Victorian Crime Thriller

An atmospheric debut novel set on the gritty streets of Victorian London, Some Danger Involved introduces detective Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, as they work to solve the gruesome murder of a young scholar in London's Jewish ghetto. When the eccentric and enigmatic Barker takes the case, he must hire an assistant, and out of all who answer an ad for a position with "some danger involved", he chooses downtrodden Llewelyn, a gutsy young man with a murky past.

When Lord Wrexford discovers the body of a gifted inventor in a dark London alley, he promptly alerts the watchman and lets the authorities handle the matter. But Wrexford soon finds himself drawn into the murder investigation when the inventor's widow begs for his assistance, claiming the crime was not a random robbery. It seems her husband's designs for a revolutionary steam-powered engine went missing the night of his death. The plans could be worth a fortune and very dangerous in the wrong hands.

On a cold November night in a Deptford yard, dock worker Harry Parker stumbles upon the body of a dead woman. Inspector Ben Ross is summoned from Scotland Yard to this insalubrious part of town, but no witness to the murder of this well-dressed, middle-aged woman can be found. Even Jeb Fisher, the local rag-and-bone man, swears he's seen nothing.

When Inspector Ben Ross is called to Newgate Prison by a man condemned to die by the hangman's noose, he isn't expecting to give any credence to the man's testimony. But the account of a murder he witnessed over 17 years ago is so utterly believable that Ben can't help wondering if what he's heard is true. It's too late to save the man's life, but it's not too late to investigate a murder that has gone undetected for all these years.

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 pleasant evening. Charles, Kate, and her father rush to the neighbors' home, where Miss Christiana Lugoson lies unconscious on the floor. By morning, the poor young woman will be dead.

BRITISH LEGAL HISTORY - The Fielding Brothers & Bow Street Runners - the early days and beginnings of policing in England with the infamous Fielding Brothers, the early Bow Street Runners, Robert Peel, Jerome Caminada, and other brutal crime fighters, covering highway robberies, gruesome murders, street crime and a host of dangerous attacks on society. A fascinating slice of legal history and nostalgia, featuring Victorian & Edwardian Manchester crime.

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.

This "rediscovered" Sherlock Holmes adventure recounts the unique collaboration of Holmes and Sigmund Freud in the solution of a mystery on which the lives of millions may depend.

In a London hospital, Prudence Barrymore, a talented nurse who had once been one of Florence Nightingale’s angels of mercy in the Crimean War, meets sudden death by strangulation. Private inquiry agent William Monk is engaged to investigate this horrific crime—which intuition tells him was no random stroke of violence by a madman.

Inspector Witherspoon has been assigned another tough case. The latest murder victim has possibly swindled his shareholders out of a huge sum of money. When the businessman is found with a bullet through is chest, all of them are suspects - but no one is telling the truth. It is up to Mrs. Jeffries and the household staff at Upper Edmonton Gardens to crack the case.

In 1851, private detective Laetitia Rodd is enjoying a well-earned holiday when she gets an urgent request for her services. Mrs. Rodd’s neighbor Jacob Welland is a reclusive rich gentleman dying of consumption, and he wants Mrs. Rodd to find his brother, who has been missing for 15 years. Joshua Welland was a scholar at Oxford, brilliant, eccentric, and desperately poor when he disappeared from the university. Friends claim to have seen him since, in gypsy camps and wandering around the countryside.

In June of 1893, the future Nicholas II travels to London for a royal wedding, bringing with him his private security force and his ballerina mistress, Mathilde Kchessinska. Rumored to be the target of a professional assassin known only as La Sylphide, and the subject of conspiracies against his life by his own family who covet his future throne, Nicholas is protected by not only private security, but the professional forces of both England and Russia.

London's social season is in full swing, and Victorian aristocracy can't stop whispering about a certain gentleman who claims to be the direct descendant of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. But he's not the only topic of wagging tongues. Drawing rooms, boudoirs, and ballrooms are abuzz with the latest news of an audacious cat burglar who has been systematically stealing valuable items that once belonged to the ill-fated queen. Light gossip turns serious when the owner of one of the pilfered treasures is found murdered, and the mysterious thief develops a twisted obsession with Lady Emily Ashton.

No one in 1840s New York likes fires, copper star Timothy Wilde least of all. After a blaze killed his parents and another left him with a terrible scar, he has avoided flames of all kinds. So when a seamstress turned arsonist threatens Robert Symmes, a corrupt tycoon high in the Tammany Hall ranks, Timothy isn’t thrilled that Symmes consults him. His dismay escalates when his audacious and charismatic older brother, Valentine, himself deeply politically entrenched, decides to run against the incumbent, who they suspect is guilty of assault and far darker crimes.

A condemned and wretched woman who had long given up any hope of ever being free again. The evidence that had convicted Annie Crockett of brutally murdering her husband had been overwhelming, although the body was never found, until now. After serving ten hard years in a prison hellhole the wretched woman was offered salvation by Scotland Yard’s most accomplished detective, Chief Inspector Richard Rayner, who was the first to hold doubts about her conviction. But to prove the lady’s innocence, it was necessary to find the real killer and that wasn’t going to be easy. Annie Crockett ...

Two bodies have been found in a park in the fashionable London neighborhood of Callander Square. While Inspector Thomas Pitt is fighting to get the square’s aristocratic residents to speak with him, his pretty, well-born wife, Charlotte, decides to do some detective work of her own. Soon she is unearthing secrets in every house on the square, while Thomas tries to discover what would drive a person to murder.

1882 - When her stepmother is murdered, Lady Felicity Armstrong learns that her yearly income will barely cover the cost of food, but she has a secret. While the manor house called Rosendale is being inventoried to cover her stepmother’s debts, Felicity discovers something in her birth mother’s dressing table that gives her hope of a brighter future. She also has a plan, which she hopes will bear fruit, and deliver her from a life of poverty. Two years later, she is struggling to survive. Her young maid, Millie, a plucky urchin whose devotion to her lady is irrefutable, has taught ...

A mysterious stranger carrying a swordstick walks the gaslit alleys and night houses of Victorian London.What is he seeking?London in 1853 - a mist-shrouded city where the grand houses of the wealthy lie a stone's throw from the vilest slums and rookeries of the poor.Who is this man so determined to fight for justice against all the wrongs of Victorian society? What are the origins of the mysterious William Quest?In a pursuit from the teeming streets of London to the lonely coast of Norfolk, Inspector Anders of Scotland Yard is determined to uncover the truth.To an explosive climax where ...

Thomas Pitt, mainstay of Her Majesty’s Special Branch, is summoned to Connaught Square mansion, where the body of a junior diplomat lies huddled in a wheelbarrow. Nearby stands the tenant of the house, the beautiful, notorious Egyptian woman Ayesha Zakhari, who falls under the shadow of suspicion. Pitt’s orders are to protect—at all costs—the good name of the third person in the garden: senior cabinet minister Saville Ryerson. The distinguished public servant, whispered to be Ayesha’s lover, insists that she is as innocent as Pitt himself.

Another story of murder and intrigue from the Victorian Detective’s Casebook series set in 19th century Victorian England.Chief Superintendent Frederick Morgan, the Head of the Detective Branch at Scotland Yard is invited to a high society wedding at Westminster Cathedral by a former army colleague. The occasion is a happy one, until the bride’s father is murdered in front of the guests.Chief Inspector Richard Rayner and his reliable colleague, Sergeant Henry Bustle are sent for and what follows is a mystery that stretches from the gold fields of California to China.