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[[Category:Crime (Historical)|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Crime (Historical)]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0571370977|title=The Lovegrove HermitLock-Up|author=Rosemary CraddockJohn Banville|rating=34
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Charlotte Tyler It's six months since the dramatic events which we read about in [[April in Spain by John Banville|April in Spain]] and Dr Quirke is delighted to receive an invitation to Lovegrove Priorynow back in Dublin and living (if somewhat uneasily) with his daughter, home of eccentric Gothic novelist Amelia DenbyPhoebe. The priory worst of his grief is surrounded by acres of picturesque parkland over but he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for what happened and Denby even this has a hermit living in made the grounds in his own private retreatalready strained relationship between them more difficult. However, They're brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett when the hermitbody of a young, Brother CasparJewish scholar, Rosa Jacobs, is found dead in an apparent suicidea lock-up. At first, it looked as though she'd gassed herself but Quirke is up to Charlotte and her new friend Colonel Hartley to piece together the clues and unmask the murdererconvinced that it was murder rather than suicide.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719811066</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529337968|title=The Luck In Place of the VailsFear|author=E F BensonCatriona McPherson
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=It'The sequestered village of Vail lies in a wrinkle of the great Wiltshire downs, s July 1948 and Helen Crowther is traversed by due to start work as a qualified medical almoner the Bath Road.' Of course following morning - on the big inn is called 'The Vail Arms' and about a mile from day that the village NHS is 'the big house'born. Benson doesn't name the house – indeed it wouldn She't have needed a name. Locally it would just ll be known as the big house, working for Dr Deuchar and Dr Strasser in their GP surgery and any local delivery person would know where her job will be to deposit any attached to Lord Vailhelp patients with those non-medical problems which affect their health.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099572435</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Ashton|title=Nor Will He Sleep|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Two opposing Edinburgh university student gangs are full The hardest part of high jinks the night job will be to persuade people that Agnes Carnegie is found dead. Daniel Drummond, one of the merry-makers, is a prime suspect as he had an altercation with her services she offers really are free and uses a silver cane that matches the murder weaponthey don't have to do anything to qualify for them. Nothing is Some of the problems will require delicate handling but Helen has a foregone conclusion though and so dour, wily Inspector James McLevy problem of the Leith police is determined to uncover the truthher own which might give her some insight. Meanwhile Robert Louis Stevenson is in town for his father's funeral and renews his acquaintance with McLevy which is rather fortuitous when we consider what lies aheadHer marriage has never been consummated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972515</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=MRC Kasasian057136358X|title=The Mangle Street MurdersApril in Spain|author=John Banville
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=March MiddletonTerry Tice was a hitman, although he didn's father dies, and she becomes a 20-something alone; not a good status for a Victorian woman. She therefore moves t think of himself in with her guardian, Sidney Grice, personal (not private!) detectivethose terms. Although, He saw what he did as Sidney has ''a case to solve, March may as well be invisiblematter of making things tidy''. I couldn't resist the thought that he was an extreme version of Marie Kondo. Grice has been employed by shopkeeper William Ashby who has savagely murdered He enjoyed his own wife by stabbing her 40 times and leaving job, something which occurred to him when he was in Burma with the Italian word for army 'revenge' on where he got the chance to kill a lot of the walllittle yellow fellows and had a fine old time''. Everyone says he did it apart from Ashby, He was spending a lot of course. Therefore Grice teams up time with Inspector Pound Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know the purpose of a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the Yard to solve ''morning''? It was after Percy's death that he saw the conundrum and March is there to help, whether Sidney wants her to or notbenefits of taking up a job in Spain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851840</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances BrodyB08Z8BMZ7H|title=Murder on a Summer's Day: (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)The Mystery of Healing|author=A P McGrath|rating=54
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=It was Kate ShackletonWe meet Solon in Pergamon in the second century of the common era and he's cousin in the India Office who sought her help to find Maharajah Narayan who had gone out hunting physician on duty at the Bolton Abbey Estate and not returned, although his horse munus - a flighty Arab - returned riderlessthe games put on for the amusement of the populace. The following morning remuneration isn't high but the work gives the doctor a body was found - but this proved to be one feeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the grooms who had accompanied Narayan earlier in the daywarriors to live. Had he slipped jumping across It's quite a spectacle: the Strid and drowned? The jump across magistri are the river Wharfe looked tempting charge hands and people were warned of the dangerswhen we first see them, but it was known that young men regularly crossed that way rather than walking to they're sprinkling gold dust onto the wooden bridge or the stepping stones. Later in the day Narayanlions's body was foundmanes to make them look more impressive. He'd been shot through The sagitarii are the heart archers and a clumsy attempt had been made the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to hide fight for their lives with the body - but only Kate Shackleton believed that there was foul playwild animals. The authorities seemed determined that what had happened would be written off as 'a tragic accidentToday, it's the crocodiles.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>034940058X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hannah Kent1529337925|title=Burial RitesThe Mirror Dance (Dandy Gilver)|author=Catriona McPherson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=FridrikIt was the August Bank Holiday weekend and, Agnes as so often happened, it was cold enough to have the fire lit and Sigridur are accused Bunty the Dalmation wasn't inclined to leave it to keep Dandy Gilver warm on the sofa. The thought of murdering two men one Icelandic night work was almost cheering when Dandy took the call from Sandy Bissett in 1829 before setting fire to their homeDundee. Now Agnes awaits execution, imprisoned She was the publisher of a magazine and had been told that the man running the Punch and Judy show in the farm local park had used copies of two of a lowly her cartoon characters - Rosie Cheek and her sister Freckle - to drum up some local family who, rumour has it, wouldn't be too great a loss if the prisoner becomes dangerousinterest in his show. Margrit Jonsdottir (the farmer Sandy Bissett's wife) doesn't feel threatened request was simple: she wanted Gilver and sets the shocked, malnourished Agnes Osborne to work. Gradually Agnes reveals warn the events man about infringement of that night to Margrit copyright - and Dandy and Toti, Alex would be cheaper than employing a young priest. Her version seems solicitor to be a little different from what everyone else concluded, predictably… Or perhaps not so predictablydo the same job.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447233166</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Daniel WoodrellB08LKT7HSR|title=The Maid's VersionMurder in the Belltower (A Miss Underhay Mystery)|author=Helena Dixon|rating=3.5|genre=Crime (Historical Fiction)|summary= Life may be tough In December 1933 the remains of Elowed Underhay were discovered in the Missouri town where Alma grew up but at least she has a job. She learns and experiences a lot as maid to the wealthy Glencross family, but many cellar of the experiences aren't the sort she'd like to reliveGlass Bottle Public House. To top it all off, Ezekiel Hamett was sought in 1929 connection with the Arbormurder of Elowed and his half-brother, a local dance clubDenzil Hammett, explodes into flames killing 42 people including Almawhose body was also discovered. Kitty Underhay's younger sister Rubylong search for her mother, who disappeared in June 1916 was over. The cause remains a mystery as factions are blamed or viewed suspiciously. However Alma knows Now she's determined that the truth, a truth that remains secret until decades later during a visit from man responsible for her grandsonmurder will be brought to justice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444732838</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Heroes (Most Wanted)Stephen Clarke|authortitle=Anne PerryThe Spy Who Inspired Me|rating=4.5|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyGeneral Fiction|summary=Trench warfare has widely been acknowledged as one of the most soul destroying forms of combatThis is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. It broke men physically and mentally Or Ian Fleming. Death seemed inevitable for many But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and life was so horrible that at times it must have come as release. So what is one more death among 'likes the multitudes? To Chaplain Joseph Reavely every death counts, but he can not let this one go. Morton was not killed by enemy fire - he was murdered ladies' and Joseph will not rest until justice is done. It sounds pretty straight forwardwho works for the secret service, but there is far in the planning side of things more to it than this and justice is truly poetic in this case.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842995103</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bruce Macbain|title=The Bull Slayer|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Years after we left him in [[Roman Games (Plinius Secundus) by Bruce Macbain|Roman Games]], Pliny the Younger has become Roman Governor of Bithyniaactive service. Not Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the most hospitable of regionspair end up stranded in Normandy, its Greek residents regard the Romans with hatred; an emotion that, Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in many cases, is reciprocated by the Romans. No matter how bad this is thoughresistance network, it gets worse when a high ranking official dies mysteriously. Could it have anything and Lemming desperately trying to do keep up with the religious sect of Mithras? Possibly but it's not Pliny's only dilemma; at home his beloved young wife Calpurnia is acting somewhat oddly.her!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781850798</amazonuk>2952163855
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0349423083|title=Death and the Brewery Queen (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
|author=Frances Brody
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Kate Shackletonruns her investigation agency from Batswing Cottage, ably assisted by Jim Sykes, who lives in Woodhouse and her housekeeper, Mrs Sugden. She's business as a private investigator is beginning to attract interest but when there's a loud banging on the door very early one morning she soon learns the truth been approached by William Lofthouse of the old adage that when family comes Barleycorn Brewery in, money doesn'tMasham. The visitor ''looks'Something is going wrong with his business and he' familiar but d like Kate can't quite place where sheto look into it discreetly: he's seen the woman before. Eventually it emerges hoping that Mary Jane Armstrong is Kate's sister. Kate was adopted as his nephew and right-hand man, James Lofthouse, will be back from a baby and knew nothing of her natural family but Mary Jane needs helptrip to Germany before long. Her children had taken food for their father at James went to see what the quarry where he worked continental brewers were doing and ten-year-old Harriet reported finding her father dead on the floor of the hut, but when searchers returned what changes Barleycorn might need to the quarry there was no sign of a body or of Ethan Armstrong eithermake. Local opinion said William is worried that her husband had abandoned them, James is perhaps enjoying himself a little bit ''too'' much or is going to bring back a German bride but Mary Jane believed her daughterhe'd like the business to be ship-shape before his nephew returns.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749954876</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Loupas0241433568|title=The Second DuchessEight Detectives|author=Alex Pavesi
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Elizabeth Loupas, it seems, was not the first author It's 1930 and Megan and Henry are staying with Bunny at his house in Spain. It's unbearably hot and Bunny drank too much at lunch: he's going to have a rest and then he wants to talk to be inspired by the intrigue Megan and scandal of the renaissance court of FerreraHenry about something serious. The poem Only it never gets that far: when Bunny doesn'My Last Duchesst emerge after his siesta his guests find that he' by Robert Browning, first published in 1842 is an elegiac account reflecting the popular view that Duke Alfonso d’Este s been murdered his first wife Lucrezia de Medici because of her unfaithfulness. Loupas explores some of the themes raised How can that have happened? There's no one else in the poem and cleverly combines elements house, so one of Browning’s work with true historical accounts to create an appealing murder-mystery set against them must be the sumptuous backdrop of renaissance Italykiller.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848093837</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Brody1473682401|title=A Medal for Murder: (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) |rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=When a pawnbroker was unceremoniously robbed of valuable items which he was holding on behalf of clients he first called the police and then Kate Shackleton when the police seemed to be getting nowhere. It wasn't just the crime which had been committed, but the pledges had sentimental value to many of Moony's clients and he was worried about how they would feel when the jewellry couldn't be returned and what the impact would be on ''his'' reputation. He wanted the pieces back - but most of all he wanted Kate Shackleton and her assistant Jim Sykes to visit the clients and discuss the situation with them. Simple? No.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749941928</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Brody|title=Dying In The Wool: Turning Tide (Kate Shackleton MysteriesDandy Gilver) |rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Kate Shackleton had gained something of a reputation for solving mysteries and there were plenty of those at the end of the Great War. She tracked down men who were then reunited with their families and even those who had no wish to be found and were not reunited. She had her own reasons for doing this - it made her feel more positive about her own situation. Her husband Gerald was posted ''missing, presumed dead'' in the last year of the war and it was the one mystery she couldn't solve, no matter how she tried. But her successes in other areas led to her first professional investigation.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749941871</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stephen Gallagher|title=The Bedlam DetectiveCatriona McPherson|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Authors like Those who were with us at the end of [[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson|A Step So Grave]] will remember that Donald was engaged to claim that writing Mallory Dunnoch. They're now married and Mallory is hard workhaving twins. In a way When they arrive no one can doubt the charms of Lavinia Dahlia Cherry and her brother, that’s true – there Edward Hugh Lachlan Gilver. There are a really astonishing number of words in a book, two drawbacks: they're noisy and they're staying with Dandy and it’s often very difficult to wrangle them from your head into coherent sentences on a pageHugh. At the same time Dandy and her detective partner, thoughAlec Osborne, ''hard'' should had not be taken up the same as ''boring''. It’s sad chance to look into a problem at the Cramond ferry when it was offered to come across authors who don’t enjoy them twice before, but suddenly the process possibility of writing, and it’s so easy to tell when you’re reading a piece being out of work by a writer who was actually having fun when they wrote itthe house at Gilverton seems irresistible.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091950120</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Edney SilvestreSeishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)|title=If I Close My Eyes NowThe Honjin Murders
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=12th April 1961To many readers, the radio news phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is full of Yuri Gagarinenough to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the words 'clever' or 'good's first earth orbit and two boys . For those whoneed more, here is the extra background – we'd had ambitions to be Tarzanre in rural Japan in the 1930s. The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, to although the whole affair is really not as ostentatious as it might be engineers– hardly anybody has turned up, or medical scientists curing all diseaseswhat with it being arranged at great haste. She only has an uncle representing her family, suddenly had a new possibility: maybe they could be astronautsfor one thing. 'Brasilia had been inaugurated less than a year earlier Either way, the celebrations have gone ahead as planned, but whichever of us got only for the wedded couple to be president was going slashed to transfer death in their private annexe before the capital back to Riosun rises on their marriage. We were twelve. It was 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 different countrylot of the peculiar about it. A different world.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857521322</amazonuk>1782275002
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sax RohmerB07XLM3SM6|title=Fu-Manchu - Daughter of Fu-ManchuMurder at the Dolphin Hotel|author=Helena Dixon
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Fu Manchu is dead (or is he?) but his evil genius lives onElowed Underhay was just twenty-seven when she disappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the form care of her grandmother. A great deal of his daughter! New narrator Greville is sent money had been spent to find out what happened to fetch Dr Petrie (narrator of her and the first three books) conclusion was that she was dead, mainly because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. Kitty has come to an archaeological dig where Grevilleterms 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 chief Bartonalways coped with the mix of holidaymakers, an old friend boating people and the naval college on the edge of Petrietown before - and she's, lies deaddone every job in the hotel. (Or does he?) From there, 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 pair, along with Nayland Smith and Superintendent Weymouth, are plunged into a death-defying adventurehotel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857686062</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=GK Chesterton0349423067|title=The Complete Father Brown StoriesBody on the Train (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)|author=Frances Brody
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Having read many 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 Father Brown short stories beforeporters who was unloading the boxes discovered the body of a man, stripped naked and after really enjoying with no means of identification. Scotland Yard hit a dead end and called on the recent screen version, I jumped at services of Kate Shackleton in the chance to get hold of this TV tie-hope that her knowledge and connections in omnibusYorkshire would give them the lead they needed. The little cleric who has such Kate immediately found herself hamstrung: Commander Woodhead remembered her as a mild manner, but a keen knowledge of human evil, is one of my favourite detectives, child and it could not come to terms with the fact that she was now a pleasure woman experienced in dealing with murder. He was reluctant to be able to read this complete collection of his storiesgive her all the information which the police held.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849906467</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1472127110|title=Indian Summer: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery
|author=Sara Sheridan
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=It’s hard to explain why Andrew Taylor’s novels are so chilling. They’re ghost stories that often lack ghostsLife has changed dramatically for Mirabelle, our favourite fifties sleuth, crime novels in which since the crime itself feels at a remove from war, and not always for the rest of the actionbetter. But that’s really the secret of their power: while When she first settled in most thrillersBrighton she was alone, rudderless and secretly grieving for Jack, the bogeyman is a single entitylover who died before he could leave his wife. As time went by she found in herself an ability to solve crimes, easy to pinpoint made friends including an ebullient and therefore easy determined young woman called Vesta who refused to excise from the rest of the healthy fictional worldlet a little thing like racial prejudice stop her doing what she wanted, things are never so simple and even found consolation in the universes Taylor creates. What is frightening in an Andrew Taylor novel? Everythingarms of a rather charming policeman.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007213514</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=George Mann (Editor)1912374439|title=Encounters of Sherlock HolmesThe Courier|author=Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Sherlock Holmes remains an enduring icon 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 English literature; perhaps war, when a young woman sees her father arrested, and their store condemned as popular today as he was back in Jewish and rushes to her best friend to help – not knowing she will never see her alive again, and the late 1800s1960s, maybe even more so with the advent of TV and film adaptations of his adventureswhen great consternation is being felt. IndeedIn this timeline, such a maverick agent is the lasting appeal of the character that since the death of Conan Doyle there back in town, one who might have been literally hundreds of works publishedfingered for murdering that female victim, even though she and he lived together with their baby as a young family, picking up where except he was thought by all to have died in the original stories left off. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781160031</amazonuk>War…
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew Pearl1786075431|title=The TechnologistsMrs Mohr Goes Missing|ratingauthor=4|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=The year is 1868 Maryla Szymiczkova and Boston is under threat from an evil genius who seems to have the uncanny ability to manipulate matter itself. The city has already experienced two attacks; the chaos in the harbour when the navigation instruments went awry and the eerie spectacle in the commercial quarter when every item of glass, including windows, eyeglasses, clocks and watches spontaneously melted. But are these attacks a prelude to something greater?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512769</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=James P Blaylock|title=The Aylesford Skull|rating=4|genre=Crime Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Historicaltranslator)|summary=Langdon St. Ives, renowned scientist and adventurer, returns home from the hubbub and grime of Victorian London to his tranquil residence in rural Aylesford where he lives with his wife Alice and their two young children. Weary of the city, having survived a devastating explosion and particularly vicious attempt on his life, he is hoping for some repose and a chance to work quietly on his latest project; a dirigible airship.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857689797</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stephen Gallagher|title=The Kingdom of Bones|rating=4|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary='If you like this sort of thing…' reads a line from Stephen Gallagher's 'The Kingdom of Bones', 'then here comes the kind of thing you’ll like'3. It’s describing the opening music for a theatrical number, but it’s an almost perfect tagline for ''The Kingdom of Bones'' itself. If you like Victorians, vaudeville and villainy, if you like prize-fighting and police chases and possession by the Devil, then here comes 'The Kingdom of Bones'. It’s the kind of thing that you’re really going to like.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091950139</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dashiell Hammett|title=The Return of the Thin Man|rating=45
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=IMeet 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've recently been discovering s life could certainly be better – cholera is nearing the original works city due to lack of Raymond Chandler whichhygiene, like and many peoplehave 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. Isay ''was''d only really known from the Hollywood renditions, for she has vanished. A natural, if backwards, progression from there was clearly Only due to the writer that Chandler called 'the ace performerZofia's help does she get found, dead and in a place the man 'near-lame woman could never reach by herself. Just who did over could be killing people in a charity home, and over again to what only end? And why does Zofia feel the best writers ever do at all'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908800208</amazonuk>need to make a name for herself by answering those questions?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Essie Fox1786893762|title=Elijah's MermaidThings in Jars|author=Jess Kidd
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Author Augustus Lamb receives a shocking letter from his publisher and old friend Frederick HallA child has gone missing. Hall has discovered Lamb's small grandchildren, Lily The detective asked to take on the case is still struggling with the shame and Elijahfrustration 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 home , with all the rich and colourful paradoxes of that era: technical and scientific progress jostling for foundlingsspace beside superstition and a fascination with the bizarre and the downright hideous. LambAnd 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 son Gabriel had died after cap and stout, shiny boots, but the tobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, what an utterly ''fast'' thing for a socially unacceptable liaison lady to do!) is mixed with beautiful Italian Isabella who subsequently disappeareda nugget of something, well, let's say recreational, created by her chemist friend Prudhoe. Delighted beyond words at HallThe fact that it's discovery, Augustus adopts actually meant to cure bronchial problems is by the twinsby. Her housemaid, raising them in his Herefordshire country homebeing seven-foot-tall, Kingsland Houseis also somewhat remarkable. There And then, of course, there's the children growghost. Ruby Doyle, world-famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all through her investigation, happy and lovedit's clear he has a soft spot for the determined young woman. If he really exists, that is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409123340</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Carnac0349414327|title=The Autobiography A Snapshot of Jack the Ripper|rating=3.5|genre=Crime Murder (HistoricalKate Shackleton Mysteries)|summary=The ''Autobiography'' presents itself as the Ripper’s story told from his own perspective. The son of an impoverished doctor, young Carnac has a childhood obsession with blood which a series of unfortunate events morphs into a full-blown desire to slit human throats. It’s the typical Victorian coming-of-age story (from birth, to school, then first love and finally adulthood) with a twist, in that the path Carnac’s on leads him to become not a responsible adult but the most famous murderer of the nineteenth century.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552165395</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kylie Fitzpatrick|title=The Silver ThreadFrances Brody
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=It's 1840 Even detectives need a break and Rhia Mahoneyfor Kate Shackleton, daughter of an Irish merchant specialising in local linen, has a comfortable lifephotography gives her the mental relaxation which she needs. All that changesWhen the local Photographic Society proposed an outing, however, as her father's warehouse burns down, taking his faltering business with it, ensuring Rhia must make her own way in Kate was keen to take the world. Via family connections she comes opportunity to England visit Haworth and Stanbury, not least because the home deeds of Quaker widow Antonia Blake. The idea is the Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that Antonia it can become a museum and her parents will protect Rhia whilst she seeks a position as governess in bustling, alien Londonbe there for the event. But rather What could be better than residing in a sanctuaryseeing her family, her problems worsen as she's enveloped in witnessing a mystery leading momentous event and having the opportunity to transportation despite her innocencetake photographs of the setting for ''Wuthering Heights''? Nothing could go wrong. The only things holding her life together are the letters she writes to her dearly departed grandmother, her artistic skill and a determination to discover who wants her gone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908800127</amazonuk>Or could it?
}}