In September, 1930, fearless detective Miss Clara Vale is bound for Berlin, but this trip is all about la mode, not murder.
Clara is set to walk the runway at Berlin Fashion Week, as a favour to her designer friend Juju, with her assistant Bella in tow.
Elections loom in Germany, and among Juju’s friends, the Spieglers, all the talk is of the National Socialists. But trouble brews closer to home, when a shocking murder at their clothing factory points the finger at the Jewish couple’s brilliant young son.
With the victim an old friend of the fashion crew, emotions run high — and Clara quickly joins the investigation, setting out to untangle Nazi conspiracies and nasty colleagues.
To complicate matters, Clara’s old flame Larry Winter is in town, and it seems he may know more than he’s letting on.
When a second body turns up, pressure mounts. Amidst the dark glamour of 1930s Berlin, on the eve of the Third Reich, can Clara find the real killer and protect those around her?
The Berlin Murders by Fiona Veitch Smith is published on 13 January, 2026. It’s the fifth in her Clara Vale mysteries.
We’ll have a feature on the Jewish fashion houses of Weimar Germany in Historia on 16 January.
For more new historical fiction, have a look at Historia’s list of books coming out in 2026 — over 110 of them.
