[[Category:Crime (Historical)|*]]
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{{Frontpage
|author=Seishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)
|title=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 annex before the sun rises on their marriage. What with a man missing parts of his fingers being in the neighbourhood, and some mysterious use of a traditional musical instrument at the time of the crime, this case has a lot of the peculiar about it.
|isbn=1782275002
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07XLM3SM6
|title=Murder at the Dolphin Hotel
|author=Helena Dixon
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Elowed Underhay was just twenty seven when she disappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the care of her grandmother. A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to her and the conclusion was that she was dead, mainly because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. Kitty has come to terms with this and in 1933 she was running the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with her grandmother, when her grandmother had to leave to look after her sister who was ill. She was reluctant to leave Kitty in charge - and Kitty could not understand why. She's always coped with the mix of holidaymakers, boating people and the naval college on the edge of town before - and she's done every job in the hotel. And she particularly cannot understand why her grandmother's friends have been roped in to keep an eye on things ''and'' why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of security at the hotel.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0349423067
|title=The Body on the Train (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
|author=Frances Brody
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=From Christmas to Easter a train ran from Leeds City Station to King's Cross, arriving before dawn so that the forced rhubarb it carried could be taken to Covent Garden. In early March 1929 one of the porters who was unloading the boxes discovered the body of a man, stripped naked and with no means of identification. Scotland Yard hit a dead end and called on the services of Kate Shackleton in the hope that her knowledge and connections in Yorkshire would give them the lead they needed. Kate immediately found herself hamstrung: Commander Woodhead remembered her as a child and could not come to terms with the fact that she was now a woman experienced in dealing with murder. He was reluctant to give her all the information which the police held.
}}
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===[[Indian Summer: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery by Sara Sheridan]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
{Life has changed dramatically for Mirabelle, our favourite fifties sleuth, since the war, and not always for the better. When she first settled in Brighton she was alone, rudderless and secretly grieving for Jack, the lover who died before he could leave his wife. As time went by she found in herself an ability to solve crimes, made friends including an ebullient and determined young woman called Vesta who refused to let a little thing like racial prejudice stop her doing what she wanted, and even found consolation in the arms of a rather charming policeman. [[Indian Summer: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery by Sara Sheridan|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->Full Review]]
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===[[PandoraThe Courier by Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]] Nazi-occupied Oslo, 1942. There, I've given the game away. For in a book that centres around a murder, I've told you who did it – the Nazis, surely? Well, that certainly has to remain to be seen in this volume, which splits its time between one of war, when a young woman sees her father arrested, and their store condemned as Jewish, and rushes to her best friend to help – not knowing she will never see her alive again, and the late 1960s, when great consternation is being felt. In this timeline, a maverick agent is back in town, one who might have been fingered for murdering that female victim, even though she and he lived together with their baby as a young family, except he was thought by all to have died in the War… [[The Courier by Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Szymiczkova -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1786075431.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786075431/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''s Boy |===[[Mrs Mohr Goes Missing by Lindsey DavisMaryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)]]===
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
RelaxMeet Zofia. A socially climbing wife of a medical professor, she's intent on making herself known as a charitable lady, die-hard fans of Falco and keen on her husband progressing yet through his spirited British daughter Albiaesteemed career. Rome continues to In 1890s Cracow, life is pretty good, but she knows it could always be as splendid and as sordid as it ever wasbetter. Meanwhile, other people's life could certainly be better – cholera is nearing the crimes committed are as complex and intriguingcity due to lack of hygiene, and our heroine just as determined many people have to fall on charity and cynical, with that light dusting of humour which made tales of her father's exploits so engagingalmshouses to keep a roof over their heads. Newcomers to the series need not fear One such was Mrs Mohr, by the way: each book contains just although she was rich enough background detail to make you feel immediately at keep private lodgings and staff in her charitable home. This time I say ''was'', despite some serious misgivingsfor she has vanished. Only due to Zofia's help does she get found, Albia is investigating dead and in a place the sudden death of near-lame woman could never reach by herself. Just who could be killing people in a fifteen-year-old girlcharity home, described as bright, affectionate and popular. Was she poisoned to what end? And why does Zofia feel the need to make a name for herself by an illegal love-potion, or did she die of a broken heartanswering those questions? [[Pandora's Boy Mrs Mohr Goes Missing by Lindsey Davis|Full Review]] [[Pandora's Boy by Lindsey DavisMaryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)|Full Review]]
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===[[Death Things in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) Jars by Frances BrodyJess Kidd]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
Much as it did 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 1999time. Hardly original themes for a private eye thriller. And yet . . . take another look. This detective is a woman, and the setting is Victorian London, eclipse fever gripped with all the country rich and colourful paradoxes of that era: technical and scientific progress jostling for space beside superstition and a fascination with the bizarre and the downright hideous. And before you're more than a couple of pages in, you realise just how much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. Bridie Devine may dress in 1927half-mourning, with a widow's cap and stout, shiny boots, but private investigator Kate Shackleton couldnthe tobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, what an utterly ''fast''t understand why theatre star Selina Fellini had approached her for help when it seemed that all she needed was thing for a flight lady to be arranged to take do!) is mixed with a nugget of something, well, let's say recreational, created by her from Leeds chemist friend Prudhoe. The fact that it's actually meant to Giggleswick Schoolcure bronchial problems is by the by. Her housemaid, being seven foot tall, where she was to view the eclipseis also somewhat remarkable. Surely she didnAnd then, of course, there't need a sleuth for this? Kate went ahead and organised s the flightghost. Ruby Doyle, which collected Felliniworld famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all through her investigation, comic Billy Moffatt and Kate from Soldiersit' Field in Leeds and landed them at s clear he has a soft spot for the school in good timedetermined young woman. It was obvious If he really exists, that the singer was worried about something, but she didn't seem able to explain what it wasis. [[Death Things in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) Jars by Frances BrodyJess Kidd|Full Review]]
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===[[Lawless and the House A Snapshot of Electricity Murder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by William SuttonFrances Brody]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
Campbell Lawless is backEven detectives need a break and for Kate Shackleton, this time tasked with solving a series of terrorist attacks across photography gives her the nationmental relaxation which she needs. Is it When the work of the Frenchlocal Photographic Society proposed an outing, as police and public are being led Kate was keen to believe, or someone closer take the opportunity to home? Who can be trusted visit Haworth and what does Roxbury, an innovative inventor previously disgracedStanbury, have to do with not least because the bombs used to cause chaos across deeds of the country? Employing Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that it can become a museum and her parents will be there for the services of Mollyevent. What could be better than seeing her family, witnessing a momentous event and having the effervescent ragamuffin from his previous adventures, he sets in motion a campaign opportunity to take photographs of subterfuge which uncovers long held secrets, skulduggery and the desperate yearnings beneath Roxburysetting for ''Wuthering Heights''s constant invention? Nothing could go wrong. Or could it? [[Lawless and the House A Snapshot of Electricity Murder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by William SuttonFrances Brody|Full Review]]
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===[[Seven Dead Charlesgate Confidential by J Jefferson FarjeonScott Von Doviak]]===
[[image:4star3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]][[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
Ted Lyte was petty criminalIn 1946 a gang of criminals pull off an audacious art heist, but not usually the housebreaking typemaking off with priceless works of art from a Boston Museum. He lacked the courageThese missing art works are never found. However, needs mustIn 1988, a student finds himself caught up in the mystery of the missing art and whilst feeling down hot on his luck he decided to try his chances at an isolated house with a shuttered window. ''...he might find a bit the trail of alright behind those shutters! Wot abart it?'' Ted does indeed find something interesting behind the shutters, but it definitely isn't what he'd hopedmulti-million-dollar reward. In a locked room he finds seven 2014, the art is still missing and now dead bodies; six men and a woman. Fleeing are turning up at the house in horroreponymous Charlesgate, he is pursued and caught by a passing yachtsman, Thomas Hazeldean, who also happens to be a journalistfilled with alumni celebrating their 25th reunion. Fascinated by Ted's story (and a possible scoop)As the body count rises, Hazeldean decides to investigate this curious case and its assortment of odd clues, including a portrait shot through will we discover the heart, an old cricket ball and a mysterious note written by one of truth behind the victims. art theft decades earlier? [[Seven Dead Charlesgate Confidential by J Jefferson FarjeonScott Von Doviak|Full Review]]
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===[[The Habit of Murder: The Twenty Third Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Susanna GregoryCatriona McPherson]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
Dandy Gilver and family had made the arduous journey to Wester Ross, but Dandy had mixed feelings even when they arrived. They were there to meet the family of Mallory, her son Donald's fiancee. It wasn't that Dandy thought Donald to be rather ''young'' at twenty three to be contemplating matrimony, but that Mallory was 1360 and Michaelhouse rather ''old'' for him at thirty. There was also a niggling worry because Donald wasn't the sharpest pin in dire financial straitsthe cushion. All the doubts had faded into insignificance though when they arrived at Applecross: they could last a little longer but not that long. Then it seemed that a lifeline might have been thrown come to them when they heard that celebrate the wealthy Elizabeth de Burgh fiftieth birthday of the Suffolk town of Clare was dead and it was possible that The LadyLavinia, as she was knownMallory's mother, had left them a legacy. It seemed but it soon became obvious that Donald was smitten by the mother rather than the best thing daughter. Dandy and Hugh were considering whether or not they should try to do was put an end to go to Clare to claim the money (or to try and prove engagement when the news arrived that it Lady Lavinia had been intended and should therefore be paid) with all haste. The real mission could be concealed behind the bald statement that they were there to attend the funeral. Matthew Bartholomew was one of the contingent from Michaelhousefound dead. [[The Habit of Murder: The Twenty Third Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Susanna GregoryCatriona McPherson|Full Review]] <!-- Hall -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1785656880.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785656880/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[So Many Doors by Oakley Hall]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]] Vassilia Caroline Baird, known to all as V, is dead. Jack sits in his cell refusing to talk to the lawyer tasked with his defence. Starting at the murderous finale, Hall skillfully weaves together the stories of his key players, in a tale of love spanning decades and states, marriages and tragedies. By the time the truth is revealed, V will be dead but who else will lose their life? [[So Many Doors by Oakley Hall|Full Review]] <!-- Peters Tjia -->
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===[[The Painted Queen: an Amelia Peabody Mystery A Necessary Murder by Elizabeth Peters and Joan HessM J Tjia]]===
[[image:4star3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
Amelia Peabody is It's 1863 and a no-nonsense lady who endures all manner of murder attempts, kidnappings and sundry other crimes while on archaeological digs little girl has been found murdered at the family home in Egypt with equanimity Stoke Newington. A few days later and composure. She a few miles across London, a man is either revered or feared (or both) by villains, museum curatorsfound dead in a similar way outside the opulent townhouse of Heloise Chancey, family and workmen alike for her caustic tongue courtesan and the steelpart-reinforced parasol she brandishes at the first sign of dangertime detective. Could they be connected? And yetwhat, once the evil-doers if anything, does either of them have been locked upto do with Heloise's maid, precious objects returned to their owners and all injuries bandagedAmah Li Leen, she still insists on all the decorum of the English abroad: formal dress for dinner and only the politest and least contentious topics for dinner-table conversation. troubling events in her past which are threatening to resurface?[[The Painted Queen: an Amelia Peabody Mystery A Necessary Murder by Elizabeth Peters and Joan HessM J Tjia|Full Review]]
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===[[Operation Goodwood: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery Russian Roulette by Sara Sheridan]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
It makes a pleasant change to have a female detective who isn't a slightly eccentric grandma, a world-weary cop with as many hang-ups, bad habits and family traumas as her male colleagues, or a slick, skinny, sharp-shooting type who lives in a loft and works out in the gym after work, boxing with (and trouncing) every big burly bloke they can throw at her. Mirabelle may have somehow got herself involved in crime-fighting, with all the requisite tropes of climbing through unguarded windows, contacts who are not one hundred per cent on the right side of the law, and a refusal to faint at the sight of blood, but she is, as everyone around her will attest, first and foremost a lady. Indeed, the first encounter we have with her in this, the sixth book in this excellent series, sees her giving a police superintendent an icy stare for his lack of manners. No matter what the life-and-death crisis, there's no reason not to be polite, is there? [[Russian Roulette by Sara Sheridan|Full Review]] <!-- Elizabeth Haynes -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:191240804X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/191240804X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Murder of Harriet Monkton by Elizabeth Haynes]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]], [[:Category:True Crime|True Crime]] ''But that's just it'', she said. ''It's ''not'' Harriet, is it? Not our Harriet. It's some manufactured creature, that exists only for this blessed inquest: something to be summed up like a spirit, to be examined and pored over, to be sneered at and judged. Harriet deserves to be remembered as she was to us, not picked at like carrion.'' And that was the problem: it seemed that there were two Harriets. There was the one her friends - a fellow teacher, her would-be lover, her seducer and the man who was her landlord who was also her lover - knew. Some spoke of her as kindly, virtuous and pious, but that was before her body was found behind the chapel which she regularly attended in Bromley. She'd been poisoned - or had taken her own life. After the inquest was opened another Harriet would emerge, one who was about six months pregnant and who had obviously not been living the chaste life expected of a young, unmarried woman in 1843. [[The Murder of Harriet Monkton by Elizabeth Haynes|Full Review]] <!-- Kerr -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:178429652X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/178429652X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Greeks Bearing Gifts: Bernie Gunther Thriller 13 by Philip Kerr]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
In this, the fifth novel Set in Germany in the Mirabelle Bevan Mystery series1957, we have reached 1955''Greeks Bearing Gifts'' is a historical crime thriller with everything from dodgy Nazi past histories to insurance fraud. There Bernie Gunther is less emphasis on rationing now: time has moved on from a Berliner, who was a sarjeant during the post-second world war privations we saw in our first encounter with Mirabelle and her warmnow, cheery companion Vesta in 1951this novel, is working in the morgue of a time when tearing hospital. He finds himself embroiled in a stocking was mystery, taking on a disaster of the first ordernew role as an insurance claims investigator. Various types of prejudice are still rife, however The investigation takes him to Greece, and Sara Sheridan is a real expert at dropping in that small, lightly sketched detail which tells us we are still in a Britain overshadowed by back into the aftermath dark times of conflictthe war. A woman who walks alone into a bar will not be served; the British Empire is still front With layered plots and double-page newscrossing left, right and the colour of a personcentre, there's skin an almost insurmountable barrier lots to equality of opportunitykeep you guessing throughout this story. [[Operation GoodwoodGreeks Bearing Gifts: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery Bernie Gunther Thriller 13 by Sara SheridanPhilip Kerr|Full Review]]
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===[[She Be Damned Pandora's Boy by M J TjiaLindsey Davis]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
LondonRelax, die-hard fans of Falco and his spirited British daughter Albia. Rome continues to be as splendid and as sordid as it ever was, 1863: prostitutes in the Waterloo area crimes committed are turning up deadas complex and intriguing, their sexual organs mutilated and removed. When another girl goes missingour heroine just as determined and cynical, fears grow with that the killer may have claimed their latest victimlight dusting of humour which made tales of her father's exploits so engaging. The police are at a loss and so it falls Newcomers to courtesan and professional detective, Heloise Chanceythe series need not fear, by the way: each book contains just enough background detail to investigatemake you feel immediately at home. With This time, despite some serious misgivings, Albia is investigating the assistance sudden death of her trusty Chinese maida fifteen-year-old girl, Amah Li Leendescribed as bright, Heloise inches closer to the truthaffectionate and popular. But when Amah is implicated in the brutal plotWas she poisoned by an illegal love-potion, Heloise must reconsider whom or did she can trust, before the killer strikes again. die of a broken heart? [[Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis|Full Review]] [[She Be Damned Pandora's Boy by M J TjiaLindsey Davis|Full Review]]
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===[[The Irregular: A Different Class of Spy Death in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by H B LyleFrances Brody]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
London 1909: Revolution is spreading throughout Russia and Europe. Meanwhile BritainMuch as it did in 1999, eclipse fever gripped the country in 1927, but private investigator Kate Shackleton couldn't understand why theatre star Selina Fellini had approached her for help when it seemed that all she needed was for a land growing accustomed flight to peacebe arranged to take her from Leeds to Giggleswick School, is becoming where she was to view the eclipse. Surely she didn't need a magnet sleuth for spies this? Kate went ahead and disruption. Vernon Kellorganised the flight, Head of War Office Counter-Intelligencewhich collected Fellini, knows that the countrycomic Billy Moffatt and Kate from Soldiers's equilibrium depends on the discovery Field in Leeds and disposal of landed them at the growing number of foreign spy networksschool in good time. Unfortunately his masters in government canIt was obvious that the singer was worried about something, but she didn't see seem able to explain what he can and Kell's own agents are being killed off too fast for him to collect evidenceit was. That's when he meets Wiggins. This is a man with a superlative background: trained by Sherlock Holmes and, years back, a star of Holmes' child Irregulars. Now Kell is getting somewhere… Let battle commence! [[The Irregular: A Different Class of Spy Death in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by H B LyleFrances Brody|Full Review]]
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===[[An Unlikely Agent Lawless and the House of Electricity by Jane MenczerWilliam Sutton]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
LondonCampbell Lawless is back, 1905. Margaret Trant lives this time tasked with her ailing, irascible mother in solving a dreary boarding house in St John's Woodseries of terrorist attacks across the nation. The pair have fallen on hard times, with only Margaret's meagre salary from a ramshackle import-export company keeping them afloat. When a stranger on Is it the tram hands her a newspaper open at work of the recruitment pageFrench, Margaret spots an advertisement that promises as police and public are being led to 'open new horizons beyond your wildest dreams!'. After a gruelling interviewbelieve, she finds herself in a new position as a secretary in a dingy backstreet shop. But all is not as it seems; she is in fact working for a highly secret branch of the intelligence serviceor someone closer to home? Who can be trusted and what does Roxbury, Bureau 8an innovative inventor previously disgraced, whose mission is have to do with the bombs used to track down and neutralise a ruthless band of anarchists known as cause chaos across the Scorpions. Margaret's guilty love of detective fiction scarcely prepares her for country? Employing the reality services of true criminalityMolly, and her journey of self-discovery forms the heart of this remarkable noveleffervescent ragamuffin from his previous adventures, as she discovers he sets in herself resourcefulnessmotion a campaign of subterfuge which uncovers long held secrets, courage, independence skulduggery and the first stirrings of lovedesperate yearnings beneath Roxbury's constant invention. [[An Unlikely Agent Lawless and the House of Electricity by Jane MenczerWilliam Sutton|Full Review]]
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{{newreview
|author=Andrew Wilson
|title= A Talent for Murder
|rating=4.5
|genre= Crime (Historical)
|summary= Agatha Christie wrote some tantalising crime thrillers back in her day, and here Andrew Wilson makes her a victim to a plot not unlike one of her own. It's all about the mystery, and it really drives the story forward. Agatha is ambushed by a strange man at the train station; she is given a proposition that confuses her and secretly intrigues her. Indeed, for this man wants her to commit a murder.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471148211</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Martin Edwards (editor)
|title= Continental Crimes
|rating= 4
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=It's not clear whether the short story has gone out of fashion, relegated to the pages of certain types of women's magazines, or whether the magazines in which the format still holds its own are themselves not as high-profile as once they might have been. Perhaps they never were, perhaps we only know about them in retrospect. Whatever the truth of that it would seem that the golden age of the short story, coincided delightfully with the golden age of crime.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712356797</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Philip Kerr
|title= Prussian Blue: Bernie Gunther Thriller 12
|rating= 3.5
|genre= Crime (Historical)
|summary= Bernie Gunther is not your typical hero. In 1939, he was stationed in Berlin as a police officer handling murder cases and occasionally doing work for some high-ranking Nazis. Although never a Nazi party member himself (he was a known member of the Social Democratic Party), he understood that the best thing he could do for himself at that time was to make himself indispensable to men like Reinhard Heydrich and Martin Bormann. So when he is assigned to solve a murder that has occurred at Hitler's Berghof in the Bavarian mountains, he knows that he needs to do it quickly and discreetly – not just for justice's sake, but for his own. He is given exactly one week to apprehend the suspect, and he hopes that with the help of his friend Friedrich Korsch, an investigator with the Krimialpolizei (or Kripo, for short) he just might get lucky. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784296481</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Alis Hawkins
|title= None So Blind
|rating= 5
|genre= Crime (Historical)
|summary=When a body is accidentally uncovered nearby in 1850, Harry Probert-Lloyd the London barrister has recently returned to his father's house in West Wales due to deteriorating sight. That means Harry is on hand to press for justice, since he knows whose remains they must be. Unfortunately he's up against a few formidable opponents from the past, not least the Rebecca rioters, members of an illegal group from a few years earlier, and officially it looks like justice might not be on the cards. With the assistance of a local clerk, John Davies, Harry takes up the investigation himself, but it seems like both of them know more than they are willing to admit. Will the outcome be worth stirring up all those secrets for?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911332112</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gavin Scott
|title=The Age of Olympus (Duncan Forrester Mystery 2)
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Whilst part of an SOE mission to kidnap a German commander in Greece during the war, Duncan Forrester came across an ancient Cretan stone, which he hoped could lead to the deciphering of Linear B. The war is now officially over (although a lot of people are still fighting it, mentally if not physically) and Forrester has returned to Athens with his lover, Sophie Amfeldt-Laurvig, intent on getting the necessary permissions to go to Crete and retrieve the stone. It was whilst they were in Athens that Forrester was the unwitting witness to the poisoning of a Greek poet and where he found himself pursued by a man wearing a mask. Strange as all this might seem, Forrester is convinced that the poet was not the intended victim: it should have been a general who has been approached to lead ELAS, the military arm of the Greek communists. He's the sort of charismatic man who could sway a lot of people to follow him adn that would mean certain war.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783297824</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alan Kennedy
|title=A Time to Tell Lies
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary= Psychologist Alan Kennedy's fifth novel continues the story he began with [[Lucy by Alan Kennedy]]. In the autumn of 1942, Captain Alex Vere and Justine Perry are among the men and women picked up and taken to a stately home in Scotland, where they are trained in spy skills. After this first encounter, Alex is smitten yet uncertain if he will ever see Justine again. The spy's life is dangerous and unpredictable, after all. Six weeks later, though, they meet up again in southwest France, where they have been sent to collect Simone, a Special Operations Executive agent. It's Alex's first mission (Justine's fourth) and all goes horribly awry. Alex ends up in custody at the Gendarmerie, facing a German who knows he has a false passport.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993202322</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Lois Austen-Leigh
|title= The Incredible Crime
|rating= 4.5
|genre= Crime (Historical)
|summary= Prudence Pinsent flings her novel across the room. ''Unutterable bilge'' is her description of the typical country house murder mystery of romantic novels. The deliberate irony of this is that ''The Incredible Crime'' is precisely one such novel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712356029</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Helen Dunmore
|title=Birdcage Walk
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Bristol 1792: Lizzie married well. John Diner Tredevant is a property developer who has reached the zenith of his life's work: building a terrace of prestigious houses overlooking the Avon Gorge. In a time of turbulence as France reaches the dawn of revolution, Britain, including Diner, fears it may spread. This puts Lizzie in a difficult position since her mother and step-father both believe in propagating pamphlets and ideas of egalitarianism for and to all, including women. In other words, they think nothing of spreading ideas of the sort that fanned the French flames. However, that's not Lizzie's only problem… there is a darkness in her husband's past of which she's unaware.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959403</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Lindsey Davis
|title= The Third Nero
|rating= 5
|genre= Crime (Historical)
|summary= Lindsey Davis is one clever lady. Having enthralled readers for years with the adventures of Marcus Didius Falco, the Ancient Roman informer (or, to put it in more modern terms, private eye) she sustains our interest by allowing Falco to take a well-deserved and politically strategic retirement while his adopted daughter Albia takes over the family business. Her wit is dry as dust, she has a highly desirable (well, he's called Manlius: what else could he be?) love-interest and as a Briton, her take on Roman bureaucracy and pettifogging officialdom is just as sharp and funny as her cynical dad's ever was. A new main character, a new way of doing things, which somehow manages to retain all the best elements of the original Falco. Genius.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473613426</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)
|title=Retribution Road
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=''Sergeant Bowman wasn't just a hard man, he was something else: a dangerous man.'' If, indeed, there was someone who was ideal for a suicide mission, it was him. Working as a soldier for the East India Company in the rural, remote, outlaw hotbeds of Asia in the 1850s, he's tasked with taking a boat of unknown prospects up the Irrawaddy to try and combat local warlord Pagan Min. It doesn't go well – to start with, he's supposed to run the rule over ruffians saved from the gallows, but can't command them until he's forced his way to having the knowledge of the mission he needs first, only for all hell to break loose. But get back he does, only to find that while his nightmares about what really happened are met with equally dark goings-on, the official record suggests the mission never actually existed…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857053744</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Rory Clements
|title=Corpus
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=A suicidal overdose and the murder of upper class Cecil Langley and his wife are two events that may be unconnected. However this is England in 1936, a magnet for opposing forces and their first moves in preparation for the coming conflict, assisted or prevented by a royal crisis (depending on which side you're on). Cambridge history professor Tom Wilde may fall into the middle of this accidentally to begin with but his curiosity has been piqued enough to ensure he's not walking away.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762613</amazonuk>
}}
