansion for the onslaught of house guests set to arrive to take part in the festivities surrounding the horse races. Frantic that she’ll not be ready in time, Lady Marley has recruited Miss Abbott’s help in assembling a prestigious art gallery in her home. Whilst gathering precious artifacts to ...

It is the 1960s and Canon Sidney Chambers is enjoying his first year of married life with his German bride Hildegard. But life in Grantchester rarely stays quiet for long. Our favourite clerical detective soon attempts to stop a serial killer who has a grievance against the clergy; investigates the disappearance of a famous painting after a distracting display of nudity by a French girl in an art gallery; uncovers the fact that an ‘accidental’ drowning on a film shoot may not have been so accidental after all; and discovers the reasons behind the theft of a baby from a hospital.

MURDER IN MAYFAIR is Book 2 in MARILYN CLAY's Juliette Abbott Regency Mystery Series. Clever young Miss Juliette Abbott and Miss Cathleen Haworth have catalogued a house-full of priceless artifacts in order to sell to a London Curiosity Dealer, but before the girls can approach the handsome man, he turns up dead! With only two likely suspects and no funds to hire a Bow Street detective to investigate the crime, Juliette takes on the task of solving the mystery herself. Attempting to uncover who killed the kind gentleman who made female hearts flutter keeps Juliette awake at night and on her...

The theft of a priceless emerald neckless leads to murder and Blythe, the Dowager Duchess of Ashby along with Bow Street Runner Owen Kennedy must rely on a lie to find the killer before they become the next victims.

Members of the Realm have retuned to England to claim the titles they left behind. Each holds to the fleeting dream of finally knowing love, but first he must face his old enemy Shaheed Mir, a Baloch warlord, who believes one of the group has stolen a fist-sized emerald. Mir will have the emerald’s return or will exact his bloody revenge. A devastating injury has robbed AIDAN KIMBOLT, VISCOUNT LEXFORD, of part of his memory, but surely not of the reality that lovely Mercy Nelson is his father’s by-blow. Aidan is intrigued by his “sister’s” vivacity and how easily she ushers life ...

MURDER IN THE MERRYTON MEWS by MARILYN CLAY is book eleven in the popular JULIETTE ABBOTT REGENCY MYSTERY SERIES. Miss Abbott, now wed to her beloved Mr. Sheridan, (who is now Lord Sheridan dur to inheriting his late father's title and fortune) has been invited to Merryton to visit with two of her husband's cousins, a married couple. Although they specifically invited Juliette to come for a visit, they seem far less than cordial or welcoming. Juliette quickly begins to uncover the Harris’s deadly secrets but as the complications mount and her fears grow, her options to seek and find help ...

How far would you go to save your family and a priceless heirloom? France, 1830. A young woman is facing a difficult decision about her future, when the turmoil of the July Revolution overturns her tranquil world. Her family is called upon to protect a precious heirloom for an aunt who has been forced into exile, throwing them into the path of a powerful enemy. To save her family, and fulfil a promise to her mother, she must flee her secluded life and embark on a perilous journey to England. Outwitting her adversaries will take all of her courage and ingenuity, with the help of a charming ...

Loveable full-time priest and part-time detective Canon Sidney Chambers is back, continuing his investigations. A mysterious stranger seeks sanctuary in Grantchester’s church; a shooting weekend in the country has a sinister end; a friend receives poison pen letters; a piano falls on a musician’s head; a school cricket match has an explosive finish; and on a holiday in Italy, Sidney is accused of stealing a priceless painting. On the home front, his new curate has become irritatingly popular with the parish and his daughter is starting to walk and talk.

Bremen, 1951. An MI6 officer, haunted by an SS atrocity, kills a Nazi war criminal in the ruins of a U-boat bunker. The German turns out to be a CIA asset being rat-lined to South America. Britain, 1947. A young cabinet minister negotiates a deal with Moscow trading Rolls-Royce jet engines for cattle fodder and wood. The fates of the two men become entwined as one rises through MI6 and the other to Downing Street where, in the mid-1970s, a secret plot unfolds on both sides of the Atlantic to overthrow the prime minister. Can MI6 officers Catesby and Bone prevent it?

1939. As Europe teeters on the brink of war, Alfred Kendall is tasked with carrying out a minor mission for the British Intelligence Service. Travelling to Prague, he takes his troubled young son, Hugh, as cover. When Hitler invades Czechoslovakia, Alfred is given an ultimatum by the Czech Resistance. They will arrange for him to return to England, but only if he leaves his son Hugh behind as collateral. Hugh is soon taken under the wing of a Nazi colonel - Helmuth Scholl.

It's Christmas 1937 and an eclectic list of guests and staff have gathered for the grand re-opening of Maybridge castle, a newly renovated yet still crumbling hotel deep in the Cumbrian countryside. An innocent game of murder-in-the-dark will turn into a real game of life and death. And by the time the first sherries have been drunk, one of these people will be dead - and one of them the killer. Someone has changed the rules, but who?