Difference between revisions of "Newest Crime (Historical) Reviews"

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[[Category:Crime (Historical)|*]]
 
[[Category:Crime (Historical)|*]]
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Seishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)
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|title=The Honjin Murders
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=To many readers, the phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is enough to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the words 'clever' or 'good'.  For those who need more, here is the extra background – we're in rural Japan in the 1930s.  The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, although the whole affair is really not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned up, what with it being arranged at great haste.  She only has an uncle representing her family, for one thing.  Either way, the celebrations have gone ahead as planned, only for the wedded couple to be slashed to death in their private annex before the sun rises on their marriage.  What with a man missing parts of his fingers being in the neighbourhood, and some mysterious use of a traditional musical instrument at the time of the crime, this case has a lot of the peculiar about it.
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|isbn=1782275002
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B07XLM3SM6
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|title=Murder at the Dolphin Hotel
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|author=Helena Dixon
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=Elowed Underhay was just twenty seven when she disappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the care of her grandmother.  A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to her and the conclusion was that she was dead, mainly because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise.  Kitty has come to terms with this and in 1933 she was running the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with her grandmother, when her grandmother had to leave to look after her sister who was ill.  She was reluctant to leave Kitty in charge - and Kitty could not understand why.  She's always coped with the mix of holidaymakers, boating people and the naval college on the edge of town before - and she's done every job in the hotel.  And she particularly cannot understand why her grandmother's friends have been roped in to keep an eye on things ''and'' why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of security at the hotel.
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0349423067
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|title=The Body on the Train (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
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|author=Frances Brody
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=From Christmas to Easter a train ran from Leeds City Station to King's Cross, arriving before dawn so that the forced rhubarb it carried could be taken to Covent Garden. In early March 1929 one of the porters who was unloading the boxes discovered the body of a man, stripped naked and with no means of identification.  Scotland Yard hit a dead end and called on the services of Kate Shackleton in the hope that her knowledge and connections in Yorkshire would give them the lead they needed.  Kate immediately found herself hamstrung: Commander Woodhead remembered her as a child and could not come to terms with the fact that she was now a woman experienced in dealing with murder.  He was reluctant to give her all the information which the police held.
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}}
  
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===[[A Necessary Murder by M J Tjia]]===
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===[[Indian Summer: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery by Sara Sheridan]]===
 
 
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
 
 
It's 1863 and a little girl has been found murdered at the family home in Stoke Newington. A few days later and a few miles across London, a man is found dead in a similar way outside the opulent townhouse of Heloise Chancey, courtesan and part-time detective. Could they be connected? And what, if anything, does either of them have to do with Heloise's maid, Amah Li Leen, and the troubling events in her past which are threatening to resurface?[[A Necessary Murder by M J Tjia|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[Russian Roulette by Sara Sheridan]]===
 
  
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
  
It makes a pleasant change to have a female detective who isn't a slightly eccentric grandma, a world-weary cop with as many hang-ups, bad habits and family traumas as her male colleagues, or a slick, skinny, sharp-shooting type who lives in a loft and works out in the gym after work, boxing with (and trouncing) every big burly bloke they can throw at her. Mirabelle may have somehow got herself involved in crime-fighting, with all the requisite tropes of climbing through unguarded windows, contacts who are not one hundred per cent on the right side of the law, and a refusal to faint at the sight of blood, but she is, as everyone around her will attest, first and foremost a lady. Indeed, the first encounter we have with her in this, the sixth book in this excellent series, sees her giving a police superintendent an icy stare for his lack of manners. No matter what the life-and-death crisis, there's no reason not to be polite, is there? [[Russian Roulette by Sara Sheridan|Full Review]]
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Life has changed dramatically for Mirabelle, our favourite fifties sleuth, since the war, and not always for the better. When she first settled in Brighton she was alone, rudderless and secretly grieving for Jack, the lover who died before he could leave his wife. As time went by she found in herself an ability to solve crimes, made friends including an ebullient and determined young woman called Vesta who refused to let a little thing like racial prejudice stop her doing what she wanted, and even found consolation in the arms of a rather charming policeman. [[Indian Summer: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery by Sara Sheridan|Full Review]]
  
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===[[The Murder of Harriet Monkton by Elizabeth Haynes]]===
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===[[The Courier by Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)]]===
  
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]], [[:Category:True Crime|True Crime]]
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[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
 
''But that's just it'', she said.  ''It's ''not'' Harriet, is it?  Not our Harriet.  It's some manufactured creature, that exists only for this blessed inquest: something to be summed up like a spirit, to be examined and pored over, to be sneered at and judged.  Harriet deserves to be remembered as she was to us, not picked at like carrion.''
 
  
And that was the problem: it seemed that there were two Harriets. There was the one her friends - a fellow teacher, her would-be lover, her seducer and the man who was her landlord who was also her lover - knew.  Some spoke of her as kindly, virtuous and pious, but that was before her body was found behind the chapel which she regularly attended in Bromley.  She'd been poisoned - or had taken her own life. After the inquest was opened another Harriet would emerge, one who was about six months pregnant and who had obviously not been living the chaste life expected of a young, unmarried woman in 1843.  [[The Murder of Harriet Monkton by Elizabeth Haynes|Full Review]]
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Nazi-occupied Oslo, 1942. There, I've given the game away. For in a book that centres around a murder, I've told you who did it – the Nazis, surely? Well, that certainly has to remain to be seen in this volume, which splits its time between one of war, when a young woman sees her father arrested, and their store condemned as Jewish, and rushes to her best friend to help – not knowing she will never see her alive again, and the late 1960s, when great consternation is being felt. In this timeline, a maverick agent is back in town, one who might have been fingered for murdering that female victim, even though she and he lived together with their baby as a young family, except he was thought by all to have died in the War… [[The Courier by Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)|Full Review]]
  
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===[[Greeks Bearing Gifts: Bernie Gunther Thriller 13 by Philip Kerr]]===
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===[[Mrs Mohr Goes Missing by Maryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)]]===
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
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[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
  
Set in Germany in 1957, ''Greeks Bearing Gifts'' is a historical crime thriller with everything from dodgy Nazi past histories to insurance fraudBernie Gunther is a Berliner, who was a sarjeant during the second world war and now, in this novel, is working in the morgue of a hospitalHe finds himself embroiled in a mystery, taking on a new role as an insurance claims investigatorThe investigation takes him to Greece, and back into the dark times of the warWith layered plots and double-crossing left, right and centre, there's lots to keep you guessing throughout this story. [[Greeks Bearing Gifts: Bernie Gunther Thriller 13 by Philip Kerr|Full Review]]
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Meet Zofia.  A socially climbing wife of a medical professor, she's intent on making herself known as a charitable lady, and keen on her husband progressing yet through his esteemed careerIn 1890s Cracow, life is pretty good, but she knows it could always be better.  Meanwhile, other people's life could certainly be better – cholera is nearing the city due to lack of hygiene, and many people have to fall on charity and almshouses to keep a roof over their headsOne such was Mrs Mohr, although she was rich enough to keep private lodgings and staff in her charitable home.  I say ''was'', for she has vanishedOnly due to Zofia's help does she get found, dead and in a place the near-lame woman could never reach by herselfJust who could be killing people in a charity home, and to what end?  And why does Zofia feel the need to make a name for herself by answering those questions? [[Mrs Mohr Goes Missing by Maryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)|Full Review]]
  
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===[[Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis]]===
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===[[Things in Jars by Jess Kidd]]===
  
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
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[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
  
Relax, die-hard fans of Falco and his spirited British daughter Albia. Rome continues to be as splendid and as sordid as it ever was, the crimes committed are as complex and intriguing, and our heroine just as determined and cynical, with that light dusting of humour which made tales of her father's exploits so engaging. Newcomers to the series need not fear, by the way: each book contains just enough background detail to make you feel immediately at home. This time, despite some serious misgivings, Albia is investigating the sudden death of a fifteen-year-old girl, described as bright, affectionate and popular. Was she poisoned by an illegal love-potion, or did she die of a broken heart? [[Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis|Full Review]] [[Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis|Full Review]]
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A child has gone missing. The detective asked to take on the case is still struggling with the shame and frustration left by a previous case, where the child was not found in time. Hardly original themes for a private eye thriller. And yet . . . take another look. This detective is a woman, and the setting is Victorian London, with all the rich and colourful paradoxes of that era: technical and scientific progress jostling for space beside superstition and a fascination with the bizarre and the downright hideous. And before you're more than a couple of pages in, you realise just how much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. Bridie Devine may dress in half-mourning, with a widow's cap and stout, shiny boots, but the tobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, what an utterly ''fast'' thing for a lady to do!) is mixed with a nugget of something, well, let's say recreational, created by her chemist friend Prudhoe. The fact that it's actually meant to cure bronchial problems is by the by. Her housemaid, being seven foot tall, is also somewhat remarkable. And then, of course, there's the ghost. Ruby Doyle, world famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all through her investigation, and it's clear he has a soft spot for the determined young woman. If he really exists, that is. [[Things in Jars by Jess Kidd|Full Review]]
  
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===[[Death in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody]]===
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===[[A Snapshot of Murder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody]]===
  
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
  
Much as it did in 1999, eclipse fever gripped the country in 1927, but private investigator Kate Shackleton couldn't understand why theatre star Selina Fellini had approached her for help when it seemed that all she needed was for a flight to be arranged to take her from Leeds to Giggleswick School, where she was to view the eclipse. Surely she didn't need a sleuth for this? Kate went ahead and organised the flight, which collected Fellini, comic Billy Moffatt and Kate from Soldiers' Field in Leeds and landed them at the school in good time. It was obvious that the singer was worried about something, but she didn't seem able to explain what it was. [[Death in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody|Full Review]]
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Even detectives need a break and for Kate Shackleton, photography gives her the mental relaxation which she needs. When the local Photographic Society proposed an outing, Kate was keen to take the opportunity to visit Haworth and Stanbury, not least because the deeds of the Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that it can become a museum and her parents will be there for the event.  What could be better than seeing her family, witnessing a momentous event and having the opportunity to take photographs of the setting for ''Wuthering Heights''?  Nothing could go wrong. Or could it? [[A Snapshot of Murder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody|Full Review]]
 
 
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===[[Lawless and the House of Electricity by William Sutton]]===
 
 
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
 
 
Campbell Lawless is back, this time tasked with solving a series of terrorist attacks across the nation. Is it the work of the French, as police and public are being led to believe, or someone closer to home? Who can be trusted and what does Roxbury, an innovative inventor previously disgraced, have to do with the bombs used to cause chaos across the country? Employing the services of Molly, the effervescent ragamuffin from his previous adventures, he sets in motion a campaign of subterfuge which uncovers long held secrets, skulduggery and the desperate yearnings beneath Roxbury's constant invention. [[Lawless and the House of Electricity by William Sutton|Full Review]]
 
  
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===[[Seven Dead by J Jefferson Farjeon]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]][[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
 
 
Ted Lyte was petty criminal, but not usually the housebreaking type. He lacked the courage. However, needs must, and whilst feeling down on his luck he decided to try his chances at an isolated house with a shuttered window. ''...he might find a bit of alright behind those shutters! Wot abart it?'' Ted does indeed find something interesting behind the shutters, but it definitely isn't what he'd hoped. In a locked room he finds seven dead bodies; six men and a woman. Fleeing the house in horror, he is pursued and caught by a passing yachtsman, Thomas Hazeldean, who also happens to be a journalist. Fascinated by Ted's story (and a possible scoop), Hazeldean decides to investigate this curious case and its assortment of odd clues, including a portrait shot through the heart, an old cricket ball and a mysterious note written by one of the victims. [[Seven Dead by J Jefferson Farjeon|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[The Habit of Murder: The Twenty Third Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew by Susanna Gregory]]===
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===[[Charlesgate Confidential by Scott Von Doviak]]===
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
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[[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
  
It was 1360 and Michaelhouse was in dire financial straits: they could last a little longer but not that long. Then it seemed that a lifeline might have been thrown to them when they heard that the wealthy Elizabeth de Burgh of the Suffolk town of Clare was dead and it was possible that The Lady, as she was known, had left them a legacy. It seemed that the best thing to do was to go to Clare to claim the money (or to try and prove that it had been intended and should therefore be paid) with all haste. The real mission could be concealed behind the bald statement that they were there to attend the funeral. Matthew Bartholomew was one of the contingent from Michaelhouse. [[The Habit of Murder: The Twenty Third Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew by Susanna Gregory|Full Review]]
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In 1946 a gang of criminals pull off an audacious art heist, making off with priceless works of art from a Boston Museum. These missing art works are never found. In 1988, a student finds himself caught up in the mystery of the missing art and hot on the trail of the multi-million-dollar reward. In 2014, the art is still missing and now dead bodies are turning up at the eponymous Charlesgate, filled with alumni celebrating their 25th reunion. As the body count rises, will we discover the truth behind the art theft decades earlier? [[Charlesgate Confidential by Scott Von Doviak|Full Review]]
  
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===[[The Painted Queen: an Amelia Peabody Mystery by Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess]]===
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===[[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson]]===
  
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
  
Amelia Peabody is a no-nonsense lady who endures all manner of murder attempts, kidnappings and sundry other crimes while on archaeological digs in Egypt with equanimity and composure. She is either revered or feared (or both) by villains, museum curators, family and workmen alike for her caustic tongue and the steel-reinforced parasol she brandishes at the first sign of danger. And yet, once the evil-doers have been locked up, precious objects returned to their owners and all injuries bandaged, she still insists on all the decorum of the English abroad: formal dress for dinner and only the politest and least contentious topics for dinner-table conversation. [[The Painted Queen: an Amelia Peabody Mystery by Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess|Full Review]]
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Dandy Gilver and family had made the arduous journey to Wester Ross, but Dandy had mixed feelings even when they arrived.  They were there to meet the family of Mallory, her son Donald's fiancee. It wasn't that Dandy thought Donald to be rather ''young'' at twenty three to be contemplating matrimony, but that Mallory was rather ''old'' for him at thirty.  There was also a niggling worry because Donald wasn't the sharpest pin in the cushion. All the doubts had faded into insignificance though when they arrived at Applecross: they might have come to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of Lady Lavinia, Mallory's mother, but it soon became obvious that Donald was smitten by the mother rather than the daughter.  Dandy and Hugh were considering whether or not they should try to put an end to the engagement when the news arrived that Lady Lavinia had been found dead. [[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson|Full Review]]
  
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===[[Operation Goodwood: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery by Sara Sheridan]]===
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===[[So Many Doors by Oakley Hall]]===
  
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]  
  
In this, the fifth novel in the Mirabelle Bevan Mystery series, we have reached 1955. There is less emphasis on rationing now: time has moved on from the post-war privations we saw in our first encounter with Mirabelle and her warm, cheery companion Vesta in 1951, a time when tearing a stocking was a disaster of the first order. Various types of prejudice are still rife, however, and Sara Sheridan is a real expert at dropping in that small, lightly sketched detail which tells us we are still in a Britain overshadowed by the aftermath of conflict. A woman who walks alone into a bar will not be served; the British Empire is still front-page news, and the colour of a person's skin an almost insurmountable barrier to equality of opportunity. [[Operation Goodwood: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery by Sara Sheridan|Full Review]]
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Vassilia Caroline Baird, known to all as V, is dead. Jack sits in his cell refusing to talk to the lawyer tasked with his defence. Starting at the murderous finale, Hall skillfully weaves together the stories of his key players, in a tale of love spanning decades and states, marriages and tragedies. By the time the truth is revealed, V will be dead but who else will lose their life?  [[So Many Doors by Oakley Hall|Full Review]]
  
 
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===[[She Be Damned by M J Tjia]]===
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===[[A Necessary Murder by M J Tjia]]===
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
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London, 1863: prostitutes in the Waterloo area are turning up dead, their sexual organs mutilated and removed. When another girl goes missing, fears grow that the killer may have claimed their latest victim. The police are at a loss and so it falls to courtesan and professional detective, Heloise Chancey, to investigate. With the assistance of her trusty Chinese maid, Amah Li Leen, Heloise inches closer to the truth. But when Amah is implicated in the brutal plot, Heloise must reconsider whom she can trust, before the killer strikes again. [[She Be Damned by M J Tjia|Full Review]]
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It's 1863 and a little girl has been found murdered at the family home in Stoke Newington. A few days later and a few miles across London, a man is found dead in a similar way outside the opulent townhouse of Heloise Chancey, courtesan and part-time detective. Could they be connected? And what, if anything, does either of them have to do with Heloise's maid, Amah Li Leen, and the troubling events in her past which are threatening to resurface?[[A Necessary Murder by M J Tjia|Full Review]]
  
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===[[The Irregular: A Different Class of Spy by H B Lyle]]===
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===[[Russian Roulette by Sara Sheridan]]===
  
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
  
London 1909: Revolution is spreading throughout Russia and Europe.  Meanwhile Britain, a land growing accustomed to peace, is becoming a magnet for spies and disruption. Vernon Kell, Head of War Office Counter-Intelligence, knows that the country's equilibrium depends on the discovery and disposal of the growing number of foreign spy networks.  Unfortunately his masters in government can't see what he can and Kell's own agents are being killed off too fast for him to collect evidence.  That's when he meets Wiggins.  This is a man with a superlative background: trained by Sherlock Holmes and, years back, a star of Holmes' child Irregulars.  Now Kell is getting somewhere… Let battle commence! [[The Irregular: A Different Class of Spy by H B Lyle|Full Review]]
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It makes a pleasant change to have a female detective who isn't a slightly eccentric grandma, a world-weary cop with as many hang-ups, bad habits and family traumas as her male colleagues, or a slick, skinny, sharp-shooting type who lives in a loft and works out in the gym after work, boxing with (and trouncing) every big burly bloke they can throw at her. Mirabelle may have somehow got herself involved in crime-fighting, with all the requisite tropes of climbing through unguarded windows, contacts who are not one hundred per cent on the right side of the law, and a refusal to faint at the sight of blood, but she is, as everyone around her will attest, first and foremost a lady. Indeed, the first encounter we have with her in this, the sixth book in this excellent series, sees her giving a police superintendent an icy stare for his lack of manners. No matter what the life-and-death crisis, there's no reason not to be polite, is there? [[Russian Roulette by Sara Sheridan|Full Review]]
  
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===[[An Unlikely Agent by Jane Menczer]]===
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===[[The Murder of Harriet Monkton by Elizabeth Haynes]]===
  
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''But that's just it'', she said.  ''It's ''not'' Harriet, is it?  Not our Harriet.  It's some manufactured creature, that exists only for this blessed inquest: something to be summed up like a spirit, to be examined and pored over, to be sneered at and judged.  Harriet deserves to be remembered as she was to us, not picked at like carrion.''
  
London, 1905. Margaret Trant lives with her ailing, irascible mother in a dreary boarding house in St John's Wood. The pair have fallen on hard times, with only Margaret's meagre salary from a ramshackle import-export company keeping them afloat. When a stranger on the tram hands her a newspaper open at the recruitment page, Margaret spots an advertisement that promises to 'open new horizons beyond your wildest dreams!'. After a gruelling interview, she finds herself in a new position as a secretary in a dingy backstreet shop. But all is not as it seems; she is in fact working for a highly secret branch of the intelligence service, Bureau 8, whose mission is to track down and neutralise a ruthless band of anarchists known as the Scorpions. Margaret's guilty love of detective fiction scarcely prepares her for the reality of true criminality, and her journey of self-discovery forms the heart of this remarkable novel, as she discovers in herself resourcefulness, courage, independence and the first stirrings of love. [[An Unlikely Agent by Jane Menczer|Full Review]]
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And that was the problem: it seemed that there were two Harriets. There was the one her friends - a fellow teacher, her would-be lover, her seducer and the man who was her landlord who was also her lover - knew. Some spoke of her as kindly, virtuous and pious, but that was before her body was found behind the chapel which she regularly attended in Bromley. She'd been poisoned - or had taken her own life.  After the inquest was opened another Harriet would emerge, one who was about six months pregnant and who had obviously not been living the chaste life expected of a young, unmarried woman in 1843. [[The Murder of Harriet Monkton by Elizabeth Haynes|Full Review]]
  
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===[[Greeks Bearing Gifts: Bernie Gunther Thriller 13 by Philip Kerr]]===
  
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
  
Agatha Christie wrote some tantalising crime thrillers back in her day, and here Andrew Wilson makes her a victim to a plot not unlike one of her own. It's all about the mystery, and it really drives the story forward. Agatha is ambushed by a strange man at the train station; she is given a proposition that confuses her and secretly intrigues her. Indeed, for this man wants her to commit a murder. [[A Talent for Murder by Andrew Wilson|Full Review]]
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Set in Germany in 1957, ''Greeks Bearing Gifts'' is a historical crime thriller with everything from dodgy Nazi past histories to insurance fraud.  Bernie Gunther is a Berliner, who was a sarjeant during the second world war and now, in this novel, is working in the morgue of a hospital. He finds himself embroiled in a mystery, taking on a new role as an insurance claims investigator.  The investigation takes him to Greece, and back into the dark times of the war. With layered plots and double-crossing left, right and centre, there's lots to keep you guessing throughout this story. [[Greeks Bearing Gifts: Bernie Gunther Thriller 13 by Philip Kerr|Full Review]]
  
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===[[Continental Crimes by Martin Edwards (editor)]]===
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===[[Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis]]===
  
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
  
It's not clear whether the short story has gone out of fashion, relegated to the pages of certain types of women's magazines, or whether the magazines in which the format still holds its own are themselves not as high-profile as once they might have been.  Perhaps they never were, perhaps we only know about them in retrospect. Whatever the truth of that it would seem that the golden age of the short story, coincided delightfully with the golden age of crime. [[Continental Crimes by Martin Edwards (editor)|Full Review]]
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Relax, die-hard fans of Falco and his spirited British daughter Albia. Rome continues to be as splendid and as sordid as it ever was, the crimes committed are as complex and intriguing, and our heroine just as determined and cynical, with that light dusting of humour which made tales of her father's exploits so engaging. Newcomers to the series need not fear, by the way: each book contains just enough background detail to make you feel immediately at home. This time, despite some serious misgivings, Albia is investigating the sudden death of a fifteen-year-old girl, described as bright, affectionate and popular. Was she poisoned by an illegal love-potion, or did she die of a broken heart? [[Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis|Full Review]] [[Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis|Full Review]]
  
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===[[Death in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody]]===
  
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
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[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
  
Bernie Gunther is not your typical hero. In 1939, he was stationed in Berlin as a police officer handling murder cases and occasionally doing work for some high-ranking Nazis. Although never a Nazi party member himself (he was a known member of the Social Democratic Party), he understood that the best thing he could do for himself at that time was to make himself indispensable to men like Reinhard Heydrich and Martin Bormann. So when he is assigned to solve a murder that has occurred at Hitler's Berghof in the Bavarian mountains, he knows that he needs to do it quickly and discreetly – not just for justice's sake, but for his own. He is given exactly one week to apprehend the suspect, and he hopes that with the help of his friend Friedrich Korsch, an investigator with the Krimialpolizei (or Kripo, for short) he just might get lucky. [[Prussian Blue: Bernie Gunther Thriller 12 by Philip Kerr|Full Review]]
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Much as it did in 1999, eclipse fever gripped the country in 1927, but private investigator Kate Shackleton couldn't understand why theatre star Selina Fellini had approached her for help when it seemed that all she needed was for a flight to be arranged to take her from Leeds to Giggleswick School, where she was to view the eclipse. Surely she didn't need a sleuth for this? Kate went ahead and organised the flight, which collected Fellini, comic Billy Moffatt and Kate from Soldiers' Field in Leeds and landed them at the school in good time. It was obvious that the singer was worried about something, but she didn't seem able to explain what it was. [[Death in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody|Full Review]]
  
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===[[Lawless and the House of Electricity by William Sutton]]===
  
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
  
When a body is accidentally uncovered nearby in 1850, Harry Probert-Lloyd the London barrister has recently returned to his father's house in West Wales due to deteriorating sight. That means Harry is on hand to press for justice, since he knows whose remains they must be. Unfortunately he's up against a few formidable opponents from the past, not least the Rebecca rioters, members of an illegal group from a few years earlier, and officially it looks like justice might not be on the cards. With the assistance of a local clerk, John Davies, Harry takes up the investigation himself, but it seems like both of them know more than they are willing to admit. Will the outcome be worth stirring up all those secrets for? [[None So Blind by Alis Hawkins|Full Review]]
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Campbell Lawless is back, this time tasked with solving a series of terrorist attacks across the nation. Is it the work of the French, as police and public are being led to believe, or someone closer to home? Who can be trusted and what does Roxbury, an innovative inventor previously disgraced, have to do with the bombs used to cause chaos across the country? Employing the services of Molly, the effervescent ragamuffin from his previous adventures, he sets in motion a campaign of subterfuge which uncovers long held secrets, skulduggery and the desperate yearnings beneath Roxbury's constant invention. [[Lawless and the House of Electricity by William Sutton|Full Review]]
  
 
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Revision as of 14:59, 25 November 2019

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Review of

The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)

4star.jpg Crime

To many readers, the phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is enough to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the words 'clever' or 'good'. For those who need more, here is the extra background – we're in rural Japan in the 1930s. The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, although the whole affair is really not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned up, what with it being arranged at great haste. She only has an uncle representing her family, for one thing. Either way, the celebrations have gone ahead as planned, only for the wedded couple to be slashed to death in their private annex before the sun rises on their marriage. What with a man missing parts of his fingers being in the neighbourhood, and some mysterious use of a traditional musical instrument at the time of the crime, this case has a lot of the peculiar about it. Full Review

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Review of

Murder at the Dolphin Hotel by Helena Dixon

4star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Elowed Underhay was just twenty seven when she disappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the care of her grandmother. A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to her and the conclusion was that she was dead, mainly because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. Kitty has come to terms with this and in 1933 she was running the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with her grandmother, when her grandmother had to leave to look after her sister who was ill. She was reluctant to leave Kitty in charge - and Kitty could not understand why. She's always coped with the mix of holidaymakers, boating people and the naval college on the edge of town before - and she's done every job in the hotel. And she particularly cannot understand why her grandmother's friends have been roped in to keep an eye on things and why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of security at the hotel. Full Review

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Review of

The Body on the Train (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

From Christmas to Easter a train ran from Leeds City Station to King's Cross, arriving before dawn so that the forced rhubarb it carried could be taken to Covent Garden. In early March 1929 one of the porters who was unloading the boxes discovered the body of a man, stripped naked and with no means of identification. Scotland Yard hit a dead end and called on the services of Kate Shackleton in the hope that her knowledge and connections in Yorkshire would give them the lead they needed. Kate immediately found herself hamstrung: Commander Woodhead remembered her as a child and could not come to terms with the fact that she was now a woman experienced in dealing with murder. He was reluctant to give her all the information which the police held. Full Review

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Indian Summer: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery by Sara Sheridan

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical)

Life has changed dramatically for Mirabelle, our favourite fifties sleuth, since the war, and not always for the better. When she first settled in Brighton she was alone, rudderless and secretly grieving for Jack, the lover who died before he could leave his wife. As time went by she found in herself an ability to solve crimes, made friends including an ebullient and determined young woman called Vesta who refused to let a little thing like racial prejudice stop her doing what she wanted, and even found consolation in the arms of a rather charming policeman. Full Review

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The Courier by Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical)

Nazi-occupied Oslo, 1942. There, I've given the game away. For in a book that centres around a murder, I've told you who did it – the Nazis, surely? Well, that certainly has to remain to be seen in this volume, which splits its time between one of war, when a young woman sees her father arrested, and their store condemned as Jewish, and rushes to her best friend to help – not knowing she will never see her alive again, and the late 1960s, when great consternation is being felt. In this timeline, a maverick agent is back in town, one who might have been fingered for murdering that female victim, even though she and he lived together with their baby as a young family, except he was thought by all to have died in the War… Full Review

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Mrs Mohr Goes Missing by Maryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical)

Meet Zofia. A socially climbing wife of a medical professor, she's intent on making herself known as a charitable lady, and keen on her husband progressing yet through his esteemed career. In 1890s Cracow, life is pretty good, but she knows it could always be better. Meanwhile, other people's life could certainly be better – cholera is nearing the city due to lack of hygiene, and many people have to fall on charity and almshouses to keep a roof over their heads. One such was Mrs Mohr, although she was rich enough to keep private lodgings and staff in her charitable home. I say was, for she has vanished. Only due to Zofia's help does she get found, dead and in a place the near-lame woman could never reach by herself. Just who could be killing people in a charity home, and to what end? And why does Zofia feel the need to make a name for herself by answering those questions? Full Review

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Things in Jars by Jess Kidd

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical)

A child has gone missing. The detective asked to take on the case is still struggling with the shame and frustration left by a previous case, where the child was not found in time. Hardly original themes for a private eye thriller. And yet . . . take another look. This detective is a woman, and the setting is Victorian London, with all the rich and colourful paradoxes of that era: technical and scientific progress jostling for space beside superstition and a fascination with the bizarre and the downright hideous. And before you're more than a couple of pages in, you realise just how much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. Bridie Devine may dress in half-mourning, with a widow's cap and stout, shiny boots, but the tobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, what an utterly fast thing for a lady to do!) is mixed with a nugget of something, well, let's say recreational, created by her chemist friend Prudhoe. The fact that it's actually meant to cure bronchial problems is by the by. Her housemaid, being seven foot tall, is also somewhat remarkable. And then, of course, there's the ghost. Ruby Doyle, world famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all through her investigation, and it's clear he has a soft spot for the determined young woman. If he really exists, that is. Full Review

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A Snapshot of Murder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical)

Even detectives need a break and for Kate Shackleton, photography gives her the mental relaxation which she needs. When the local Photographic Society proposed an outing, Kate was keen to take the opportunity to visit Haworth and Stanbury, not least because the deeds of the Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that it can become a museum and her parents will be there for the event. What could be better than seeing her family, witnessing a momentous event and having the opportunity to take photographs of the setting for Wuthering Heights? Nothing could go wrong. Or could it? Full Review

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Charlesgate Confidential by Scott Von Doviak

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime, Crime (Historical)

In 1946 a gang of criminals pull off an audacious art heist, making off with priceless works of art from a Boston Museum. These missing art works are never found. In 1988, a student finds himself caught up in the mystery of the missing art and hot on the trail of the multi-million-dollar reward. In 2014, the art is still missing and now dead bodies are turning up at the eponymous Charlesgate, filled with alumni celebrating their 25th reunion. As the body count rises, will we discover the truth behind the art theft decades earlier? Full Review

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A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical)

Dandy Gilver and family had made the arduous journey to Wester Ross, but Dandy had mixed feelings even when they arrived. They were there to meet the family of Mallory, her son Donald's fiancee. It wasn't that Dandy thought Donald to be rather young at twenty three to be contemplating matrimony, but that Mallory was rather old for him at thirty. There was also a niggling worry because Donald wasn't the sharpest pin in the cushion. All the doubts had faded into insignificance though when they arrived at Applecross: they might have come to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of Lady Lavinia, Mallory's mother, but it soon became obvious that Donald was smitten by the mother rather than the daughter. Dandy and Hugh were considering whether or not they should try to put an end to the engagement when the news arrived that Lady Lavinia had been found dead. Full Review

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So Many Doors by Oakley Hall

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime, Crime (Historical), Thrillers

Vassilia Caroline Baird, known to all as V, is dead. Jack sits in his cell refusing to talk to the lawyer tasked with his defence. Starting at the murderous finale, Hall skillfully weaves together the stories of his key players, in a tale of love spanning decades and states, marriages and tragedies. By the time the truth is revealed, V will be dead but who else will lose their life? Full Review

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A Necessary Murder by M J Tjia

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical)

It's 1863 and a little girl has been found murdered at the family home in Stoke Newington. A few days later and a few miles across London, a man is found dead in a similar way outside the opulent townhouse of Heloise Chancey, courtesan and part-time detective. Could they be connected? And what, if anything, does either of them have to do with Heloise's maid, Amah Li Leen, and the troubling events in her past which are threatening to resurface?Full Review

1472122372.jpg


Russian Roulette by Sara Sheridan

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical)

It makes a pleasant change to have a female detective who isn't a slightly eccentric grandma, a world-weary cop with as many hang-ups, bad habits and family traumas as her male colleagues, or a slick, skinny, sharp-shooting type who lives in a loft and works out in the gym after work, boxing with (and trouncing) every big burly bloke they can throw at her. Mirabelle may have somehow got herself involved in crime-fighting, with all the requisite tropes of climbing through unguarded windows, contacts who are not one hundred per cent on the right side of the law, and a refusal to faint at the sight of blood, but she is, as everyone around her will attest, first and foremost a lady. Indeed, the first encounter we have with her in this, the sixth book in this excellent series, sees her giving a police superintendent an icy stare for his lack of manners. No matter what the life-and-death crisis, there's no reason not to be polite, is there? Full Review

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The Murder of Harriet Monkton by Elizabeth Haynes

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical), True Crime

But that's just it, she said. It's not Harriet, is it? Not our Harriet. It's some manufactured creature, that exists only for this blessed inquest: something to be summed up like a spirit, to be examined and pored over, to be sneered at and judged. Harriet deserves to be remembered as she was to us, not picked at like carrion.

And that was the problem: it seemed that there were two Harriets. There was the one her friends - a fellow teacher, her would-be lover, her seducer and the man who was her landlord who was also her lover - knew. Some spoke of her as kindly, virtuous and pious, but that was before her body was found behind the chapel which she regularly attended in Bromley. She'd been poisoned - or had taken her own life. After the inquest was opened another Harriet would emerge, one who was about six months pregnant and who had obviously not been living the chaste life expected of a young, unmarried woman in 1843. Full Review

178429652X.jpg


Greeks Bearing Gifts: Bernie Gunther Thriller 13 by Philip Kerr

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical), Thrillers

Set in Germany in 1957, Greeks Bearing Gifts is a historical crime thriller with everything from dodgy Nazi past histories to insurance fraud. Bernie Gunther is a Berliner, who was a sarjeant during the second world war and now, in this novel, is working in the morgue of a hospital. He finds himself embroiled in a mystery, taking on a new role as an insurance claims investigator. The investigation takes him to Greece, and back into the dark times of the war. With layered plots and double-crossing left, right and centre, there's lots to keep you guessing throughout this story. Full Review

Davis Pandora.jpg


Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical)

Relax, die-hard fans of Falco and his spirited British daughter Albia. Rome continues to be as splendid and as sordid as it ever was, the crimes committed are as complex and intriguing, and our heroine just as determined and cynical, with that light dusting of humour which made tales of her father's exploits so engaging. Newcomers to the series need not fear, by the way: each book contains just enough background detail to make you feel immediately at home. This time, despite some serious misgivings, Albia is investigating the sudden death of a fifteen-year-old girl, described as bright, affectionate and popular. Was she poisoned by an illegal love-potion, or did she die of a broken heart? Full Review Full Review

Brody Death.jpg


Death in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical)

Much as it did in 1999, eclipse fever gripped the country in 1927, but private investigator Kate Shackleton couldn't understand why theatre star Selina Fellini had approached her for help when it seemed that all she needed was for a flight to be arranged to take her from Leeds to Giggleswick School, where she was to view the eclipse. Surely she didn't need a sleuth for this? Kate went ahead and organised the flight, which collected Fellini, comic Billy Moffatt and Kate from Soldiers' Field in Leeds and landed them at the school in good time. It was obvious that the singer was worried about something, but she didn't seem able to explain what it was. Full Review

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Lawless and the House of Electricity by William Sutton

link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews Crime (Historical)

Campbell Lawless is back, this time tasked with solving a series of terrorist attacks across the nation. Is it the work of the French, as police and public are being led to believe, or someone closer to home? Who can be trusted and what does Roxbury, an innovative inventor previously disgraced, have to do with the bombs used to cause chaos across the country? Employing the services of Molly, the effervescent ragamuffin from his previous adventures, he sets in motion a campaign of subterfuge which uncovers long held secrets, skulduggery and the desperate yearnings beneath Roxbury's constant invention. Full Review