Women Sleuths Victorian

A romance filled with love, mystery, and deception! Lady Violet has been warned to stay away from the Duke of Claverhouse, but she has never been one to do exactly as she is told. Believing that the Duke has an interest in her, Lady Violet cannot help but imagine how her life would change if she were a duchess. However, the Duke is not the only gentleman who seeks her company. The Marquess of Coatbridge always seems to have Lady Violet’s best interest in mind. Her heart is torn between two men. When Violet is caught up in a disastrous and dreadful situation, she must choose whom to trust....

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.

Orlando Edison is a stockbroker using London's infatuation with foreign mining ventures to make a fortune. He has curried favor with the nation's most respected aristocrats, even inviting three influential investors - known as the Merry Gentlemen - to be part of his latest enterprise. Edison is welcomed in the highest circles and moves with ease among the rich and powerful. But a few days before Christmas, he is found murdered.

The eccentric Olive Kettering swore someone was trying to harm her. Too bad no one listened, though plenty wanted her dead. When Olive is shot and killed, Mrs. Jeffries has no problem speaking her mind to see justice served.

Mr. James Harding was a lot of things - businessman, well-to-do, probable scoundrel - but a drinker he most assuredly was not. So when Harding is believed to have drunkenly fallen to his death into the icy River Avon, Lord William Wethington is immediately suspicious. Finding Lord William's name on a letter in the victim's pocket, the local constabulary summons William to identify the victim. Police detectives learn that William had been one of Harding's business clients - and undoubtedly not the only client the dead man had cheated.

Ten years ago, Penelope Paiget promised she’d wait for Samuel Black. But she was only a genteel, impoverished paid companion, forced into service after her father’s death revealed his insurmountable debts. Now she’s a successful novelist, posing as secretary to the Earl of Wickshire to hide her identity. Ten years ago, Samuel Black chose his own path instead of upholding his family’s legacy as spies. But having fought for the formation of the Metropolitan Police Force, echoes of his past and his true origins remind him how unworthy he is to call himself detective inspector.

In Secrets of the Nile, Lady Emily and her husband, Colin Hargreaves, have joined his formidable mother on a holiday to visit the exotic treasures of Egypt. Their host, Lord Bertram Deeley, is a renowned amateur British collector of antiquities, who has invited his closest friends on a lavish cruise up the Nile to his home at Luxor. But on the first night of their journey, he suddenly collapses after offering a welcome toast, a victim of the lethal poison cyanide. Who amongst this group of his nearest and dearest would want to kill their generous host?

After the final curtain of Swan Lake, an animated crowd exits the Mariinsky theatre brimming with excitement from the night's performance. But outside, the scene is somber. A ballerina's body lies face down in the snow, blood splattered like rose petals over the costume of the Swan Queen. The crowd is silenced by a single cry - "Nemetseva is dead!" When the dead ballerina's aristocratic lover comes begging for justice, Emily must apply her own set of skills to discover the rising star's murderer.

Lord Farrington is returning from what had been a wonderful evening at White’s, when he is struck suddenly and knocked unconscious. Waking up to find himself in a locked room, he has no knowledge as to why he is there or who attacked him. With no means of escape, he struggles between fear and anger, only to be greeted by a veiled lady who promises to explain everything. Lady Josephine Rutherford has spent five years searching for the truth about her husband’s death. Believing that Lord Farrington is responsible, she uses her wealth and influence to have him captured and brought to her ...

In The Adventuress, Emily and husband Colin have come to the French Riviera for what should be a joyous occasion - the engagement party of her lifelong friend, Jeremy, duke of Bainbridge, and Amity Wells, an American heiress. But the merrymaking is cut short with the shocking death of one of the party in an apparent suicide. Not convinced by the coroner's verdict, Emily must employ all of her investigative skills to discover the truth and avert another tragedy.

Minerva Kenny is a dear woman, but her tendency to "borrow" things without asking has finally caught up with her. William Barrett has learned Minerva's shameful secret, and he's holding it over her head. Mrs. Jeffries and the staff at Upper Edmonton Gardens have hatched a scheme to save her - but when they try to recover the damning evidence from Barrett, they discover something more shocking: Barrett's corpse. Considering the victim's wicked ways, Minerva is far from the only suspect.

Two grisly murders of men named Siegfried. Both killed by a spear in the back. Agatha and Eustace, now married, are in Germany "enjoying" Wagner's opera Götterdämmerung when Agatha falls ill. While Agatha Aston is recuperating at a sanatorium from the illness which almost killed her, Eustace investigates a series of strange murders at the request of the wily Iron Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck. All of the victims are called Siegfried. What is the connection with Götterdämmerung where the German 'hero', Siegfried, meets a similar bloody end? Eustace investigates little realising just how ...

When Inspector Witherspoon becomes the main suspect in a murder case, Scotland Yard refuses to let him investigate. But no one said anything about Mrs. Jeffries and her polished detection skills, proving that behind every great man there's a woman - and that a crime solver's work is never done.

Penrose and Pyke must put aside their own problems in a race against the clock to rescue a kidnapped infant. When private detective Charlie Penrose Pyke is asked to investigate the kidnapping of a child, his instinct is to refuse. As their first wedding anniversary approaches, Charlie fears for the fragile state of his wife, Grace, for whom this heart-breaking case could be the final straw. But how can he let the desperate parents down, when they have struggled for years to conceive only to have their baby snatched away? Besides, Charlie is their only hope, because the ransom note threatens...

Victorian Era England. Stetson revels in being unconventional. So when society shies away from her independent nature, the bold woman creates an imaginary boss and opens her own detective agency. And her keen observational skills, convincing disguises, and Holmesian methods quickly bring in a string of tough-to-crack cases. Struggling to squeeze a personal life in around a series of hazardous investigations, Stetson worries she'll never find a woman of like-passions. But with her heart set on true love despite the risk, she carries on hunting for the perfect relationship.

Bubble, bubble, toil, and murder... When a woman is found dead near her village in Norfolk, the verdict is suicide. Not everyone agrees. Detective James Simpson is ordered to investigate and he brings Agatha Aston, Betty Simpson and Talleyrand the hound, with him. They stumble across a tale of murder that stretches back two centuries. Part occult story, part murder mystery - this creepy tale is steeped in witchcraft and strange rural festivals where everything is not as it seems. The second Agatha Aston murder mystery is full of laughs, twists and things that go bump in the night. Golden ...

When a local publican is murdered, Inspector Witherspoon takes Mrs. Jeffries' advice to heart. He is going to trust his own instincts - but that keeps Mrs. Jeffries in the dark. She must rouse the household staff to action and hope the Inspector doesn't arrest the wrong person before they can solve the crime.

In 1903, tensions between Britain and Germany are starting to loom over Europe, something that has not gone unnoticed by Lady Emily and her husband, Colin Hargreaves. An agent of the Crown, Colin carries the weight of the empire, but his focus is drawn to Italy by a series of burglaries at his daughter’s palazzo in Florence - burglaries that might have international ramifications. He and Emily travel to Tuscany where, soon after their arrival, a stranger is thrown to his death from the roof onto the marble palazzo floor.

Inspector Witherspoon always triumphs...but how does he do it? Even the inspector himself doesn't know - because his secret weapon is as ladylike as she is clever. She's Mrs. Jeffries: the determined, delightful detective who is also Inspector Witherspoon's housekeeper.

Lady Juliet wants answers. Lord Strickland does not want her involved. Finding a mysterious letter, Juliet becomes entangled in a scandal she would rather avoid. Her situation becomes worse when she overhears someone planning an attack on Lord Strickland. She cannot keep this information to herself. Duncan, the Earl of Strickland, did not expect a disastrous Season—but that is precisely what has happened. Along with Lady Juliet, Duncan is thrown into a great mystery that surrounds them with danger. With the threat growing ever closer, they must find a way to unearth the truth – and then...