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[[Category:Crime (Historical)|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Crime (Historical)]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Vaughn Entwhistle0571370977|title= The Dead Assassin|rating= 4|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary=London, 1895. Arthur Conan Doyle is summoned to the scene of a mysterious crime – a senior member of the Government lies murdered. Close by, the body of the attacker is found, riddled with bullets. The dead assassin is identified, however, as a man who was hanged several weeks previously. Mystified by the strange incident, Arthur Conan Doyle calls on a friend for advice – Oscar Wilde. Together, the two of them are swept up into a bizarre investigation – one that threatens their lives, their families, and the very establishment itself. It seems that someone is reanimating corpses, and programming them for murder…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783292687</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Anita Davison|title= Murder on the Minneapolis|rating= 5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Governess Flora Maguire is sailing from New York to England on the SS Minneapolis, entrusted with the task of returning her teenage charge, Eddie back home to boarding school. Unfortunately for Flora, the ship is firstLock-class only, so she spends the first night aboard stowed away in her cabin, acutely aware of her lower social status. Her intention to stay out of the limelight is thwarted when, during a solitary stroll along the deck, she discovers a dead body at the bottom of the companionway. The ship staff hastily conclude that this is a tragic accident, but Flora has other ideas and decides to conduct her own investigation. Is there a murderer aboard ship? And if so, is Flora making herself a prime target by poking her nose into other people's affairs?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910208264</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Anthony Quinn|title= Curtain Call|rating= 4.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= London, 1936. Nina Land is a West End actress, and she is spending her afternoon in a hotel room with a married man. When she spots the face of the man the newspapers have named “The Tie-Pin Killer”, she faces a huge dilemma – will she report the man to the police, and risk her career and the reputation of her lover? Or will she stay quiet, and risk the lives of innocent girls?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593238</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewUp|author=MRC Kasasian|title=Death Descends On Saturn Villa (The Gower Street Detective Series)John Banville
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=While It's six months since the best personal detective dramatic events which we read about in the known Victorian world [[April in Spain by John Banville|April in Spain]] and Dr Quirke is now back in Dublin and living (in if somewhat uneasily) with his opinion anyway) Sidney Grice is away on a casedaughter, his ward March is left to her own devicesPhoebe. As luck would have it, one The worst of those devices his grief is an invitation to meet a previously unknown relative. March visits Saturn Villa with a sense of curiosity over but he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for what happened and encounters Uncle Tolly whose afternoon tea is one she will never forgetthis has made the already strained relationship between them more difficult. LetThey's hope she knows a good detective!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178185971X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Alexander Wilson|title=Wallace of the Secret Service|rating=3.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=This is the third in the re-issued series authored brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett when the former soldierbody of a young, spy and Professor of English LiteratureJewish scholar, Rosa Jacobs, without whom it is saidfound in a lock-up. At first, thereit looked as though she'd have been no Bond, no Smiley, no Bournegassed herself but Quirke is convinced that it was murder rather than suicide.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749018151</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sara Sheridan1529337968|title= British Bulldog |rating= 5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= As a decade, the fifties doesn't attract much attention from authors and scriptwriters - it's dull and grey in comparison with the vivid horrors of war and the colourful extravagance of the sixties. But World War II left a long shadow, and this, the fourth instalment in this excellent series, takes us deep into past life In Place of ex-intelligence agent Mirabelle Bevan, and the sorrow and the blighted love she has so desperately fought to hide from public gaze soon becomes hopelessly entangled with present deaths and danger. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973252</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewFear|author=Antonia Hodgson|title=The Last Confession of Thomas HawkinsCatriona McPherson
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary= London, 1841. Newly returned from India, Jeremiah Blake It's July 1948 and William Avery find life back in Victorian England difficult Helen Crowther is due to settle into, having left start work as a disconnected country travelled by pony qualified medical almoner the following morning - on the day that the NHS is born. She'll be working for Dr Deuchar and trap, Dr Strasser in their GP surgery and returned her job will be to one in the grip of railway maniahelp patients with those non-medical problems which affect their health. When a series The hardest part of murders occur, all connected the job will be to persuade people that the press, Avery services she offers really are free and Blake find themselves back in actionthat they don't have to do anything to qualify for them. But with connections between Some of the murdered and those seeking revolution, it is problems will require delicate handling but Helen has a race against time to find the killer before he strikes againproblem of her own which might give her some insight. Her marriage has never been consummated. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241146259</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew Pearl057136358X|title=The Last Bookaneer|rating=3.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Bookaneer Fergins makes a decent living April in 19th century London. However his business acquaintance Davenport has a plan to aid his prosperity. Hot literary property Robert Louis Stevenson is dying on Upolo, a Samoan island, having just written his final potential masterpiece. Therefore all Davenport has to do is to steal it, bringing it back to publishing glory and self-aggrandisement. The only problems are that the enabling legal loophole is about to close and he's not the only one with his eye on that particular prize. And Fergins? He's going too, whether he wants to or not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846556198</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewSpain|author=Jane Thynne |title=A War of FlowersJohn Banville
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=A War of Flowers is the third of Jane ThynneTerry Tice was a hitman, although he didn's thoroughly researched and beautifully written novels t think of Nazi Berlin from the female point of viewhimself in those terms. Reading them is an immersive experience; the joy He saw what he did as ''a matter of the book is in location, description, commentmaking things tidy''. The action does not rush but I couldn't resist the ending expertly pulls plot strings together and has a wow factor thought that will leave the reader eager for morehe was an extreme version of Marie Kondo. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471131904</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Dan Simmons|title=The Fifth Heart|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=On a rainy night in March 1893 Henry James stands on a Paris bridge He enjoyed his job, about to end it all. Next something which occurred to him sidles Sherlock Holmes, about when he was in Burma with the army ''where he got the chance to do kill a lot of the same. Instead of jumping, Holmes drags James off for a drink little yellow fellows and decides that they will go to America to solve had a 17-year-fine old murder casetime''. The supposed victim, socialite Clover Adams, is believed to have committed suicide but that doesnHe was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't deter Sherlock. Heknow the purpose of a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn's off, Henry James is going t drink champagne with him and thatbubbles in the ''morning''? It was after Percy's death that!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751560952</amazonuk>he saw the benefits of taking up a job in Spain.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jayne Anne PhillipsB08Z8BMZ7H|title=Quiet DellThe Mystery of Healing|author=A P McGrath
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary= Chicago – 1931We meet Solon in Pergamon in the second century of the common era and he's the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the amusement of the populace. Asta Eicher is The remuneration isn't high but the work gives the doctor a widow, with three children and a crippling sense feeling of loneliness. When Harry Powers asks her to marry him, she is delighted – virtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the new family soon leave in order to travel warriors to West Virginialive. They It's quite a spectacle: the magistri are never seen againthe charge hands and when we first see them, they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes to make them look more impressive. Back in Chicago, Emily Thornhill is one of The sagitarii are the few women journalists in Chicago, archers and is sent to investigate the disappearance, trying to establish what happened beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives with the familywild animals. As she becomes ever deeper involved with the investigation Today, Emily begins to discover things she never expected – both about it's the case, and herselfcrocodiles. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099590255</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Kerr1529337925|title=The Lady from Zagreb|rating=4|genre=Crime Mirror Dance (HistoricalDandy Gilver)|summary=The Lady from Zagreb begins and ends in 1956. Series detective Bernie Gunther is enduring a 'subtle kind of punishment' as he watches and re-watches beautiful Dahlia Dresner, a woman he has loved and lost. This is the tenth of the novels that began with the publication of the Berlin Noir trilogy (in the early 1990s) and within a few pages the action has catapulted back to the summer of 1942 and the heartland location, Nazi Berlin. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782065814</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Barbara Cleverly|title=Enter Pale DeathCatriona McPherson|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=''Death by Misadventure''.' This is It was the official verdict August Bank Holiday weekend and, as so often happened, it was cold enough to have the fire lit and Bunty the cause of death of Lady Lavinia Truelove, trampled Dalmation wasn't inclined to death by a notoriously ill-tempered horse, which she foolishly tried leave it to approach keep Dandy Gilver warm on the sofa. The thought of work was almost cheering when Dandy took the call from Sandy Bissett in its stallDundee. The horse panicked and reacted badly, resulting in She was the publisher of a gruesome magazine and had been told that the man running the Punch and bloody attack, witnessed by Judy show in the local park had used copies of two boys from the villageof her cartoon characters - Rosie Cheek and her sister Freckle - to drum up some local interest in his show. Most people would dismiss Sandy Bissett's request was simple: she wanted Gilver and Osborne to warn the event as a tragic accident, but detective Joe Sandilands suspects that this could be coldman about infringement of copyright -blooded murder. Could his judgement and Dandy and Alex would be clouded by the fact that he has cheaper than employing a very personal axe solicitor to grind with do the 'grieving' widower, who has been showing increasing attentiveness to Dorcas, the girl he plans to marry?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1616954086</amazonuk>same job.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leslie Charteris and John Telfer (narrator)B08LKT7HSR|title=Enter the Saint|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=When you think of thrillers written by a man Murder in his early twenties there's a temptation to believe that the books might not be, well, top drawer, but that would be a mistake. The first of ''The Saint'' novels was published in 1928 when Leslie Charteris was just twenty one and this collection of stories is dated 1930. You might expect the rambunctious adventurer we meet, but not the subtleties of the slightly world-weary man of the world, all-knowing about the evils to which men Belltower (and womenA Miss Underhay Mystery) can sink, but they're all there. Admittedly the Saint is more boisterous and less subtle than he will become - but that speaks more about the later works than this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00OS74GQU</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Antonin Varenne and Frank Wynne (translator)|title=Loser's Corner|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary=Meet Georges Crozat. He's a policeman in Paris, who boxes on the side. After a bout that leads to an almost embarrassing victory, he is made two offers – one from a clearly corrupt man behind the scenes in the sport, who seems to offer a few thrown fights for Georges, then some kind of status as assistant – training, guiding, profiteering; the other comes from a man known always as ''the Pakistani'' (or an unkind abbreviation of that), who has a friend of a friend who wants someone to do an enemy a mischief with their fists. Georges doesn't take too long to choose the latter. In alternating chapters, however, we're in the 1950s, and a rookie to the forces, Pascal Verini, is being shipped out to Algeria to work on the civil war causing the republic to break away and become independent from France. Like Georges, he finds his situation one which also causes what may be misguided violence, even if he has a very different attitude to it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857052276</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=G M Best |title=The Barchster MurdersHelena Dixon
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Anthony Trollope was very taken with Barchester when he first visited In December 1933 the city, but pausing to look out at a pleasant view he remains of Elowed Underhay were discovered in the body cellar of Thomas Rider, a bedesman at Hiram's Hospitalthe Glass Bottle Public House. At first it Ezekiel Hamett was suspected that Trollope might have been sought in connection with the murderer murder of Elowed and his half- for this was no natural deathbrother, Denzil Hammett, but a stabbing - but once he proved that he whose body was a professional man there on business also discovered. Kitty Underhay's long search for the first timeher mother, he found himself drawn into the investigationwho disappeared in June 1916 was over. There is a secret which Now she's determined that the warden, the Reverend Septimus Harding has hidden man responsible for well over a decade and it looks as though Rider might have been murdered her murder will be brought to prevent the secret coming outjustice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910208086</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rory ClementsStephen Clarke|title=The Queen's ManSpy Who Inspired Me
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)General Fiction|summary=Elizabethan England - This is a murkyspoof spy story, dirty world full of religious strife that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and violent, short lives. Queen Elizabeth sits on who works for the thronesecret service, but her seat is by no means safe - her first cousin, Mary, Queen in the planning side of Scotsthings more than the active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, is locked and the pair end up stranded in Sheffield Castle. Unable Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to leaveunearth traitors in the resistance network, but by no means unable and Lemming desperately trying to plot and scheme keep up with her supporters, Mary wishes to reclaim what she believes is rightfully hers - the throne. But even she cannot be prepared for the dark twists and new plots that arise.!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848548486</amazonuk>2952163855
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=L C Tyler0349423083|title=A Cruel Necessity Death and the Brewery Queen (A John Grey Historical MysteryKate Shackleton Mysteries)|author=Frances Brody
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Essex 1657: CromwellKate Shackleton runs her investigation agency from Batswing Cottage, ably assisted by Jim Sykes, who lives in Woodhouse and her housekeeper, Mrs Sugden. She's Republic is 8 years oldbeen approached by William Lofthouse of the Barleycorn Brewery in Masham. While John Grey sleeps off a good night of drink under the eaves of a cottageSomething 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, James Lofthouse, will be back from a Royalist spy is murdered down the roadtrip to Germany before long. A trainee lawyer, John also enjoys James went to see what the science of investigation continental brewers were doing and so starts looking for clues that will lead him what changes Barleycorn might need to the murderermake. Although itWilliam is worried that James is perhaps enjoying himself a little bit ''too''s not easy: strange happenings occurred that night and Grey much or is having trouble persuading others of what going to bring back a German bride but he saw. Meanwhile 'd like the business to be ship-shape before his mother has the perfect match for himnephew returns. Unfortunately their ideas of perfection differ somewhat!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472115031</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=C J Sansom0241433568|title=Lamentation (Matthew Shardlake)Eight Detectives|author=Alex Pavesi|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=The reign of It's 1930 and Megan and Henry VIII is drawing to a closeare staying with Bunny at his house in Spain. It's heresy unbearably hot and Bunny drank too much at lunch: he's going to speculate on the death of the king, but obvious to anyone who sees the bloated man who can barely walk that have a rest and then he cannot have much longer. Matthew Shardlake is still drawn wants to the queen - Catherine Parr as was - but he'd prefer talk to avoid court politics particularly when there's someone as suggestible Megan and changeable as Henry on the throneabout something serious. Ultimately though he Only it never gets that far: when Bunny doesn't feel emerge after his siesta his guests find that he has much choice when he's summoned to Whitehall Palacebeen murdered. It seems How can that the queen has a problem which could put her life have happened? There's no one else in danger - along with the lives house, so one of all those who are seen as her supportersthem must be the killer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230744192</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1473682401|title=Murder at the BrightwellThe Turning Tide (Dandy Gilver)|author=Ashley WeaverCatriona McPherson
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=It probably helps 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 be a fan of Agatha ChristieMallory Dunnoch. They're now married and Mallory is having twins. It probably helps to absolutely adore When they arrive no one can doubt the sheer selfish indulgence charms of Lavinia Dahlia Cherry and style of the 1930sher brother, Edward Hugh Lachlan Gilver. It probably helps to just accept the There are two drawbacks: they're noisy and they'rich'' as being completely divorced from real lifere staying with Dandy and Hugh. It definitely helps if you're happy Dandy and her detective partner, Alec Osborne, had not taken up the chance to take your crime as look into a puzzleproblem at the Cramond ferry when it was offered to them twice before, rather than as heart-rending, gut-wrenching rendition but suddenly the possibility of being out of realitythe house at Gilverton seems irresistible.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749017317</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Seishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)|title=Queen The Honjin Murders|rating=4|genre=Crime|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 annexe 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 Heartsthe peculiar about it.|isbn=1782275002}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B07XLM3SM6|title=Murder at the Dolphin Hotel|author=Rhys BowenHelena Dixon|rating=24
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Lady Georgiana RannochElowed Underhay was just twenty-seven when she disappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, 35th in line for the British throne, may know how care of her grandmother. A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to navigate upper class societyher and the conclusion was that she was dead, but mainly because there aren't many acceptable career choices for a penniless almost royalwas no evidence to suggest otherwise. So Kitty has come to terms with this and in 1933 she was running the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with her grandmother when her mothergrandmother 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, famous actress Claire Daniels, invites 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 a transatlantic cruise, Georgie is looking forwards things ''and'' why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to living take charge of security at the highlife and relaxing for a whilehotel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00M4ZGVBG</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin Davies0349423067|title=Havana SleepingThe Body on the Train (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)|author=Frances Brody
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=In the London of World War One there is From Christmas to Easter a man amongst the masses cowering train ran from Leeds City Station to King's Cross, arriving before dawn so that the nightly Zeppelin raids who knows death a lot more than manyforced rhubarb it carried could be taken to Covent Garden. He is grieving for his nephewIn early March 1929, lost to the killing fields one of France; he is pining for his wife, evacuated to the country; and he is both grieving and pining for a past where he porters who was more active, more demonstrably brave and verifiably useful – a past whose main constituent part has also gone to unloading the boxes discovered the countryside, to be body of a beekeeper near Brighton. That man is Dr Watson, stripped naked and the other, with no means of course, is Sherlock Holmesidentification. Here they're reunited at Scotland Yard hit a dead end and called on the behest services of Mycroft, for three individual deaths provide a thorn Kate Shackleton in the side of his secret operations, hope that her knowledge and only Holmes can pluck it out with his singular talents. But when the evidence connections in Yorkshire would give them the case so often revolves around mysterious photographs claiming lead they needed. Kate immediately found herself hamstrung: Commander Woodhead remembered her as a child and could not come to be of people's souls, there is a hint terms with the fact that this new modern age is she was now a step too far for woman experienced in dealing with murder. He was reluctant to give her all the information which the once-retired sleuthing friendspolice held.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781160023</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1472127110|title=The First HorsemanIndian Summer: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery|author=DK WilsonSara Sheridan
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=British author Derek Wilson is one with a tremendously long bibliography as a HistorianLife 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 as secretly grieving for Jack, the lover who died before he could leave his wife. As time went by she found in herself an author of fiction. He brings all of that ability to '''The First Horseman'''solve crimes, a resounding success that blends fact made friends including an ebullient and fiction determined young woman called Vesta who refused to create let a grippinglittle thing like racial prejudice stop her doing what she wanted, fast moving Tudor crime story that educates as well as fascinates, moving from and even found consolation in the merchants arms of Cheapside to the whores of Southwark, and mixing with figures such as Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIIIa rather charming policeman.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751550361</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=CC Humphreys1912374439|title=PlagueThe Courier|author=Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Highwayman Captain William Coke stops Nazi-occupied Oslo, 1942. There, I've given the game away. For in a book that centres around a carriage murder, I've told you who did it – the Nazis, surely? Well, that certainly has to remain to be seen in the line this volume, which splits its time between one of his chosen career war, when a young woman sees her father arrested, and their store condemned as Jewish and soon discovers he's rushes to her best friend to help – not knowing she will never see her alive again, and the first to have assailed itlate 1960s, when great consternation is being felt. The driver In this timeline, a maverick agent is dead and all those within back in town, one who might have been brutally skewered. He flees the scene but unfortunately leaves fingered for murdering that female victim, even though she and he lived together with their baby as a pistol behind. This is young family, except he was thought by all thief-taker Pitman needs to arouse his interest and attempt to track the Captain down with a noose have died in mind. Meanwhile nature has an equally random mode of death that's soon to be let loose on London. This is 1665 and the Great Plague is about to begin.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780891423</amazonuk>War…
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Hamilton1786075431|title=StalemateMrs Mohr Goes Missing|author=Maryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=In the summer of 1930 Walter Bruce was told that he had an incurable illnessMeet Zofia. With nursing care and an easier job he might have A socially climbing wife of a few more years to live - but without them he had medical professor, she's intent on making herself known as a matter of monthscharitable lady, and keen on her husband progressing yet through his esteemed career. The solution would seem straightforward In 1890s Cracow, life is pretty good, but Bruce had a wife - and she demanded to knows it could always be better. Meanwhile, other people''kept'' 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 was far too selfish almshouses to be his nursekeep a roof over their heads. Life ''might'' have continued much as it One such wasMrs Mohr, but Bruce discovered that his wife had been deceiving him about although she was rich enough to keep private lodgings and staff in her age and background - and with charitable home. I say ''twowas'' of his business colleagues, for she has vanished. The solution was obvious: he would devise the perfect murder Only due to Zofia's help does she get found, dead and then live out his final years in comforta place the near-lame woman could never reach by herself. Bruce was Just who could be killing people in a chess player charity home, and he approached to what end? And why does Zofia feel the problem much as he would need to make a game of chess - but even the best plans rarely survive contact with reality.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178132204X</amazonuk>name for herself by answering those questions?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1786893762|title=The Marathon ConspiracyThings in Jars|author=Gary CorbyJess Kidd|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Nicolaos 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 lot on his mindprivate eye thriller. And yet . . . take another look. His wedding This detective is only a few weeks away woman, and the setting is Victorian London, with all the rich and he still has no real means colourful paradoxes of supporting that era: technical and scientific progress jostling for space beside superstition and a wife fascination with the bizarre and familythe downright hideous. The investigating gameAnd before you're more than a couple of pages in, it seemsyou realise just how much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. Bridie Devine may dress in half-mourning, doesnwith a widow't pay too well. So when his patron Pericles asks him to investigate s cap and stout, shiny boots, but the murder of tobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, what an utterly ''fast'' thing for a young child, Nico lady to do!) is mixed with a little reticentnugget of something, well, let's say recreational, especially since he is still waiting to be paid for his previous assignmentcreated by her chemist friend Prudhoe. Deciding The fact that he canit't afford s actually meant to be pickycure bronchial problems is by the by. Her housemaid, Nico accepts a case which will see himbeing seven-foot-tall, amongst other thingsis also somewhat remarkable. And then, fending off street thugsof course, diving for treasure in a sacred springthere's the ghost. Ruby Doyle, going on a bear huntworld-famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all through her investigation, rescuing a pair of fighting cocks and consulting a strange priestess who it's clear he has a habit of running around soft spot for the woods naked..determined young woman.At least If he can't complain really exists, that his work is boring.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>161695387X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley McKay0349414327|title=Friend and Foe A Snapshot of Murder (A Hew Cullan MysteryKate Shackleton Mysteries)|author=Frances Brody
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=1583 and King James VI of Scotland is paranoid Even detectives need a break andfor Kate Shackleton, after photography gives her the events of mental relaxation which she needs. When the Ruthven raid the year beforelocal Photographic Society proposed an outing, who can blame him? Surely this won't affect humble academic lawyer Hew Cullen? Oh but it will, eventually causing more turmoil than even he is used Kate was keen to. Back at take the beginning thoughopportunity to visit Haworth and Stanbury, while Hew continues, unaware not least because the deeds of what's to come, he has more pressing domestic worries the Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that, it can become a museum and her parents will be there for once, don't affect his herbalist sister Meg or his doctor brother-in-law Gilesthe event. IndeedWhat could be better than seeing her family, this time witnessing a momentous event and having the concern is opportunity to take photographs of the love of Hewsetting for ''Wuthering Heights''s own heart? Nothing could go wrong.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972175</amazonuk> Or could it?
}}
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