Summer 1880 in Lipetsk, a spa town in Russia. The elderly and cantankerous Princess Belskaya suffers a violent reaction while taking a mud bath at the famous Lipetsk Sanatorium. Soon after, she dies. Dr Roldugin, the medical director of the sanatorium, is at a loss to explain the sudden and shocking death. He points the […]
A Plague of Serpents by KJ Maitland
London, 1608, and three years after the Gunpowder Treason, the King’s enemies prepare to strike again. Daniel Pursglove is tasked by royal command with one final mission: he must infiltrate the Serpents — a secret group of Catholics plotting to kill the King — or risk his own execution. But other conspirators are circling, men […]
Arm of Eve: Investigating the Thames Torso Murders by Sarah Bax Horton
Jack the Ripper is often called the world’s most notorious unidentified killer, but he was not the first modern serial killer on the streets of London. Before him was another murderer who hunted from the River Thames – one, arguably, more sadistic and mercurial. The Thames Torso Killer has always lurked in the Ripper’s shadow, […]
The Murderer Inside the Mirror by Sarah Rayne
It’s 1908. The Fitzglens, one of London’s leading theatre families and part-time thieves, are plotting their next scheme when they receive terrible news about Great Uncle Montague. He’s been killed in a tragic accident at his Notting Hill home. Montague will be much missed, not just for his talent in art forgery, but his death […]
The Paris Peacemakers by Flora Johnston
1919 in Paris. And as the guns fall silent, people attempt to start afresh while the fabric of Europe is stitched together for good or ill. Stella Rutherford, desperate to staunch her grief, has thrown herself into her work at the International Peace Conference, while the crucial negotiations play out. Her sister Corran is also […]
An epidemic of murder in late Victorian London
When Sarah Bax Horton discovered a police ancestor who worked on the Jack the Ripper investigation, her research led her to write two non-fiction books based on the Metropolitan Police Whitechapel Murders files. Her second book, Arm of Eve, proposes a new prime suspect for the Thames Torso Killer, a serial killer active at the […]
Blood of the Bear by Angus Donald
In AD781, pagan Saxony groans under the Christian yoke. The invincible armies of Karolus, King of the Franks, occupy all this freedom-loving land and every Saxon must submit to baptism and pay tithes to the Church, or face death by beheading. Duke Widukind, leader of the Saxon rebels, is sheltering in the North, beyond Karolus’s […]
Sword of the War God by Tim Hodkinson
It’s AD436. The Burgundars are confident of destroying Rome’s legions, for the Empire is weak. Their forces are strong and they have beaten the Romans in battle before. But they are annihilated, their king killed, his people scattered. Their fabled treasure is lost. For Rome has new allies: the Huns, whose taste for bloodshed knows […]