Victorian Detective Fiction

A mysterious stranger arrives in the small Herefordshire market town of Ledbury. He offers a solicitor, Anthony Midwinter, a generous sum to look after a package for him until spring, no questions asked. The stranger warns that it must remain sealed or else the very stability of England will come under threat. The Ledbury Lamplighters see out the year with a public ceremony extinguishing the town's lamps, a local tradition. A prominent local businessman is brutally murdered in full view of the revellers.

For Emily, accepting the proposal of Philip, the viscount Ashton, was an easy way to escape her overbearing mother, who was set on a grand society match. So when Emily's dashing husband died on safari soon after their wedding, she felt little grief. After all, she barely knew him. Now, nearly two years later, she discovers that Philip was a far different man from the one she had married so cavalierly.

Before Jack the Ripper terrorised London, Police Inspector Samuel Ravenscroft patrolled the streets of Whitechapel. Clever and hard-working, Ravenscroft nonetheless has the worst record in the force. He lets a murderer escape during a chase and is banished to the spa town of Malvern for a water treatment to cure his asthma. Ravenscroft accepts a dinner invitation from a new acquaintance, Jabez Pitzer. Before dinner, the maid finds Pitzer slumped over his desk - dead. Ravenscroft immediately recognises the signs - Pitzer has been poisoned.

Edgar Award winner Otto Penzler returns with a new anthology of exhilarating mysteries, assembling Victorian society's lords and ladies and most miserable miscreants. Behind the velvet curtains of horse-drawn carriages and amid the soft glow of the gaslights are the detectives and bobbies sniffing out the safecrackers and petty purloiners who plague everything from the soot-covered side streets of London to the opulent manors of the countryside. Brush off your dinner jackets and straighten out your ball gowns for these exciting, glitzy mysteries.

London 1884. Electricity pioneer Simon Borthwick lights up Victorian London with a stunning illuminations display - then shoots himself in a hansom cab. Plucky Fleet Street reporter Penny Green witnesses the inventor's death and suspects the clue to his suicide lies in a mysterious letter he left behind. But can she persuade Inspector James Blakely of Scotland Yard that a crime has been committed? Borthwick isn't the only person who died that day, and Penny soon encounters a shadowy world which the police can't get close to.

Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, with cold-blooded killings transformed into novels, broadsides, ballads, opera, and melodrama - even into puppet shows and performing-dog acts. Detective fiction and the new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other - the founders of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P. D. James and Patricia Cornwell.

Boxed set of four #1 bestselling Watson Files mystery novels, starring the legendary sleuth of Victorian London, Sherlock Holmes, including: Sherlock Holmes and the Missing Shakespeare (#1) Sherlock Holmes, legendary sleuth of Victorian London, is asked to authenticate the work of what appears to be a long lost Shakespearean play. Alas, just as the famed detective is about to announce his conclusion, the manuscript is stolen―and the chase is on to locate and recover it. As Sherlock Holmes and his trusted sidekick, Dr. John Watson, begin to unravel the mystery of the missing play, their ...

November 1866: The grisly murder site in London's East End is thronged with onlookers. None of them expect the calmly efficient young woman among them to be a medical doctor, arrived to examine the corpse. Inspector Richard Tennant, overseeing the investigation, at first makes no effort to disguise his skepticism. But Dr. Julia Lewis is accustomed to such condescension . . .

The sole survivor of his family’s gruesome murder years earlier, poor little Ned Lawton has struggled to put the dark events behind him. So, when a brash New York detective darkens his doorway demanding an interview, the wealthy young gentleman immediately shuts him out. But a rash of murders in America are mirroring of the London killings, and Patrick Kelly knows Ned might be the key to stopping the bloodshed.

Kate Ardleigh is everything the Victorian English gentlewoman is not - outspoken, free-thinking, American...and a writer of the frowned upon penny dreadfuls. Soon after her arrival in Essex, England, a body is unearthed in a nearby archeological dig - and Kate has the chance to not only research her latest story but to begin her first case with amateur detective Sir Charles Sheridan.

You enjoy historical mysteries? You love Sherlock Holmes? This is for you. Four new novels in one collection set. All are part of the best-selling series of sixty New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries by Craig Stephen Copland. In this set you can read The Stock Market Murders in which Holmes and Watson solve the mysterious murders of several young men who worked in The City; The Glorious Yacht, when on the morning after the Titanic disaster, Holmes recalls a much earlier sea voyage when they were accompanied by a crew of famous pirates; The Most grave Ritual, where a young man is accused of murder ...

Two stories that follow the adventures of two of Sherlock Holmes's best friends. 1. Pumpkin Nightmare Harry Houdini is forced to tangle with pirates who use supernatural powers and a giant monster man named Pumpkin. 2. Ghost of a Chance Professor Challenger and a young Queen Mary of Scots go on an adventure that turns into a nightmare, when they decide to prank a Baker.

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.

It’s Victorian London. China Town A crisis is about to explode. Ghosts are marauding the merchants. Merchants are being murdered in ghastly ways. But only certain items are being stolen. Why? And what need to ghosts have of physical Things? None of it makes sense. Detective Dee is asked to help solve this growing Puzzle and trend of violence. But how do you stop marauders who Are not ghosts, and yet can materialize And vanish like one?

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.

Someone is killing the people of London, leaving behind bodies drained of blood and bite marks upon their necks. Faced with the possibility of a vampire attack in London, Sherlock Holmes is called upon by Scotland Yard to uncover the identity of the killer. Once on the case, it doesn’t take long for the detective to follow a trail leading to a bar along St. Katherine Docks. Soon after, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson stumble upon an improbable ring of immortal spies, into which they are promptly recruited. It is a cat and mouse game, with Sherlock and Watson as the bait. But with London's ...

Seventeen-year-old Audrey Rose Wadsworth was born a lord's daughter, with a life of wealth and privilege stretched out before her. But between the social teas and silk dress fittings, she leads a forbidden secret life. Against her stern father's wishes and society's expectations, Audrey often slips away to her uncle's laboratory to study the gruesome practice of forensic medicine. Audrey's work on a string of savagely killed corpses drags her into the investigation of a serial murderer.

London, 1851. With the opening of the Great Exhibition at hand, interest in mounting in the engineering triumphs of the railways, but not everyone feels like celebrating. In an audacious attack, the London to Birmingham mail train is robbed and derailed, causing many casualties. Planned with military precision, this crime proves a challenge to Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck who fights to untangle a web of murder, blackmail and destruction.

A detective mystery novel set in bustling Paddington, London, during the late 19th century. In the heart of Paddington, London, Andrew Hendrickson is a young writer struggling to make ends meet. The pawnshop of Daniel Multenius becomes his lifeline, but he soon finds himself entangled in a web of deception, murder, and intrigue that will keep you on the edge of your seat. When Andrew pawns his watch and later his mother’s rings to stave off financial ruin, he stumbles into a mystery as old as time. Upon discovering Multenius murdered, Andrew is thrust into a perilous situation as a prime ...

Seventeen-year-old Audrey Rose Wadsworth was born a lord's daughter, with a life of wealth and privilege stretched out before her. But between the social teas and silk dress fittings, she leads a forbidden secret life. Against her stern father's wishes and society's expectations, Audrey often slips away to her uncle's laboratory to study the gruesome practice of forensic medicine. When her work on a string of savagely killed corpses drags Audrey into the investigation of a serial murderer, her search for answers brings her close to her own sheltered world.