Historical mysteries

  • A Very Vexing Murder

    £9.99

    The tyrannical Mrs Churchill is convinced someone is trying to kill her. As if she didn’t have enough to vex her, she’s concerned that Jane Fairfax has won the heart of her nephew, Frank. She has hired the talented and devious Harriet Smith to break up this nascent relationship as well as uncover who might want her dead. With the help of her long-suffering, sensible best friend, Robert Martin, Harriet’s list of suspects soon grows – Frank Churchill, Jane Fairfax, Mrs Elton and Wakefield the butler all have means, motive and opportunity. Will Harriet prevent the worst from happening? And will she avoid falling for the charming Frank Churchill herself?

  • The Paris Express

    £9.99

    From Emma Donoghue, the bestselling author of Room, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set at the end of the nineteenth century about a high-speed steam train journey, the people on board and the secrets and dangers they carry with them.

  • She Made Herself a Monster

    £16.99

    Yana, a vampire hunter, rides into Koprivci promising salvation. The village’s curse has endured for many years and rumour has it that Anka – whose parents died on the night of her birth – is to blame. But enduring the villagers’ suspicion is the least of Anka’s worries; now she has reached womanhood, she can no longer avoid the odious marriage that seems to be her only option. When animal corpses start to appear in the village square and eggs filled with blood are found in the chicken coops, panic rises. The villagers look to Yana for hope. She knows all about the monsters that stalk the night, monsters that only she can vanquish. But Yana is a liar. And monsters come in all different forms. Yana and Anka become unlikely allies in hatching a plot to save both Koprivci and Anka from their fates. But then their plan takes on a horrifying life of its own.

  • Victorian Psycho

    £9.99

    Jane Eyre meets American Psycho. Gloriously outrageous, sensationally unhinged’ SUNDAY TIMES

    ‘Simmering with rage, propulsive and laugh-out-loud funny’ CATRIONA WARD

    ‘Weird and wonderful’ LUCY MANGAN, GUARDIAN

  • Murder at Midwinter

    £9.99

    December 1937. Daphne King is attending the 20th anniversary reunion at her secondary school, Midwinter Academy, a weekend that will see resurrected rivalries and alliances amidst the Christmas festivities. But a string of peculiar incidents prompts Daphne to suspect that she and her friends are being sent messages – or threats – related to the disappearance of a classmate 20 years ago. It was a mystery which clouded their final year at the school – and one which Daphne, as a budding 18-year-old sleuth, solved. When, the morning after the reunion, one of Daphne’s old school friends is found dead, Daphne finds herself in the role of investigator once more. Are the two cases linked? And has Daphne learned from the mistakes of her past?

  • Appointment in Paris

    £20.00

    April 1940, and Britain is in turmoil. Chamberlain’s government is faltering, and a German invasion may be only weeks away. A body, wearing the uniform of a Luftwaffe captain, is found in the grounds of Trent Park – a stately home and now a prison to house high level German POWs. Trent Park’s true purpose, however, is intelligence, gathered covertly from prisoners by secret listeners. The morning after the discovery of the body, one of the listeners goes missing, along with a gun from the firing range. Horrified that this could blow the highly confidential operation wide open, the missing man must be tracked down. Cue Harry Fox, a former MI5 Watcher, now suspended. He is desperate to assist the war effort but he’s over the conscription age. Then his former boss gets in touch with a job for him, to track down the missing man.

  • The Road to the Salt Sea

    £10.99

    Able God works for low pay at a four-star hotel where he must flash his ‘toothpaste-white smile’ for wealthy guests. When not tending to the hotel’s overprivileged clientele, he muses over self-help books and draws life lessons from the game of chess. But Able’s ordinary life is upended when an early morning room service order leads him to interfere with Akudo, a sex worker involved with a powerful but dangerous hotel guest. Suddenly caught in a web of violence, guilt, and fear, Able must run to save himself – a journey that leads him into the desert with a group of drug-addled migrants, headed by a charismatic religious leader calling himself Ben Ten. The travellers’ dream of reaching Europe – and a new life – is shattered when they fall prey to human traffickers, suffer starvation, and find themselves on the precipice of death, fighting for their lives and their freedom.

  • Bookish

    £20.00

    Gabriel Book is an erudite and unconventional London bookseller married to Trottie, the owner of the wallpaper shop next door. He is also a sleuth who uses the chaotic riches of his stock to crack the puzzling cases that come his way. He does not work alone. Book’s shop is a magnet for waifs and strays – one of whom is an aspiring writer called Nora.

  • A Case of Life and Limb

    £16.99

    Winter, 1901. The Inner Temple is even quieter than usual under a blanket of snow and Gabriel Ward KC is hard at work on a thorny libel case. All is calm, all is bright – until the mummified hand arrives in the post. While the hand’s recipient, Temple Treasurer Sir William Waring, is rightfully shaken, Gabriel is filled with curiosity. Who would want to send such a thing? And why? But as more parcels arrive – one with fatal consequences – Gabriel realises that it is not Sir William who is the target, but the Temple itself. Someone is holding a grudge that has already led to at least one death. Now it’s up to Gabriel, and Constable Wright of the City of London Police, to find out who, before an old death leads to a new murder.

  • The Art of a Lie

    £18.99
    Justina says: “I devoured this deliciously multi layered historical crime novel. The descriptions of London in 1749 delight, and sometimes astonish. The characters fill the page with their actions, agendas and dreams and I loved the involvement of Henry Fielding as a pivotal player, making everyone else feel also completely real. As enjoyable as a finely crafted crystal cut bowl of Mrs Cole’s famous ice cream.”

    In Georgian London, widowed confectioner Hannah Cole must prove the legitimacy of her late husband’s fortune with the help of his associate, William Devereux. But both are hiding secrets . . .

  • The Bormann Testament

    £8.99

    Somewhere in Germany was hidden a manuscript that would rock Western Europe to its foundations: the testament of Martin Bormann.

  • The Queen of Fives

    £9.99

    1898. Quinn Le Blanc, London’s most talented con woman, has five days to pull off the seemingly impossible: trick an eligible duke into marriage and lift a fortune from the richest family in England. Masquerading as a wealthy debutante, Quinn is the jewel of the season. Her brilliant act opens doors to the grand drawing rooms and lavish balls of high society – and propels her into the inner circle of her target: the corrupt, charismatic Kendals. But as she spins in and out of their world, Quinn becomes tangled in a dangerous web of love, lies and loyalty. The Kendal family all have secrets of their own, and she may not be the only one playing a game of high deception.