Showing titles in Historical

Identifying the murderer of the Chancellor of the university is not the only challenge facing physician Matthew Bartholomew. Many of his patients have been made worse by the ministrations of a 'surgeon' recently arrived from Nottingham, his sister is being rooked by the mason she has commissioned to build her husband's tomb and his friend, Brother Michael, has been offered a bishopric which will cause him to leave Cambridge.

October 1912. The inhabitants of Littleton Cotterell emerge from their homes after a week of torrential storms to the gruesome news that one of Sid Hyde’s prized sheep has been mauled to death. As rumours abound of a vicious beast stalking the Gloucestershire countryside in search of prey, Lady Hardcastle and her fearless lady’s maid, Florence Armstrong, set out to find what is surely a rational explanation. Then Hyde himself is brutally killed in a similar attack, and the villagers go from curious to terrified.

Matthew Bartholomew, doctor of medicine and fellow of Michaelhouse, Cambridge, is travelling with a party from the college to accept the gift of the living of a parish in Suffolk. One of his companions, Unwin, an unworldly scholar, is to be installed as priest. Their journey is not without incident - they are chased by footpads, pass through an eerie village abandoned after the recent plague and find a man barely alive on a gibbet - so they reach their destination with some relief. But their thoughts of recovering while enjoying the local Pentecostal Fair are soon curtailed.

1957 - Young Queen Elizabeth II is finding her way in a challenging world as the United Kingdom must adjust to having neither an empire nor a set place in post-war Europe. As she travels the world to try and build bridges, the Queen is advised by the 'men in moustaches', as Philip calls them -...

London, 1941. Polly Hope is bravely working as an air raid warden during the Blitz when she saves the life of the charming Freddie Fairbank. Over a thank-you breakfast at the Ritz, he asks Polly to help requisition a sprawling English country house for the war effort. Petherbridge Hall has grand rooms, lovely views and will be a perfect nursing home for injured troops, if they can only persuade the family to give up their house. But then they find the lord of the manor dead behind the gardener’s shed.

A murdered clerk. A body at Waterloo. A letter with a deadly secret. London, 1889. In the gloomy Dead Letter Office at St Martin’s Le Grand, young clerk Andrew Peverell spends his days sorting through letters that never found their intended reader. When three anonymous notes cross his desk –...

Another high-profile case forces maverick barrister Charles Holborne into the orbit of the Kray twins, the men who refuse to stay in his past and still have the power to destroy him. Will Ronnie Kray’s mental illness finally bring the Firm crashing down? And how are a disgraced Church of England priest, an ex-stripper, and a dead man connected? Charles Holborne must once again cross the most dangerous men in London in his quest for the truth.

When a renowned theater director senses something amiss during his latest production, he calls Nero Wolfe. Though the corpulent genius wouldn’t normally accept a job this vague, a mutual friend dangles the prospect of a very rare orchid in exchange for his services, and Wolfe can’t resist. With a mind to suss out useful backstage gossip, Wolfe turns to his faithful assistant, Archie Goodwin, to impersonate a journalist in order to speak to the cast. Though Goodwin’s conversations prove unfruitful, on his last day at the theater, the director is murdered in his sound-proof booth.

Late October 1909, and the season of ghouls and things that go bump in the night has descended on the village of Littleton Cotterell. Lady Hardcastle and her trusted lady’s maid, Florence, find themselves hosting a colorful cast of actors whose spooky moving picture, The Witch’s Downfall, is being shown to mark Halloween. But things take a macabre turn when the first night’s screening ends with a mysterious murder, and the second night with another. One by one the actors turn up dead in ways that eerily echo their film.

The second thrilling novel in Val McDermid's new Sunday Times best-selling series It's 1989, and Allie Burns is back. Older and maybe wiser, she's running the northern news operation of the Sunday Globe, chafing at losing her role in investigative journalism and at the descent into the gutter of...

Don't miss the next book in the enthralling new series from the number one bestselling author Santa Montefiore! 'Santa Montefiore really knows these people inside and out. I couldn't put this book down' JULIAN FELLOWES, creator of Downton Abbey 'An epic treat. I was utterly enthralled...

Summer, 1921. Lady Eleanor Swift, the best amateur sleuth in the country, is delighted to be in charge of the prize-giving at her village summer fair. But the traditional homemade raft race takes a tragic turn when the local undertaker, Solemn Jon, turns up dead amongst the ducks. Jon was the life of any party and loved by the entire village. Surely this was simply an awful accident? But when a spiteful obituary is printed in the local paper, Eleanor realizes there may be more to Jon’s death than first thought.

Newly promoted, Detective Sergeant William Warwick has been reassigned to the drugs squad. His first case: to investigate a notorious south London drug lord known as the Viper. But as William and his team close the net around a criminal network unlike any they have ever encountered, he is also...

When a new empire rises, and old one must fall. After 16 years of bloody war against Rome, Hannibal Barca is on the verge of defeat. On the plains of Zama, Felix and his brother Antonius stand in the formidable Roman legions, ready to deliver the decisive blow. Victory will establish Rome as the pre-eminent power in the ancient world. But in northern Greece, Philip V of Macedon is determined to restore Alexander the Great's kingdom to its former glory.

The indomitable Amelia Peabody and her husband, known to many as "the Father of Curses", are into archaeology and mischief again. This third in the series brings the reader once more into Egypt and the shady world of black market antiquities. The winter excavation season has hardly yet begun when Amelia stumbles onto what looks suspiciously like a ring of thieves.

Murder is a World Away... Rajasthan, 1929. Lady Ginger Gold never imagined her journey to India would draw her into the glittering yet perilous world of a royal court. Invited with her husband Basil to a lavish celebration at a maharaja's palace, she is swept into a realm of jewelled elephants, opulent banquets, and the thrill of a tiger hunt in the desert. But when a guest is gunned down during the hunt, whispers ripple through the gilded halls. Was the bullet meant for the victim —or for the maharaja himself?

Tudor England is brought vividly to life in Tombland, the seventh novel in C. J. Sansom's number one bestselling Shardlake series, for fans of Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory. 'When it comes to intriguing Tudor-based narratives, Hilary Mantel has a serious rival' - Sunday Times ‘Sansom has...

1961. On a sweltering summer’s day, while her family picnics by the stream on their Suffolk farm, 16-year-old Laurel hides out in her childhood tree house, dreaming of the bright future she can’t wait to seize. But before the idyllic afternoon is over, Laurel will have witnessed a shocking crime that changes everything. 2011. Now a much-loved actress, Laurel finds herself overwhelmed by shades of the past. Haunted by memories and the mystery of what she saw that day, she returns to her family home and begins to piece together a tale of three strangers from vastly different worlds.

In Cambridge, 1355, the colleges of the fledgling university are as much at odds with each other as they are with the ordinary townfolk. This tension has recently been heightened by the return of two well-born murderers after receiving the King's pardon, showing no remorse but ready to confront those who helped convict them. And in the midst of this Bartholomew the physician is called to the local mill to examine two corpses. It is almost a relief to be able to turn his back on the fractious town, but as always in Cambridge nothing is disconnected.

Matthew Bartholomew jumps at the chance to travel to Ely with Brother Michael, as it will give him a unique opportunity to study in the richly stocked library of the Benedictine priory. Michael has been summoned to the city by his bishop, but it isn't until they arrive that they discover the reason - the bishop has been accused of murder. The charge seems ludicrous, but Michael takes the investigation seriously and energetically sets about his task. Almost immediately he discovers that there appears to have been a series of unexplained deaths in the area.