Historical Traditional Detectives

It's late 1942; World War II is still raging. Detective Inspector Tom Tyler is settling into his placement in Ludlow, Shropshire, a small town jammed with people sent there by the conflict. On the outskirts is an Italian PoW camp. Tyler's job is both to keep the peace and to enforce wartime regulations. Then a troubled old man goes missing in a winter storm. The next day his body is discovered in a secret hideout supposedly known to very few. It soon becomes clear that a crime has been committed, and there is no shortage of suspects.

On a reluctant visit to her painfully respectable brother and his wife, Angela Marchmont finds herself once again caught up in murder when a local farmer is shot dead, apparently at the hands of his sworn enemy. But the case is not as simple as it seems, for other motives and suspects soon come to light. With reporters hot on the scent and her friend, Inspector Jameson, battling a conflict of interest, Angela must use all her ingenuity to unravel the case and bring the murderer to justice - or more than one person will suffer the consequences.

It is early in the twelfth century, and the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud rages with renewed vigor. In the battle of Lincoln, the sheriff of Shropshire is captured, and the king himself is detained by his enemies. An exchange of prisoners is arranged: the sheriff will be bartered for a young Welsh lordling who has been captured during a misguided assault on a convent.

The Floating Admiral was the first of the Detection Club's collaborative novels, in which 12 of its members wrote a single novel. Eighty-five years later, 14 members of the club have once again collaborated to produce The Sinking Admiral. The Admiral is a pub in the Suffolk seaside village of Crabwell, the Admiral Byng. The Admiral is also the nickname of its landlord, Geoffrey Horatio Fitzsimmons, as well as the name of the landlord's dinghy.

Astraia Holmes, sister of Sherlock, is baffled by a series of bizarre and brutal murders committed by a dragon-like assailant, and desperately wishing to impress her brother and solve the crimes, she teams up with a mysterious and brilliant young woman Madeleine Barquist. Sherlock suspects an ancient malevolence at work, and he fears for Astraia's safety. The signs point to a Chinese dragon god cult known as the Ya Zi, a warrior society originally formed 2,000 years ago to assassinate enemies of the emperor.

FIRST IN AN EXCITING HISTORICAL CRIME SERIES. Bullying. Corruption. Murder. It’s the summer of 2002. The corpse of a 15 year old boy, missing for thirty years, is discovered in Stoke-on-Trent, a city on the cusp of change. Chief Superintendent Berkins wants the case solved quickly. DCI Jim Tyler has arrived from London under a cloud, and finds himself teamed up with born-and-bred local DS Danny Mills to investigate the case. There is tension between the chalk-and-cheese detectives from the start, but mingled with a growing mutual admiration. When the dead boy’s sister comes forward, ...

In 1780s London, it is not just the living who are prey to criminals and cutpurses. Corpses, too, are fair game - dug up from fresh graves and sold to unscrupulous men of science. Dr. Thomas Silkstone abhors such methods, but his leading rival, Dr. John Hunter, has learned of the imminent death of eight-foot-tall Charles Byrne and will go to any lengths to obtain the body for his research. Thomas intends to see that Byrne is allowed to rest in peace, but his efforts are complicated when his betrothed, Lady Lydia Farrell, breaks off their engagement without explanation.

Can Lord Peter Wimsey prove that Harriet Vane is not guilty of murder - or find the real poisoner in time to save her from the gallows? Impossible, it seems. The Crown's case is watertight. The police are adamant that the right person is on trial. The judge's summing-up is also clear. Harriet Vane is guilty of the killing her lover. And Harriet Vane shall hang. But the jury disagrees.

Thirteen guests arrived at dinner at the actor's house. It was to be a particularly unlucky evening for the mild-mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, who choked on his cocktail, went into convulsions and died. But when his martini glass was sent for chemical analysis, there was no trace of poison, just as Poirot had predicted. Even more troubling for the great detective, there was absolutely no motive.

The year is 1855, and on the LNWR train to London, a criminal is being escorted to his appointment with the hangman. But the wily Jeremy Oxley, conman, thief and murderer, has one last ace up his sleeve: a beautiful and ruthless accomplice willing to do anything to save her lover, including committing cold-blooded murder... When Inspector Robert Colbeck learns that Oxley, his nemesis, has once again escaped, black memories of their shared past leave him no choice but to do his duty.

Many of Holmes's more fantastic cases have yet to see publication, since their grotesque and outré nature would have stretched the reader's sensibilities beyond any normal boundaries. They are, in a word, unbelievable, and I have held these cases in abeyance at Holmes' request to protect both his reputation and my own small credibility as narrator.

Winter, 1890. A deep freeze has fallen upon London, and its citizens remain huddled indoors. But the cogs of the criminal underworld never stop turning, and Holmes and Watson find themselves embroiled in a crime that rocks the art world.

Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret are royal commissioners appointed to investigate irregularities that come to light during the compilation of the Domesday Book in the reign of William the Conqueror. They arrive in Canterbury to be met by the news that the body of a young girl has been found, apparently killed by a poisonous snake. Their investigation takes them to the leper hospital in Harbledown where the girl used to take herbs. Once they establish that she was murdered by human agency, they begin to uncover all sorts of hidden secrets in the town....

Captain Gabriel Lacey begins Spring 1818 preparing for a duel. But while he focuses on the affair of honor, darkness, greed, and death stalk the streets of London and bring tragedy to a family Lacey has grown close to. With the aid of Lucius Grenville, London's most famous dandy, and Brewster, a ruffian employed by an underworld criminal, Lacey's investigation takes him to the squalid lanes of Seven Dials, to houses that practice a highly illegal trade, spelling ruin and possible hanging for those caught within.

Tommy and Evelyn Christie are looking forward to a quiet Christmas holiday at the home of Hugh Norton-Cavendish, the 9th Earl of Clifford, who recently married Tommy's cousin, Elise. However, the suspicious death of Albert Lewis, a businessman hoping to buy land from Hugh, means the Christmas festivities are quickly over. Tommy is distracted by his sister's new relationship with a man he distrusts. Evelyn is busy with her pack of dogs, brought for the traditional Boxing Day shoot.

Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffee house is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. She is terrified, but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done. Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a fashionable London hotel have been murdered, and a cufflink has been placed in each one's mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman?

Ledbury, December 1892. Detective Inspector Ravenscroft looks forward to spending a quiet Christmas with his family. Then he receives news that an old friend stands accused of a brutal murder. Ravenscroft and Detective Sergeant Crabb travel to the old Worcestershire market town of Bromsgrove to investigate. But events soon take a deadly dramatic turn. As the bad weather closes in on the two detectives, Ravenscroft begins to wonder whether they will make it home for Christmas.

Reluctantly, Sherlock Holmes agrees to assist Inspector Lestrade who is being hounded by an obnoxious nobleman whose jewel-encrusted dagger has gone missing. However, what Holmes initially believes to be a simple theft turns out instead to be his first encounter with a master criminal, who is as ruthless as he is brilliant and whom Watson dubs "The Merchant of Menace".

Brighton, 1882: Albert Moscrop spends his holiday peering at beachgoers through a telescope, piecing together disarmingly trivial observations into a compelling drama for his own amusement. A keen student of human nature, Moscrop concentrates his interest on one particular family - the Protheros, especially the beautiful Zena Prothero, whose husband appears to take her for granted. Moscrop gradually moves into the circle of the Prothero family, only to become involved in a sensational murder.

The Saint is back - 50 audiobooks are now available starring the debonair classic crime hero. Simon Templar is the Saint - daring, dazzling, and just a little disreputable. On the side of the law, but standing outside it, he dispenses his own brand of justice one criminal at a time. In three more classic tales, the Saint continues to push his luck in his own inimitable style.