Historical Fiction Cozy Mystery

A grand party in a snowbound mansion, a dead body beside the Christmas tree, and a master detective on hand to crack the case.

A short read (very short - 21 pages) set in January 1921 in New York City. Join Sadie Brown, investigative reporter, and Roger Siebert, photographer, on their picture-perfect honeymoon. At least it started out as perfect. But, when a large steamer trunk mysteriously appears in their honeymoon suite, it's the beginning of a cozy mystery. The strange trunk and its even stranger owner draw the newlyweds into a scheme involving stolen goods, a ransom note, and blackmail.

England, 1924. Lady Adelaide Compton has recently (and satisfactorily) interred her husband, Major Rupert Charles Cressleigh Compton, hero of the Somme, in the family vault in the village churchyard. Rupert died by smashing his Hispano-Suiza on a Cotswold country road while carrying a French mademoiselle in the passenger seat. With the house now Addie's, needed improvements in hand, and a weekend house party underway, how inconvenient of Rupert to turn up - not in the flesh, but as a spirit! Rupert has to perform a few good deeds before becoming welcomed to heaven.

1957 - A young woman is found dead in a mews house a mile from Buckingham Palace, wearing only silk underwear and a a diamond tiara. An older man is discovered nearby, garrotted and pierced through the eye with a long, sharp implement. According to the police, a high society card game was going on downstairs that night. One of the players surely committed the murders, but each of them can give the others an alibi.

Harriet Andover had no intention of dying young like her silly siblings had. She intended to outlive them and outdo them as she always had. But Harriet discovers that the best intentions can lead to murder when she is strangled inside her mansion with a house full of holiday guests. As much as Inspector Witherspoon enjoys his job delivering justice, the last thing he wanted was a complicated murder case just a week before Christmas. He soon discovers that Harriet's own husband and grown stepchildren are not overcome with grief and neither are most of her friends.

A modern woman in 1907, Lady Dunbridge is not about to let a little thing like the death of her husband ruin her social life. She's ready to take the dazzling world of Gilded Age Manhattan by storm. From the decadence of high society balls to the underbelly of Belmont horse racing, romance, murder, and scandals abound. Someone simply must do something. And Lady Dunbridge is happy to oblige.

Lady Arianna Hadley and her husband, the Earl of Saybrook, want nothing more than to savor a quiet life embellished by the occasional cup of the finest chocolate. However, when they receive orders to travel to Scotland and capture an elusive traitor, they feel their duty to the Crown must come first. In a laboratory in Scotland, they discover the corpse of a chemistry professor - and cryptic papers hinting at a dangerous new discovery now in enemy hands. Racing against time, Arianna and Saybrook pursue their most cunning and dangerous adversary

With London's streets deserted, a young flower girl is murdered. But why was she out so late on the foggiest night of the year? Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard has nowhere to even begin looking for a suspect. However, Mrs. Jeffries, his housekeeper, is even more accomplished at detection than she is at household management. A policeman's widow herself, her quick wits allow her to nudge the inspector in the right direction to solve the mystery.

Flappers meet gangsters in the hottest jazz club in Soho. Step back into the roaring twenties with a captivating mystery set in 1920s London. When a night of jazz and dancing with the American ambassador’s niece ends in tragedy, apprentice detective Marjorie Swallow is thrust into a world of shady cocaine deals and opium dens. To discover the truth, she goes undercover as a dance hostess at the notorious Harlequin club and confronts the menacing Armstrong brothers. The quest for answers takes unexpected turns, with secrets lurking in the shadows of Soho and closer to home.

It's 1934. When Miss Pongleton is found murdered on the stairs of Belsize Park station, her fellow boarders in the Frampton Hotel are not overwhelmed with grief at the death of a tiresome old woman. But they all have their theories about the identity of the murderer and help to unravel the mystery of who killed the wealthy 'Pongle'. Several of her fellow residents - even Tuppy the terrier - have parts to play in the events that lead to a dramatic arrest.

Arlette Montrose Banfield angered many marriageable women when she snagged the handsome Lewis Banfield - but were they angry enough to poison her? Mrs. Jeffries doesn't mind getting her hands dirty to uncover the greed behind her murder.

London, 1922—Theodora Laurent, femme fatale and undercover spy, has spent several months training Lord Rex to be her new partner. It's time for him to undertake his first assignment—finding out who passed along false intelligence to the Cabinet. Despite Theodora's training, the only thing Lord Rex knows for sure is his spying skills fall far short of hers. However, when London's spymaster himself requests your help, you can't just turn him down.

Taking on the responsibilities that come with being Lady Lyndhurst, Stella is eager to embrace yuletide traditions in the Edwardian English countryside and use her strong social influence for good. Her world becomes so consumed with starting a horse farm charity for the holidays that she barely notices the usual oddities attached to her upper crust lifestyle. At least, not until items vanish from her bedroom and maligned housekeeper, Mrs. Nelson, becomes seriously ill—only to be found dead in the cold on Mistletoe Lane.

It’s an early morning in May when Lane is pulled from a deep sleep by a concerning phone call from Scotland—her grandfather has had a heart attack. Lane hastily makes plans to fly overseas, and a dejected Inspector Darling prepares himself for a stint of bachelorhood. But before he can begin to dwell on it the Nelson Police learn that Ben Arden, a local cad, has gone out for a late-night boat ride and not returned, which immediately sets the town rumour mill churning.

Finally, Flora Hyde-Clare has wrest the narrative from Beatrice by finding her own compelling murder mystery to solve. Well, it’s not entirely her own because the victim is her cousin’s former beau Mr. Theodore Davies, whose father cruelly separated the young lovers (though not so cruelly, for it left the door open for Bea to woo the duke of Kesgrave).

Dedicating a monument to an eminent member of a Cambridge college should be a simple matter of course, but despite already commissioning an artist to complete the work, the meddling daughter of the deceased is determined to enlist her own sculptor to create the statue. It's convenient for her, then, when the university's chosen candidate turns up dead...Felix Smythe and Professor Cedric Dillworthy, a benefactor to the project, are invited to Cambridge to participate in the preparations. Unbeknownst to them, Rosy Gilchrist is also there, attending a reunion at Newnham College.

"The horror on the train, great though it may turn out to be, will not compare with the horror that exists here, in this house." On Christmas Eve, heavy snowfall brings a train to a halt near the village of Hemmersby. Several passengers take shelter in a deserted country house, where the fire has been lit and the table laid for tea - but no one is at home. Trapped together for Christmas, the passengers are seeking to unravel the secrets of the empty house when a murderer strikes in their midst.

If you love early rock & roll, poodle skirts, clever who-dun-its, a charming cat, and an even more charming detective, you're going to love this series. Enjoy books 1 and 2 of the 1950s Cozy Mystery series by USA Today bestselling author Lee Strauss!

A Yuletide dinner in West Brompton should have been a festive occasion, until the host, wealthy Stephen Whitfield, dropped dead before the second course. Now, Mrs. Jeffries and the busy sleuths must rally in support of their inspector, especially since the clues are harder to find than a silver sixpence in a plum pudding.

In this compelling Gaslight Mystery by Edgar Award-nominated author Victoria Thompson, a lady of means helps midwife Sarah Brandt rescue a young woman and her newborn from a brothel. But when the wealthy benefactor is found murdered, Sarah uncovers some unpleasant truths about the victim, her charity, and the woman and child Sarah risked her own life to save.