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[[Category:New Reviews|Crime (Historical)]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jane Menczer0571370977|title= An Unlikely AgentThe Lock-Up|author=John Banville|rating= 4|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary=London, 1905. Margaret Trant lives with her ailing, irascible mother in a dreary boarding house in St JohnIt's Wood. The pair have fallen on hard times, with only Margaret's meagre salary from a ramshackle import-export company keeping them afloat.When a stranger on six months since the tram hands her a newspaper open at the recruitment page, Margaret spots an advertisement that promises to 'open new horizons beyond your wildest dreams!'. After a gruelling interview, she finds herself dramatic events which we read about in [[April in a new position as a secretary Spain by John Banville|April in a dingy backstreet shop.But all is not as it seems; she Spain]] and Dr Quirke is now back in fact working for a highly secret branch Dublin and living (if somewhat uneasily) with his daughter, Phoebe. The worst of the intelligence service, Bureau 8, whose mission his grief is to track down over but he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for what happened and neutralise a ruthless band of anarchists known as this has made the Scorpionsalready strained relationship between them more difficult.Margaret They's guilty love of detective fiction scarcely prepares her for re brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett when the reality body of true criminalitya young, Jewish scholar, Rosa Jacobs, and her journey of selfis found in a lock-discovery forms the heart of this remarkable novelup. At first, it looked as though she discovers in 'd gassed herself resourcefulness, courage, independence and the first stirrings of lovebut Quirke is convinced that it was murder rather than suicide.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973805</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Wilson1529337968|title= A Talent for MurderIn Place of Fear|author=Catriona McPherson|rating=4.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Agatha Christie wrote some tantalising crime thrillers back It's July 1948 and Helen Crowther is due to start work as a qualified medical almoner the following morning - on the day that the NHS is born. She'll be working for Dr Deuchar and Dr Strasser in her day, their GP surgery and here Andrew Wilson makes her a victim job will be to a plot not unlike one help patients with those non-medical problems which affect their health. The hardest part of her own. It's all about the mystery, job will be to persuade people that the services she offers really are free and it really drives the story forwardthat they don't have to do anything to qualify for them. Agatha is ambushed by a strange man at Some of the train station; she is given problems will require delicate handling but Helen has a proposition that confuses problem of her and secretly intrigues own which might give hersome insight. Indeed, for this man wants her to commit a murder Her marriage has never been consummated. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471148211</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Martin Edwards (editor)057136358X|title= Continental CrimesApril in Spain|author=John Banville|rating= 45

|summary=ItTerry Tice was a hitman, although he didn't think of himself in those terms. He saw what he did as ''a matter of making things tidy''. I couldn's not clear whether t resist the short story has gone out thought that he was an extreme version of fashionMarie Kondo. He enjoyed his job, relegated something which occurred to him when he was in Burma with the pages of certain types of womenarmy ''s magazines, or whether where he got the magazines in which chance to kill a lot of the format still holds its own are themselves not as high-profile as once they might have beenlittle yellow fellows and had a fine old time''. Perhaps they never were, perhaps we only He was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know about them the purpose of a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in retrospect. the ''morning''? Whatever the truth of that it would seem It was after Percy's death that he saw the golden age benefits of the short story, coincided delightfully with the golden age of crimetaking up a job in Spain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712356797</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Philip KerrB08Z8BMZ7H|title= Prussian Blue: Bernie Gunther Thriller 12The Mystery of Healing|author=A P McGrath|rating= 3.54|genre= Crime (Historical) |summary= Bernie Gunther is not your typical hero. In 1939, he was stationed We meet Solon in Pergamon in Berlin as a police officer handling murder cases the second century of the common era and occasionally doing work he's the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for some the amusement of the populace. The remuneration isn't high-ranking Nazis. Although never but the work gives the doctor a Nazi party member himself (he was a known member feeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the Social Democratic Party), he understood that the best thing he could do for himself at that time was to make himself indispensable warriors to men like Reinhard Heydrich and Martin Bormannlive. So when he is assigned to solve a murder that has occurred at Hitler It's Berghof in quite a spectacle: the magistri are the Bavarian mountainscharge hands and when we first see them, he knows that he needs they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes to do it quickly and discreetly – not just for justice's sake, but for his ownmake them look more impressive. He is given exactly one week to apprehend The sagitarii are the suspect, archers and he hopes that the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives with the help of his friend Friedrich Korschwild animals. Today, an investigator with it's the Krimialpolizei (or Kripo, for short) he just might get luckycrocodiles. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784296481</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Alis Hawkins1529337925|title= None So BlindThe Mirror Dance (Dandy Gilver)|author=Catriona McPherson|rating= 4.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary=When a body is accidentally uncovered nearby in 1850It was the August Bank Holiday weekend and, as so often happened, Harry Probert-Lloyd it was cold enough to have the fire lit and Bunty the London barrister has recently returned Dalmation wasn't inclined to his father's house in West Wales due leave it to deteriorating sight. That means Harry is keep Dandy Gilver warm on hand to press for justice, since he knows whose remains they must bethe sofa. Unfortunately he's up against a few formidable opponents The thought of work was almost cheering when Dandy took the call from Sandy Bissett in Dundee. She was the past, not least the Rebecca rioters, members publisher of an illegal group from a few years earlier, magazine and officially it looks like justice might not be on had been told that the man running the cards. With Punch and Judy show in the assistance local park had used copies of two of a her cartoon characters - Rosie Cheek and her sister Freckle - to drum up some local clerk, John Davies, Harry takes up interest in his show. Sandy Bissett's request was simple: she wanted Gilver and Osborne to warn the investigation himself, but it seems like both man about infringement of them know more copyright - and Dandy and Alex would be cheaper than they are willing employing a solicitor to admitdo the same job. Will the outcome be worth stirring up all those secrets for?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911332112</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gavin ScottB08LKT7HSR|title=The Age of Olympus Murder in the Belltower (Duncan Forrester A Miss Underhay Mystery 2)|author=Helena Dixon|rating=43.5

|summary=Whilst part In December 1933 the remains of an SOE mission to kidnap a German commander Elowed Underhay were discovered in Greece during the war, Duncan Forrester came across an ancient Cretan stone, which he hoped could lead to cellar of the deciphering of Linear BGlass Bottle Public House. The war is now officially over (although a lot Ezekiel Hamett was sought in connection with the murder of people are still fighting it, mentally if not physically) Elowed and Forrester has returned to Athens with his loverhalf-brother, Sophie Amfeldt-LaurvigDenzil Hammett, intent on getting the necessary permissions to go to Crete and retrieve the stone. It was whilst they were in Athens that Forrester whose body was the unwitting witness to the poisoning of a Greek poet and where he found himself pursued by a man wearing a maskalso discovered. Strange as all this might seemKitty Underhay's long search for her mother, Forrester is convinced that the poet who disappeared in June 1916 was not the intended victim: it should have been a general who has been approached to lead ELAS, the military arm of the Greek communistsover. HeNow she's determined that the sort of charismatic man who could sway a lot of people responsible for her murder will be brought to follow him adn that would mean certain warjustice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783297824</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan KennedyStephen Clarke|title=A Time to Tell LiesThe Spy Who Inspired Me

|genre=Crime (Historical) General Fiction|summary= Psychologist Alan KennedyThis is a spoof spy story, that isn's fifth novel continues the story he began with [[Lucy by Alan Kennedy]]t about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. In the autumn of 1942 But it features a man called Ian Lemming, Captain Alex Vere who dresses well and Justine Perry are among 'likes the men ladies' and women picked up and taken to a stately home in Scotlandwho works for the secret service, where they are trained but in the planning side of things more than the active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy skills. After this first encountercalled Margaux, 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 the pair end up again stranded in southwest France, where they have been sent to collect SimoneNormandy, with Margaux on a Special Operations Executive agent. It's Alex's first desperate mission (Justine's fourth) and all goes horribly awry. Alex ends up to unearth traitors in custody at the Gendarmerieresistance network, facing a German who knows he has a false passport.and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0993202322</amazonuk>2952163855

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lois Austen-Leigh0349423083|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 Death 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 Brewery Queen (well, he's called Manlius: what else could he be?Kate Shackleton Mysteries) 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 RoadFrances Brody

|genre=Crime (Historical Fiction )|summary=''Sergeant Bowman wasn't just a hard manKate Shackleton runs her investigation agency from Batswing Cottage, he was something else: a dangerous man.'' If, indeedably assisted by Jim Sykes, there was someone who was ideal for a suicide missionlives in Woodhouse and her housekeeper, it was himMrs Sugden. Working as a soldier for the East India Company in the rural, remote, outlaw hotbeds of Asia in the 1850s, heShe's tasked with taking a boat been approached by William Lofthouse of unknown prospects up the Irrawaddy to try and combat local warlord Pagan MinBarleycorn Brewery in Masham. It doesn't go well – to start Something is going wrong with, his business and he's supposed d like Kate to run the rule over ruffians saved from the gallows, but can't command them until look into it discreetly: he's forced hoping that his way nephew and right-hand man, James Lofthouse, will be back from a trip to having Germany before long. James went to see what the knowledge of the mission he needs first, only for all hell continental brewers were doing and what changes Barleycorn might need to break loosemake. But get William is worried that James is perhaps enjoying himself a little bit ''too'' much or is going to bring back a German bride but he does, only 'd like the business to find that while be ship-shape before 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>nephew returns.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rory Clements0241433568|title=CorpusEight Detectives|author=Alex Pavesi

|summary=A suicidal overdose It's 1930 and the murder of upper class Cecil Langley Megan and Henry are staying with Bunny at his wife are two events that may be unconnectedhouse in Spain. However this is England in 1936, It's unbearably hot and Bunny drank too much at lunch: he's going to have a magnet for opposing forces rest and their first moves in preparation for the coming conflict, assisted or prevented by a royal crisis (depending on which side you're on)then he wants to talk to Megan and Henry about something serious. Cambridge history professor Tom Wilde may fall into the middle of this accidentally to begin with but Only it never gets that far: when Bunny doesn't emerge after his siesta his curiosity has guests find that he's been piqued enough to ensure hemurdered. How can that have happened? There's not walking awayno one else in the house, so one of them must be the killer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762613</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Ross1473682401|title=The Mask of Command Turning Tide (Twilight of EmpireDandy Gilver)|author=Catriona McPherson|rating=54|genre=Crime (Historical Fiction)|summary= Warning: spoilers ahead for previous books in Those who were with us at the seriesend of [[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson|A Step So Grave]] will remember that Donald was engaged to Mallory Dunnoch. They're now married and Mallory is having twins. 305AD: Castus Aurelius, following When they arrive no one can doubt the death charms of his predecessorLavinia Dahlia Cherry and her brother, has been promoted to commander (or vir perfecctissiums) of the Roman forces at the RhineEdward Hugh Lachlan Gilver. HeThere are two drawbacks: they's also been ordered to take Crispus, Constantinere noisy and they's son re staying with Dandy and heirHugh. Dandy and her detective partner, Alec Osborne, for had not taken up the character-building experience. That complicates matters as chance to look into a problem at the Cramond ferry when Castus isn't trying it was offered to keep Crispus alivethem twice before, he's finding it difficult to increase his own chance but suddenly the possibility of being out of survival, especially considering how the last Rhine commander met his endhouse at Gilverton seems irresistible.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784975257</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Graham HurleySeishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)|title=FinisterreThe Honjin Murders|rating=54

|summary=The Second World War To many readers, the phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is almost lost but in a lastenough to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the words 'clever' or 'good'. For those who need more, desperate roll of here is the dice extra background – we're in rural Japan in the German High command launch Operation Finisterre1930s. In America The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, although the apparent suicide of a scientist working on 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 atom bomb and off wedded couple to be slashed to death in their private annexe before the coast sun rises on their marriage. What with a man missing parts of Spain his fingers being in the shipwreck neighbourhood, and some mysterious use of a German submarine, become catalysts as traditional musical instrument at the plans spiral out time of controlthe crime, leading to this case has a shattering climax. 'Finisterre' is a crime thriller packed with grit, suspense and stylelot of the peculiar about it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784977810</amazonuk>1782275002

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley McKayB07XLM3SM6|title=1588: A Calendar of Crime (A Hew Cullan Mystery)Murder at the Dolphin Hotel|author=Helena Dixon|rating=4.5

|summary=A lot of crime happens Elowed Underhay was just twenty-seven when she disappeared from Dartmouth in St Andrews during 1588 and therefore June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the life care of law lecturer her grandmother. A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to her and local investigator Hew Cullen toothe conclusion was that she was dead, mainly because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. As we travel through Kitty has come to terms with this and in 1933 she was running the year Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with him, his recently wedded English wife Frances, doctor brother her grandmother when her grandmother had to leave to look after her sister who was ill. She was reluctant to leave Kitty in law Giles charge - and his sister MegKitty could not understand why. She's always coped with the mix of holidaymakers, boating people and the wise woman, we also encounter some naval college on the edge of his most interesting casestown before - and she's done every job in the hotel. In fact thereAnd she particularly cannot understand why her grandmother's one friends have been roped in to keep an eye on things ''and'' why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to match each take charge of security at the year's big festivals: Candlemas, Whitsun, Lammas, Martinmas and Yulehotel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973635</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Erle Stanley Gardner0349423067|title= The Knife Slipped|rating= 5|genre= Crime |summary= Before we begin, I must confess. Confess that I am a hardboiled noir addict. Therefore, I approach each grisly tale of murder, private detectives and femme fatales with a sense of wonder but also scepticism. ''Surely'', I think ''this one can't be as good as Body on the last, it must have flaws, poor characters and lack the necessary grit to be a true hardboiled noir masterpiece?'' so you can imagine my trepidation when opening the Knife Slipped. I was wrong, wonderfully wrong. This book for me is the essence of the hardboiled noir genre and E.S. Gardner is a marvel. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783299274</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewTrain (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)|author=Wray Delaney|title=An Almond for a ParrotFrances Brody

|summary=When From Christmas to Easter a dead monk is discovered walled into a disused monastery train ran from Leeds City Station to King's Cross, arriving before dawn so that the local gossip is awash with remarks on the miracle forced rhubarb it carried could be taken to Covent Garden. In early March 1929, one of his well-preserved body all these years after the monastery porters who was abandoned. Investigator unloading the boxes discovered the body of a man, stripped naked and Captain with no means of Cromwell's guard Damian Seeker has other ideasidentification. This is Scotland Yard hit a recent non-clergy death. This is Carter Blyth, a man dead end and called on such a secret mission the services of Kate Shackleton in the hope that even Cromwell didn't know about ither knowledge and connections in Yorkshire would give them the lead they needed. This will add complications Kate immediately found herself hamstrung: Commander Woodhead remembered her as a child and could not come to terms with the already convoluted and dangerous path fact that Seeker will take she was now a woman experienced in dealing with murder. He was reluctant to solve give her all the crime, one of information which the complications being very close to homepolice held.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782068449</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= M J Carter1472127110|title=The Devil's Feast|rating= 4.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary=London, the early 1840sIndian Summer: the newly-opened Reform Club is the focal point for the Liberal elite, where Whigs and Radicals can co-exist in harmony. Or such was the intention. With a celebrity chef in its up to the minute kitchen, however, the club seems to have more of a reputation for its dinners than its politics, and when a man dies horribly after eating one the Reform could have a problem on its hands. Particularly when it begins to look like murder. Luckily William Avery agrees to look into the matter with some urgency, but – as everyone keeps asking him – where on earth is his professional investigator friend Jeremiah Blake?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241146364</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewMirabelle Bevan Mystery|author= George Mann (Editor)|title= Associates of Sherlock HolmesSara Sheridan|rating= 4.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary=The world-famous consulting detective Sherlock Holmes needs no introduction; a redoubtable protagonist with an appeal that shows no sign of waning. ''Associates of Sherlock Holmes,'' however, moves the spotlight away from our hero and focuses on the exploits of some of the minor players who have featured in his adventures over the years. Here we get a chance to reacquaint ourselves with friends and foes alike, all keen to give their own, unique perspective of the indomitable investigator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783299304</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Lindsey Davis|title= The Graveyard of the Hesperides|rating= 5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Our heroine Albia's grey-eyed and broad-shouldered love interest in this, the fourth of the Falco New Generation crime novels (Falco himself has got on the wrong side of Emperor Domitian, and has very sensibly retired to the coast) is called Manlius – that alone should be enough to tell you reams about the wickedly sly sense of humour Ms Davis displays in her novels. The setting is once again Ancient Rome, and Ms Davis provides enough local colour to create a world so convincing you could almost be there. In fact, the descriptions are so vivid that, as you pull in your skirts or bewail the fate of your brand-new sandals to follow our gutsy heroine into picturesque slums like the Brown Toad bar or Mucky Mule Mews, you could be forgiven for suspecting you've wandered into somewhere far more familiar, like, say, the back streets of Brum.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473613396</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Frances Brody|title=Death at the Seaside|rating=4

|summary=Kate Shackleton felt that she needed a holiday and Life has changed dramatically for Mirabelle, our favourite fifties sleuth, since it was August when ''nothing'' ever happenedthe war, she decided that it was and not always for the ideal time to visit her friend Alma and goddaughter Felicity in Whitbybetter. The timing was good too - Mrs Sugden was going to visit her cousin When she first settled in Scarborough and Jim Sykes Brighton she was taking his family to Robin Hood's Bay. Perfect! Wellalone, it would have been except rudderless and secretly grieving for a couple of things...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349406588</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Francis Duncan|title= Behold A Fair Woman|rating= 3|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Mordecai Tremaine is in need of a holiday. According to Jack, the blurb ''the island of Moulin d'Or seems to be just the destination'' – except the island isn't called thatlover who died before he could leave his wife. Moulin d'Or is the district As time went by she found in the north west of the unnamed Channel Isle herself an ability to which our hero has been invited by some solve crimes, made friends of less than a year's standing: including an unlikely start in itself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784704849</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=J D Davies|title=Death's Bright Angel (Matthew Quinton’s Journals 6)|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Captain Sir Matthew Quinton of King Charles II's navy sets out for another day at work. He ebullient and his men are charged with helping determined young woman called Vesta who refused to subdue the Dutch town of Westerschelling. It's only afterwards that the true consequences hit himlet a little thing like racial prejudice stop her doing what she wanted, along with some other consequences that are and will be open to conjecture. For even found consolation in the year is 1666 and London is about to face arms of a disaster that will be discussed and theorised over for centuries… Fire!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910400467</amazonuk>rather charming policeman.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Antonia Hodgson1912374439|title=A Death at Fountains Abbey The Courier|author=Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (Thomas Hawkins 3translator)|rating=3.5

|summary=John Aislabie thinks Nazi-occupied Oslo, 1942. There, I've given the game away. For in a book that Thomas Hawkins has arrived at Aislabie's country mansion to investigate centres around a murder threats. That, I's part of ve told you who did it but Thomas' main reason is – the Nazis, surely? Well, that certainly has to remain to carry out be seen in this volume, which splits its time between one of war, when a command from Queen Caroline connected 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 recent South Sea Bubble scandallate 1960s, when great consternation is being felt. The command was phrased nicely enoughIn this timeline, a maverick agent is back in town, one who might have been fingered for murdering that female victim, but the sinister intent was clear: Tom's failure or refusal means loss of Kittyeven though she and he lived together with their baby as a young family, the person except he loves most was thought by all to have died in the world. Those murder threats are a little concerning though…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473615097</amazonuk>War…

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna Mazzola1786075431|title=The UnseeingMrs Mohr Goes Missing|author=Maryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)|rating=3.5

|summary=1837: Sarah Gale is found guilty Meet Zofia. A socially climbing wife of aiding a medical professor, she's intent on making herself known as a charitable lady, and abetting James Greenwood in the murder of Hannahkeen on her husband progressing yet through his esteemed career. In 1890s Cracow, life is pretty good, his fiancéebut she knows it could always be better. ItMeanwhile, other people's particularly gruesome as life could certainly be better – cholera is nearing the body 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 brutally dismembered rich enough to keep private lodgings and left staff in various locations around Londonher charitable home. Bound I say ''was'', for the gallows and fearing for the future of her young son Georgeshe has vanished. Only due to Zofia's help does she get found, Sarah petitions for mercy from the Home Office dead and, as in a result, place the Home Secretary appoints barrister Edmund Fleetwood to renear-investigate the caselame woman could never reach by herself. Edmund approaches it with an open mind but nothing prepares him for Just who could be killing people in a charity home, and to what he'll discover and not just in end? And why does Zofia feel the professional realm.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472234731</amazonuk>need to make a name for herself by answering those questions?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= William Sutton1786893762|title= Lawless and the Flowers of Sin|rating= 4|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Much of this book centres on, as we are accustomed to in tales of Victorian London, dastardly deeds done on a foggy night. Indeed the fog runs thick through this novel, draping the seedy events Things in a soupy broth of vice. Our hero, Lawless, rather ironically, is that most rare of birds, an honest detective, although as we learn he, himself, is not without his vices. What becomes clear however is that he is something of a social crusader when his eyes are opened to the misery and degradation faced by 'fallen' women. At its heart, the Flowers of Sin is a detective story, with Lawless given an impossible task to complete alongside solving a seemingly impossible crime. Along the way he meets a rag tag bunch of misfits who help, hurt and hinder our hero. There is romance and intrigue along the way as well as a sensational public trial, murder and episodes of mayhem. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785650114</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewJars|author=Cecilia Ekback|title=In the Month of the Midnight SunJess Kidd|rating=4.5

|summary=1856, Blackasen Village, Sweden: A Lapp sits surrounded child has gone missing. The detective asked to take on the case is still struggling with the shame and frustration left by three dead bodies – a previous case, where the vicarchild was not found in time. Hardly original themes for a private eye thriller. And yet . . . take another look. This detective is a woman, a constable and one other. The murders coincide the setting is Victorian London, with all the arrival rich and colourful paradoxes of Magnus Lille, that era: technical and scientific progress jostling for space beside superstition and a geologist sent by fascination with the Swedish government to map the mountain that gives bizarre and the village its namedownright hideous. Magnus doesnAnd before you't re more than a couple of pages in, you realise what he's walking into as up till now he thought his main problem was his sister-just how much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. Bridie Devine may dress inhalf-lawmourning, brought with him at his wife's fathera widow'scap and stout, shiny boots, but the tobacco she smokes in her pipe (the Minister my dear, what an utterly ''fast'' thing for Statea lady to do!) is mixed with a nugget of something, well, let's)say recreational, insistencecreated by her chemist friend Prudhoe. The events fact that will take place will cause them both sleepless nights it's actually meant to cure bronchial problems is by the by. Her housemaid, being seven-foot-tall, is also somewhat remarkable. And then, of course, there's the ghost. Ruby Doyle, world-famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all through her investigation, and it's clear he has a real chance soft spot for the determined young woman. If he really exists, that neither will live to go homeis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444789937</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Susanna Gregory0349414327|title=A Grave Concern: The Twenty Second Chronicle Snapshot of Matthew BartholomewMurder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)|author=Frances Brody|rating=4.5

|summary=Chancellor Tynkell Even detectives need a break and for Kate Shackleton, photography gives her the mental relaxation which she needs. When the local Photographic Society proposed an outing, Kate was kindly, but ineffectual keen to take the opportunity to visit Haworth and everyone was stunned by his murderStanbury, not least because it happened very publicly - on top the deeds of the church tower, in Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that it can become a high wind with a lot of people watching. Then museum and her parents will be there for the murderer disappearedevent. Some people saw What could be better than seeing her family, witnessing a black cloak being blown along momentous event and having the opportunity to take photographs of the marshes outside Cambridge and swore that it was the devilsetting for 's work, but physician Matthew Bartholomew and Brother Michael knew better and were determined to prove it. These are not Bartholomew's only problems though: a Wuthering Heights'barber surgeon' (free shave or haircut with every treatment) recently arrived from Nottingham is causing problems rather than curing illnesses. ? His sister is struggling to get her husband's tomb built by the mason she commissioned to do the work: like builders everywhere throughout the ages he keeps moving from job to job and never finishing anyNothing could go wrong. Then Brother Michael is offered a Bishopric - in Rochester.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751549797</amazonuk>Or could it?