Winter, 1607, and a man is struck down in the grounds of Battle Abbey, Sussex. Before dawn breaks, he is dead. Home to the Montagues, Battle has caught the paranoid eye of King James I. The Catholic household is rumoured to shelter those loyal to the Pope, disguising them as servants within the abbey walls. […]
The Lost Man of Bombay by Vaseem Khan
Bombay, 1950. When the body of a white man is found frozen in the Himalayan foothills near Dehra Dun, he is christened the Ice Man by the national media. Who is he? How long has he been there? Why was he killed? As Inspector Persis Wadia and Metropolitan Police criminalist Archie Blackfinch investigate the case […]
Dead in the Water by Mark Ellis
Summer, 1942. The Second World War rages on, but Britain now faces the Nazi threat with America at its side. In a bombed-out London swarming with gangsters and spies, DCI Frank Merlin continues his battle against rampant wartime crime. A mangled body is found in the Thames just as some items of priceless art go […]
Barossa Street by Rob McInroy
20th January 1936, and King George V is dying. On the same day, Bob Kelty accompanies a friend to the house of a local recluse. There they find Hugh Smithson brutally murdered. Horror turns to nightmare as Bob’s friend, Richard Hamill, comes under suspicion of the murder and Bob reluctantly becomes embroiled, once more, in […]
1920s Bangalore, a city of diversities
Harini Nagendra’s The Bangalore Detectives Club is set in 1920s colonial Bangalore, where Kaveri, a budding mathematician, stumbles upon a body at an elite event and is pulled into solving a crime, while exploring the city’s bungalows, brothels and bylanes. Harini tells Historia how hard it was to uncover the diverse voices of Indian residents, […]
Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare
Lena Aldridge is wondering if life has passed her by. The dazzling theatre career she hoped for hasn’t worked out. Instead, she’s stuck singing in a sticky-floored basement club in Soho and her married lover has just left her. She has nothing to look forward to until a stranger offers her the chance of a […]
The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra
When clever, headstrong Kaveri moves to Bangalore to marry doctor Ramu, she’s resigned herself to a quiet life. But that all changes the night of the party at the Century Club, where she escapes to the garden for some peace – and instead spots an uninvited guest in the shadows. Half an hour later, the […]
A Silent Way to Die by NR Daws
December, 1940. With the Blitz devastating Britain’s cities, Lizzie Hayes and the women pilots of the Air Transport Authority are more crucial to the war effort than ever before. But when the relative peace of the village of Scotney is shattered by the disappearance of the Chief Inspector’s niece, it’s Lizzie’s training as a psychologist […]