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 Plant Hunter by TL Mogford
1867. King’s Road, Chelsea, is a sea of plant nurseries, catering to the Victorian obsession with rare and exotic flora. But each of the glossy emporiums is fuelled by the dangerous world of the plant hunters – daring adventurers sent into uncharted lands in search of untold wonders to grace England’s finest gardens. Harry Compton […]
The Sign of the Devil by Oscar de Muriel
An ill-fated grave-robbery unearths a corpse with a most disturbing symbol on it. The very same sign is daubed in blood on the walls of Edinburgh’s lunatic asylum, on the night that one of the patients is murdered. The mark in question? The mark of the devil. The prime suspect: Amy McGray, the asylum’s most […]
The Spirit Engineer by AJ West
Belfast, 1914. Two years after the sinking of the Titanic, high society has become obsessed with spiritualism, attending séances in the hope they might reach their departed loved ones. William Jackson Crawford is a man of science and a sceptic, but one night with everyone sitting around the circle, voices come to him – seemingly […]
Celtic Cross by Sara Sheridan
About to get married, Mirabelle and her fiancé retired Superintendent Alan McGregor are torn about where they will settle. But when a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity comes up to buy a secluded house on the banks of the Firth of Forth, they submit to getting permission from the local landlord. But that permission comes at a price, […]
Rotten to the Core by TE Kinsey
Summer 1911, and a scorching heatwave engulfs the quiet town of Littleton Cotterell and brings about an unusually early harvest. The villagers are thrilled, but events quickly turn sour when one of them turns up dead in an apple orchard, stabbed through the heart. Amateur sleuth Lady Hardcastle and her trusty lady’s maid, Flo, suddenly […]
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, […]
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 […]