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[[Category:New Reviews|Crime (Historical)]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sharon Penman0571370977|title=Prince of DarknessThe Lock-Up|author=John Banville

|summary=1193: Justin de Quincy, bastard son of It's six months since the Bishop of Chester dramatic events which we read about in [[April in Spain by John Banville|April in Spain]] and Dr Quirke is now back in Dublin and loyal to Queen Eleanor of Aquitaineliving (if somewhat uneasily) with his daughter, steers clear of Eleanor's youngest son John at all costsPhoebe. After all, The worst of his grief is over but he irrationally blames DI St John's henchman did try to murder himStrafford for what happened and this has made the already strained relationship between them more difficult. However thereThey's re brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett when the body of a plot afoot to frame John for a crime he didn’t commit (for a change)young, Jewish scholar, bringing with it somewhat of a dilemma for Justin. As much as he hates JohnRosa Jacobs, de Quincy realises that getting to the bottom of the plot is found in the interests of the Queen and Englanda lock-up. So Justin's course is setAt first, no matter what it costs and no matter which hornetslooked as though she' nests d gassed herself but Quirke is convinced that it disturbswas murder rather than suicide.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781857083</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bruce Crowther1529337968|title=Harlem NocturneIn Place of Fear|author=Catriona McPherson|rating=45

|summary=Just before the beginning of the Second World War and half a world away from Europe the WorldIt's Fair July 1948 and Helen Crowther is taking place in New York. The British king and queen are expected and there's due to start work as a Joe Louis title fight qualified medical almoner the following morning - on the horizonday that the NHS is born. Daniel Leland lives She'll be working for Dr Deuchar and Dr Strasser in Harlemtheir GP surgery and her job will be to help patients with those non-medical problems which affect their health. He used The hardest part of the job will be to be with persuade people that the NYPD but was retired after he was shot by robbers: the bullet is still in his body services she offers really are free and perilously close that they don't have to do anything to his spinequalify for them. Right now he makes his living as a small-time private detective, Some of the problems will require delicate handling but business seems to be looking up when he's offered an investigation - and Helen has a very large retainer - by a manufacturer who problem of her own which might be suffering espionagegive her some insight. Before long there's a murder to add into the equation tooHer marriage has never been consummated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1490960821</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Hughes057136358X|title=The Convictions of April in Spain|author=John DelahuntBanville|rating=4.5

|summary=As John Delahunt sits Terry Tice was a hitman, although he didn't think of himself in those terms. He saw what he did as ''a cell for matter of making things tidy''. I couldn't resist the condemned writing thought that he was an account extreme version of Marie Kondo. He enjoyed his lifejob, we go through it something which occurred to him when he was in Burma with him. It all begins as the army ''where he witnesses a fracas between his fellow students and got the police after chance to kill a visit to one lot of the little yellow fellows and had a fine hostelries Victorian Dublin has to offerold time''. In this way JohnHe was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn's brought to t understand why Terry didn't know the attention purpose of 'The Department', a proswizzle stick -British intelligence unit based surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the notorious Dublin Castle. ''morning''? John agrees to help them not realising this is never going to be an agreement It was after Percy's death that he can back away from, no matter how hard he tries and no matter how much it costs himsaw the benefits of taking up a job in Spain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781620148</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Sebag MontefioreB08Z8BMZ7H|title=One Night in WinterThe Mystery of Healing|author=A P McGrath|rating=54

|summary=In June 1945 two school students are shot dead We meet Solon in Pergamon in Moscow. These aren't just any school students; they attended Josef Stalin School 801, the academy that taught Stalinsecond century of the common era and he's own children and the current educational establishment of choice physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the offspring amusement of many government and army grandeesthe populace. Why did they die? Did the seemingly innocent Fatal Romantics Club have anything to do with it? For The remuneration isn't high but the children work gives the club is doctor a way feeling of living their love of Pushkinvirtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants''s literature but the warriors to others it seems a little differentlive. Stalin himself is determined to have it investigated It's quite a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands and what Stalin wantswhen we first see them, Stalin gets no matter how wide they're sprinkling gold dust onto the ultimate spiderlions's web of suspicion is cast manes to make them look more impressive. The sagitarii are the archers and no matter whom the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives with the wild animals. Today, it catches's the crocodiles.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099580330</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laura Wilson1529337925|title=The Riot|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=DI Stratton has moved to a new posting and Notting Hill is fresh territory to him, but he’s going to have to get to know it fast when a rent collector is stabbed. There’s a sense of loss from the people who knew the man - he was inclined to help if he could and with landlords wanting to oust rent-controlled tenants so that they could put ‘coloured’ people or prostitutes in their place Mirror Dance (higher rents, you seeDandy Gilver) any help was welcome. Added to this there are increasing numbers of street fights involving teddy boys. It’s 1958 - and there’s a heatwave.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782063080</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=James Scott|title=The KeptCatriona McPherson|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Elspeth and her 12 year old son Caleb have been beset by one of the worst types of tragedy. As a result, fuelled by Caleb's need for revenge and Elspeth's motherly love, they set out on a journey that brings them to the small Lake Erie town of Watersbridge. With their new setting comes a greater understanding of their past which is a mixed blessing that must be met head on before they have to face their future.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091944503</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sian Busby|title=A Commonplace Killing|rating=4

|summary=In July 1946 two schoolboys found It was the body of a woman on a bombsite in north London. It's a while before she's identified August Bank Holiday weekend and, as Lillian Frobisherso often happened, but that produces more problems. Lillian it was - apparently - a respectably married woman but cold enough to have the fire lit and Bunty the encounter Dalmation wasn't inclined to leave it to keep Dandy Gilver warm on the bomb site had been sexual and sofa. The thought of work was almost certainly consensualcheering when Dandy took the call from Sandy Bissett in Dundee. And why She was her husband not aware that his wife was missing? His position looks even worse when it emerges the publisher of a magazine and had been told that the body was lying on an expensive mackintosh sold man running the Punch and Judy show in the store where helocal park had used copies of two of her cartoon characters - Rosie Cheek and her sister Freckle - to drum up some local interest in his show. Sandy Bissett's a doorman. But request was Lillian quite as respectable as simple: she wanted Gilver and Osborne to warn the man about infringement of copyright - and Dandy and Alex would have had everyone think?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722060</amazonuk>be cheaper than employing a solicitor to do the same job.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B08LKT7HSR|title=The TournamentMurder in the Belltower (A Miss Underhay Mystery)|author=Matthew ReillyHelena Dixon

|summary=Michael Reilly is somewhat In December 1933 the remains of Elowed Underhay were discovered in the cellar of a guilty pleasure the Glass Bottle Public House. Ezekiel Hamett was sought in connection with the murder of mine; Elowed and his novels are hihalf-octane adventures that are often as ludicrous as they are sublimebrother, Denzil Hammett, whose body was also discovered. ‘The Tournament’ is a departure from his action packed Scarecrow and Jack West thrillers; instead creating an alternative history Kitty Underhay's long search for our own Queen Elizabeth Iher mother, who disappeared in June 1916 was over. Why was Now she such a formidable leader whose reluctance to marry and dislike of 's determined that the Catholics were only part of man responsible for her make-up? Reilly poses murder will be brought to justice.}}{{Frontpage|author=Stephen Clarke|title=The Spy Who Inspired Me|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=This is a hypothetical tale spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a 13 year old Bess going to Constantinople to watch a tournament man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the world’s greatest chess playersactive service. Here she will be embroiled Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a murder mystery alongside desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her tutor Roger Ascham.!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409134229</amazonuk>2952163855

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0349423083|title=The Return of Sherlock HolmesDeath and the Brewery Queen (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)|author=Arthur Conan DoyleFrances Brody|rating=4.5

|summary=IKate Shackleton runs her investigation agency from Batswing Cottage, ably assisted by Jim Sykes, who lives in Woodhouse and her housekeeper, Mrs Sugden. She'm still not sure which is cheekier s been approached by William Lofthouse of the BBC – either riffing on the Conan Doyle originals for their own modern takes on Barleycorn Brewery in Masham. Sherlock HolmesSomething is going wrong with his business and he'd like Kate to look into it discreetly: he's hoping that his nephew and right-hand man, or producing new editions of the original stories and novels with their young stars on the frontJames Lofthouse, purely will be back from a trip to tie a few sales down of what is now out of copyrightGermany before long. Certainly I think the latter is the greater crime, given the results on screen, for the number of young people picking up these classics for the first time on the basis of James went to see what the TV continental brewers were doing and finding something quite against the grain of what they've ever read outside of school must be quite largechanges Barleycorn might need to make. Still, anything William is worried that James is perhaps enjoying himself a little bit ''too'' much or is going to forcefeed classics bring back a German bride but he'd like the business to a new audience…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849907609</amazonuk>be ship-shape before his nephew returns.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0241433568|title=The City of StrangersEight Detectives|author=Michael RussellAlex Pavesi

|summary=In the spring of 1939 The Irish Times reported that Mrs Letitia Harris, aged 53 had gone missing from her home It's 1930 and Megan and Henry are staying with Bunny at his house in DublinSpain. Her car was found the following morning on It's unbearably hot and Bunny drank too much at lunch: he's going to have a cliff top near Shankillrest and then he wants to talk to Megan and Henry about something serious. Only it never gets that far: when Bunny doesn't emerge after his siesta his guests find that he's been murdered. How can that have happened? There were bloodstains 's no one else in the carhouse, and a blood-stained hatchet in the shed back in Dublin, blood too in so one of them must be the flowerbedkiller.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847563473</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1473682401|title=Sherlock: His Last BowThe Turning Tide (Dandy Gilver)|author=Arthur Conan DoyleCatriona McPherson

|summary=''The End''. I got told off for writing those two simple words Those who were with us at the end of a short story I wrote at school, aged about eleven[[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson|A Step So Grave]] will remember that Donald was engaged to Mallory Dunnoch. If it They're now married and Mallory is the end, I think the teacher was saying, it should be obvioushaving twins. If it isn't, there's still When they arrive no way one can doubt the words are necessarycharms of Lavinia Dahlia Cherry and her brother, Edward Hugh Lachlan Gilver. But at least IThere are two drawbacks: they're noisy and they'm not alonere staying with Dandy and Hugh. Conan Doyle, the south coast Doctor turned entertainer extraordinaire with all his outputDandy and her detective partner, was told off for the way he finished things. Holmes dead? SorryAlec Osborne, had not allowed, Mr Doyle. Holmes retired to keep bees near Eastbourne? Beyond the pale, Sir – bring him back. You don't like taken up the labour of proving your genius invention chance to be such look into a genius? Tough. And so we come problem at the Cramond ferry when it was offered to 'His Last Bow'them twice before, which Watson tells us is but suddenly the final, final, ending story with which to conclude, and a few others. He wasn't exactly correct about it possibility of being out of the last ones, thoughhouse at Gilverton seems irresistible.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849907617</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Bones of ParisSeishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)|authortitle=Laurie R KingThe Honjin Murders

|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=It To many readers, the phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is 1929 and Harris Stuyvesant has now left enough to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the Bureau of Investigation and England behind him and words 'clever' or 'good'. For those who need more, here is working as a Private Investigator the extra background – we're in rural Japan in Europethe 1930s. An AmericanThe oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, whom Stuyvesant had metalthough 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 gone missing and Stuyvesant is approached by her Uncle and her Mother to find an uncle representing herfamily, for one thing. The missing girlEither way, Pip Crosbythe celebrations have gone ahead as planned, was involved only for the wedded couple to be slashed to death in their private annexe before the sun rises on their marriage. What with a group man missing parts of artists his fingers being in the Montparnasse neighbourhood, and Montmartre areas some mysterious use of a traditional musical instrument at the city. Many time of them seem to have known herthe crime, but few have seen her in some timethis case has a lot of the peculiar about it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749015357</amazonuk>1782275002

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Essie FoxB07XLM3SM6|title=The Goddess and Murder at the ThiefDolphin Hotel|author=Helena Dixon

|summary=Alice Willoughby may only be a child but Elowed Underhay was just twenty-seven when she feels at one with Indiadisappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the country in which 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 born and where her father works for the East India Companydead, mainly because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. The sights, the smells Kitty has come to terms with this and in 1933 she was running the tales of the Indian gods told by Mini, Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with her grandmother when her Indian ayah all contribute grandmother had to it being home, despite the subleave to look after her sister who was ill. She was reluctant to leave Kitty in charge -continent having made her motherlessand Kitty could not understand why. Therefore imagine her disgust when sheShe's left in always coped with the hands mix of her Aunt Mercy (a counterfeit medium) in drabholidaymakers, dirty Victorian London. Life isn't easy anymore but it takes boating people and the naval college on a new turn when the edge of town before - and she meets 's done every job in the mysterious Mr Tilsburyhotel. He has a plan for And she particularly cannot understand why her that includes the theft of the Koh-I-Noor diamond, Her Majestygrandmother's pride friends have been roped in to keep an eye on things ''and joy'' why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of security at the hotel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409146197</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|title=Touchstone|author=Laurie R King|rating=3.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Laurie R King may be best known for her Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series, but she has also written a number of other novels, a couple of which feature detective Harris Stuyvesant. With the publication of the second in this series, the first ''Touchstone'', originally published in 2008, has been republished, allowing those readers new to Stuyvesant, or even to King herself, to become properly acquainted.Frontpage|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749015454</amazonuk>}} {{newreview0349423067|title=The Lovegrove Hermit|author=Rosemary Craddock|rating=3|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Charlotte Tyler is delighted to receive an invitation to Lovegrove Priory, home of eccentric Gothic novelist Amelia Denby. The priory is surrounded by acres of picturesque parkland and Denby even has a hermit living in the grounds in his own private retreat. However, when the hermit, Brother Caspar, is found dead in an apparent suicide, it is up to Charlotte and her new friend Colonel Hartley to piece together Body on the clues and unmask the murderer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719811066</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Luck of the Vails|author=E F Benson|rating=5|genre=Crime Train (HistoricalKate Shackleton Mysteries)|summary='The sequestered village of Vail lies in a wrinkle of the great Wiltshire downs, and is traversed by the Bath Road.' Of course the big inn is called 'The Vail Arms' and about a mile from the village is 'the big house'. Benson doesn't name the house – indeed it wouldn't have needed a name. Locally it would just be known as the big house, and any local delivery person would know where to deposit any attached to Lord Vail.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099572435</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Ashton|title=Nor Will He SleepFrances Brody

|summary=Two opposing Edinburgh university student gangs are full of high jinks From Christmas to Easter a train ran from Leeds City Station to King's Cross, arriving before dawn so that the night that Agnes Carnegie is found deadforced rhubarb it carried could be taken to Covent Garden. Daniel DrummondIn early March 1929, one of the merry-makersporters who was unloading the boxes discovered the body of a man, is stripped naked and with no means of identification. Scotland Yard hit a prime suspect as he had an altercation with dead end and called on the services of Kate Shackleton in the hope that her knowledge and uses a silver cane that matches connections in Yorkshire would give them the murder weaponlead they needed. Nothing is Kate immediately found herself hamstrung: Commander Woodhead remembered her as a foregone conclusion though child and so dour, wily Inspector James McLevy of the Leith police is determined could not come to uncover terms with the truthfact that she was now a woman experienced in dealing with murder. Meanwhile Robert Louis Stevenson is in town for his father's funeral and renews his acquaintance with McLevy He was reluctant to give her all the information which is rather fortuitous when we consider what lies aheadthe police held.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972515</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=MRC Kasasian1472127110|title=The Mangle Street Murders|rating=5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=March Middleton's father dies, and she becomes a 20-something alone; not a good status for a Victorian woman. She therefore moves in with her guardian, Sidney Grice, personal (not private!) detective. Although, as Sidney has a case to solve, March may as well be invisible. Grice has been employed by shopkeeper William Ashby who has savagely murdered his own wife by stabbing her 40 times and leaving the Italian word for 'revenge' on the wall. Everyone says he did it apart from Ashby, of course. Therefore Grice teams up with Inspector Pound of the Yard to solve the conundrum and March is there to help, whether Sidney wants her to or not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851840</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Brody|title=Murder on a Indian Summer's Day: (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)|rating=5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=It was Kate Shackleton's cousin in the India Office who sought her help to find Maharajah Narayan who had gone out hunting on the Bolton Abbey Estate and not returned, although his horse - a flighty Arab - returned riderless. The following morning a body was found - but this proved to be one of the grooms who had accompanied Narayan earlier in the day. Had he slipped jumping across the Strid and drowned? The jump across the river Wharfe looked tempting and people were warned of the dangers, but it was known that young men regularly crossed that way rather than walking to the wooden bridge or the stepping stones. Later in the day Narayan's body was found. He'd been shot through the heart and a clumsy attempt had been made to hide the body - but only Kate Shackleton believed that there was foul play. The authorities seemed determined that what had happened would be written off as 'a tragic accident'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>034940058X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMirabelle Bevan Mystery|author=Hannah Kent|title=Burial RitesSara Sheridan

|summary=FridrikLife has changed dramatically for Mirabelle, our favourite fifties sleuth, since the war, Agnes and Sigridur are accused of murdering two men one Icelandic night in 1829 before setting fire to their homenot always for the better. Now Agnes awaits execution, imprisoned When she first settled in the farm of a lowly local family whoBrighton she was alone, rumour has itrudderless and secretly grieving for Jack, wouldn't be too great a loss if the prisoner becomes dangerous. Margrit Jonsdottir (the farmer's lover who died before he could leave his wife) doesn't feel threatened and sets the shocked, malnourished Agnes to work. Gradually Agnes reveals the events of that night As time went by she found in herself an ability to Margrit solve crimes, made friends including an ebullient and Toti, a determined young priest. Her version seems woman called Vesta who refused to be let a little different from thing like racial prejudice stop her doing what everyone else concludedshe wanted, predictably… Or perhaps not so predictablyand even found consolation in the arms of a rather charming policeman.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447233166</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Daniel Woodrell1912374439|title=The Maid's Version|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary= Life may be tough 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 of the experiences aren't the sort she'd like to relive. To top it all off, in 1929 the Arbor, a local dance club, explodes into flames killing 42 people including Alma's younger sister Ruby. The cause remains a mystery as factions are blamed or viewed suspiciously. However Alma knows the truth, a truth that remains secret until decades later during a visit from her grandson.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444732838</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Heroes (Most Wanted)Courier|author=Anne Perry|rating=4.5|genre=Dyslexia Friendly|summary=Trench warfare has widely been acknowledged as one of the most soul destroying forms of combat. It broke men physically Kjell Ola Dahl and mentally. Death seemed inevitable for many, and life was so horrible that at times it must have come as release. So what is one more death among 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 and Joseph will not rest until justice is done. It sounds pretty straight forward, but there is far 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 Bithynia. Not the most hospitable of regions, its Greek residents regard the Romans with hatred; an emotion that, in many cases, is reciprocated by the Romans. No matter how bad this is though, it gets worse when a high ranking official dies mysteriously. Could it have anything to do 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781850798</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Brody|title=Murder In The Afternoon: Don Bartlett (Kate Shackleton Mysteriestranslator)|rating=43.5

|summary=Kate ShackletonNazi-occupied Oslo, 1942. There, I's business as ve given the game away. For in a book that centres around a private investigator is beginning to attract interest but when theremurder, I's a loud banging on ve told you who did it – the door very early Nazis, surely? Well, that certainly has to remain to be seen in this volume, which splits its time between one morning she soon learns the truth of the old adage that war, when family comes ina young woman sees her father arrested, money doesn't. The visitor ''looks'' familiar but Kate can't quite place where she's seen the woman before. Eventually it emerges that Mary Jane Armstrong is Kate's sister. Kate was adopted and their store condemned as a baby Jewish and knew nothing of rushes to her natural family but Mary Jane needs best friend to help. Her children had taken food for their father at the quarry where he worked – not knowing she will never see her alive again, and ten-year-old Harriet reported finding her father dead on the floor of the hutlate 1960s, but when searchers returned to the quarry there was no sign of great consternation is being felt. In this timeline, a body or of Ethan Armstrong either. Local opinion said maverick agent is back in town, one who might have been fingered for murdering that her husband had abandoned themfemale victim, even though she and he lived together with their baby as a young family, but Mary Jane believed her daughter.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749954876</amazonuk>except he was thought by all to have died in the War…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Loupas1786075431|title=The Second DuchessMrs Mohr Goes Missing|author=Maryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)|rating=3.5

|summary=Elizabeth LoupasMeet 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 seemscould 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 not the first author rich enough to be inspired by the intrigue keep private lodgings and scandal of the renaissance court of Ferrerastaff in her charitable home. The poem I say ''was''My Last Duchess, for she has vanished. Only due to Zofia' by Robert Brownings help does she get found, first published dead and in 1842 is an elegiac account reflecting a place the popular view that Duke Alfonso d’Este murdered his first wife Lucrezia de Medici because of her unfaithfulnessnear-lame woman could never reach by herself. Loupas explores some of the themes raised Just who could be killing people in the poem a charity home, and cleverly combines elements of Browning’s work with true historical accounts to create an appealing murder-mystery set against what end? And why does Zofia feel the sumptuous backdrop of renaissance Italy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848093837</amazonuk>need to make a name for herself by answering those questions?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Brody1786893762|title=A Medal for Murder: (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) Things in Jars|author=Jess Kidd

|summary=When A child has gone missing. The detective asked to take on the case is still struggling with the shame and frustration left by a pawnbroker previous case, where the child was unceremoniously robbed 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 valuable items which he was holding on behalf of clients he first called that era: technical and scientific progress jostling for space beside superstition and a fascination with the police bizarre and then Kate Shackleton when the police seemed to be getting nowheredownright hideous. It wasnAnd before you't re more than a couple of pages in, you realise just the crime which had been committedhow much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. Bridie Devine may dress in half-mourning, but the pledges had sentimental value to many of Moonywith a widow's clients cap and he was worried about how they would feel when stout, shiny boots, but the jewellry couldntobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, what an utterly 't be returned and what the impact would be on 'fast'his'thing for a lady to do!) is mixed with a nugget of something, well, let' reputations say recreational, created by her chemist friend Prudhoe. He wanted The fact that it's actually meant to cure bronchial problems is by the pieces back by. Her housemaid, being seven- but most foot-tall, is also somewhat remarkable. And then, of course, there's the ghost. Ruby Doyle, world-famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all he wanted Kate Shackleton and through her assistant Jim Sykes to visit the clients investigation, and discuss it's clear he has a soft spot for the situation with themdetermined young woman. Simple? NoIf he really exists, that is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749941928</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0349414327|title=A Snapshot of Murder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)

|summary=Even detectives need a break and for Kate Shackleton had gained something of a reputation for solving mysteries and there were plenty of those at , photography gives her the end of the Great Warmental relaxation which she needs. She tracked down men who were then reunited with their families and even those who had no wish When the local Photographic Society proposed an outing, Kate was keen to take the opportunity to be found visit Haworth and were Stanbury, not reunited. She had least because the deeds of the Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that it can become a museum and her own reasons parents will be there for doing this - it made her feel more positive about her own situationthe event. Her husband Gerald was posted ''missingWhat could be better than seeing her family, presumed dead'' in witnessing a momentous event and having the last year opportunity to take photographs of the war and it was the one mystery she couldnsetting for ''Wuthering Heights''t solve, no matter how she tried? Nothing could go wrong. But her successes in other areas led to her first professional investigation.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749941871</amazonuk>Or could it?

{{newreview|author=Stephen Gallagher|title=The Bedlam Detective|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Authors like to claim that writing is hard work. In a way, that’s true – there are a really astonishing number of words in a book, and it’s often very difficult to wrangle them from your head into coherent sentences on a page. At the same time, though, ''hard'' should not be the same as ''boring''. It’s sad to come across authors who don’t enjoy the process of writing, and it’s so easy to tell when you’re reading a piece of work by a writer who was actually having fun when they wrote it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091950120</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Edney Silvestre|title=If I Close My Eyes Now|rating=4|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=12th April 1961, the radio news is full of Yuri Gagarin's first earth orbit and two boys who'd had ambitions to be Tarzan, to be engineers, or medical scientists curing all diseases, suddenly had a new possibility: maybe they could be astronauts. 'Brasilia had been inaugurated less than a year earlier, but whichever of us got to be president was going to transfer the capital back to Rio. We were twelve. It was a different country. A different world.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857521322</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sax Rohmer|title=Fu-Manchu - Daughter of Fu-Manchu|rating=4|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Fu Manchu is dead (or is he?) but his evil genius lives Move on, in the form of his daughter! New narrator Greville is sent to fetch Dr Petrie (narrator of the first three books) to come to an archaeological dig where Greville's chief Barton, an old friend of Petrie's, lies dead. (Or does he?) From there, the pair, along with Nayland Smith and Superintendent Weymouth, are plunged into a death-defying adventure.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857686062</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Dyslexia Friendly Reviews]]