Historical Traditional Detectives

In 1912 Ian Rutledge watched as a man was condemned to hang for the murders of elderly women. Rutledge helped gather the evidence that sent Ben Shaw to the gallows. And when justice was done, Rutledge closed the door on the case. But Shaw was not easily forgotten. Now, seven years later, that grim trial returns in the form of Ben Shaw's widow Nell, bringing Rutledge evidence she is convinced will prove her husband's innocence. It's a belief fraught with peril, threatening both Rutledge's professional stature and his faith in his judgment. But there is a darker reason for Rutledge's reluctance.

According to the courts, Jacko Argyle bludgeoned his mother to death with a poker. The sentence was life imprisonment. But when Dr. Arthur Calgary arrives with the proof that confirms Jacko's innocence, it is too late - Jacko died behind bars followinga bout of pneumonia. Worse still, the doctor's revelations reopen old wounds in the family, increasing the likelihood that the real murderer will strike again.

The most original crime novel in years - British ‘Golden Age’ sleuth meets American hard-boiled crime! It’s the summer of 1920: Kit Aston travels to San Francisco for his cousin’s marriage to the mysterious Dain Collins. When a private investigator tailing Dain Collins is killed, Kit Aston, his fiancée Mary and Aunt Agatha team up with Pinkerton detective, Dashiell Hammett, in a case involving murder, kidnap and the theft of a certain legendary bird from Malta. The latest Kit Aston mystery is a delightful reimagining of some of Dashiell Hammett’s greatest novels: the Maltese ...

There’s no one and nothing the great detective Nero Wolfe wouldn’t take on if the price was right. That’s something wealthy society widow Rachel Bruner is counting on when she writes him a check for a whopping hundred grand. But even Wolfe has a moment’s doubt when he finds out why the prize is so generous. For the oversize genius and his able assistant Archie Goodwin are about to lock horns with the FBI - and those highly trained G-men have a way with threats, tails, and bugs that could give even sedentary sleuth Nero Wolfe a run for his money.

Mrs. Laetitia Rodd, aged 52, is the widow of an archdeacon who makes her living as a highly discreet private investigator. Her brother, Frederick Tyson, is a criminal barrister living in nearby Highgate with his wife and 10 children. Frederick finds the cases, and Laetitia solves them using her arch intelligence and her immaculate cover as an unsuspecting widow. When a case arises involving the son of the highly connected Sir James Calderstone, Laetitia sets off for Lincolnshire undercover as the family's new governess.

London, 1815. Amateur sleuth Atlas Catesby is about to discover the dark side of the bright lights. His long-awaited night at the opera with Lady Lilliana ends abruptly when a notorious courtesan is shot to death in Covent Garden. The infamous victim was the mistress of the powerful Marquess of Vessey. Atlas believes that the marquess - his former brother in law - is responsible for the long-ago death of Atlas' sister, Phoebe. Atlas seizes the opportunity to potentially avenge his sister's death.

Private enquiry agents Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn receive in the mail an unexplained key stamped with the letter Q. Barker, recognizing it for what it is, uses the key to unlock an anonymous door in the alleyway, which opens to an underground tunnel leading to Downing Street. The Prime Minister has a small task for Cyrus Barker. A Foreign Office agent stole a satchel in Eastern Europe, but was then himself murdered at Charing Cross. The satchel contains a document desperately wanted by the German government, but while the agent was killed, the satchel remains in English hands.

Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. One of his fellow passengers must be the murderer.

An astonishing tip from a grateful ex-convict seems implausible - but Inspector Ian Rutledge is intrigued and brings it to his superior at Scotland Yard. Alan Barrington, who has evaded capture for 10 years, is the suspect in an appalling murder during Black Ascot, the famous 1910 royal horse race honoring the late King Edward VII. His disappearance began a manhunt that consumed Britain for a decade. Now, it appears that Barrington has returned to England, giving the Yard a last chance to retrieve its reputation and see justice done.

September 1940 is finally drawing to a close. With London having endured the Blitz for nearly a month, people are calling for vengeance: Britain should retaliate even harder with their own bombing campaign in enemy territory. But once again the night heralds more destruction. At Custom House, anxious residents dutifully head to the nearest public air-raid shelter as the warning siren wails. When dawn brings the all-clear people disperse, but one man remains - he's dead, stabbed through the heart.

When an elderly priest is murdered, the killer searches the victim so roughly that his already ragged cassock is torn in the process. What was the killer looking for? And what had a dying woman confided to the priest on her deathbed only hours earlier? Mark Easterbrook and his sidekick, Ginger Corrigan, are determined to find out. Maybe the three women who run The Pale Horse public house - and who are rumored to practice the "Dark Arts" - can provide some answers....

The weathered remains of Eleanor Gray are found on a Scottish mountainside, and her mother, the domineering Lady Maude Gray, requires delicate treatment. This is a case that will lead Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard to Scotland, where his harrowing journey to find the truth will drag him back through the fires of his past into secrets that still have the power to kill.

It is 1895, and Sherlock Holmes is settling back into life as a consulting detective at 221B Baker Street, when he and Watson learn of strange goings-on amidst the dreaming spires of Oxford. A Professor Quantock has built a wondrous computational device, which he claims is capable of analytical thought to rival the cleverest men alive. Naturally Sherlock Holmes cannot ignore this challenge.

Jane and her family are looking forward to a peaceful holiday in the seaside village of Lyme Regis. Yet on the outskirts of town an overturned carriage forces the shaken travelers to take refuge at a nearby manor house. And it is there that Jane meets the darkly forbidding yet strangely attractive Mr. Geoffrey Sidmouth. What murky secrets does the brooding Mr. Sidmouth seek to hide? Jane suspects the worst - but her attention is swiftly diverted when a man is discovered hanged from a makeshift gibbet by the sea.

Guy Fawkes Night, 1857. Joel Heygate is the popular stationmaster at Exeter St David's railway station - an impressive figure of a man replete with frock coat and top hat, bushy eyebrows and walrus moustache. But when the charred remains of a body are discovered in the embers of the town's annual Bonfire Night celebration, everyone is horrified when it becomes clear that they belong to Mr Heygate.

It's October 1814. London suddenly finds itself in the grip of a series of heinous murders eerily similar to the Ratcliffe Highway murders of three years before. In 1811, two entire families were viciously murdered in their homes. A suspect - a young seaman named John Williams - was arrested. But before he could be brought to trial, Williams hanged himself in his cell. The murders ceased. But when the lead investigator is killed in the same brutal way three years later and others possibly connected to the original case meet violent ends, the city is paralyzed with terror once more.

It’s 1876, and Charles Lenox has just given up his seat in Parliament after six years, primed to return to his first love, detection. With high hopes he and three colleagues start a new detective agency, the first of its kind. But as the months pass, and he is the only detective who cannot find work, Lenox begins to question whether he can still play the game as he once did.Then comes a chance to redeem himself, though at a terrible price: a friend, a member of Scotland Yard, is shot near Regent’s Park.

It's Christmas Eve 1931. On the way to see a client, Maisie Dobbs witnesses a man commit suicide on a busy London street. The following day, the prime minister's office receives a letter threatening a massive loss of life if certain demands are not met—and the writer mentions Maisie by name. After being questioned and cleared by Detective Chief Superintendent Robert MacFarlane of Scotland Yard's elite Special Branch, she is drawn into MacFarlane's personal fiefdom as a special adviser on the case.

A woman dies in a burglary in Fitzrovia. A man is murdered in an opium den in Limehouse. Gutsy Fleet Street reporter Penny Green suspects the two deaths are connected, but how can she prove it? The answer may lie in Whitehall where the India Office reaps the benefits of Britain's opium trade. But when Inspector James Blakely of Scotland Yard begins investigating, an unforeseen danger looms. Soon Penny is forced to act alone and is put to the ultimate test when her quest becomes personal.

In what promises to be a breakout in Charles Finch's best-selling series, Charles Lenox travels to the New York and Newport of the dawning Gilded Age to investigate the death of a beautiful socialite.