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[[Category:New Reviews|Crime (Historical)]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess0571370977|title= The Painted Queen: an Amelia Peabody MysteryLock-Up|author=John Banville|rating= 4|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Amelia Peabody It's six months since the dramatic events which we read about in [[April in Spain by John Banville|April in Spain]] and Dr Quirke is a no-nonsense lady who endures all manner of murder attempts, kidnappings and sundry other crimes while on various archaeological digs now back in Egypt with equanimity Dublin and composure. She is either revered or feared living (or bothif somewhat uneasily) by villainswith his daughter, museum curators, family and workmen alike Phoebe. The worst of his grief is over but he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for her caustic tongue what happened and this has made the steel-reinforced parasol she brandishes at already strained relationship between them more difficult. They're brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett when the first sign body of danger. And yeta young, Jewish scholar, Rosa Jacobs, once the evilis found in a lock-doers have been locked up. At first, precious objects returned to their owners and all injuries bandaged, it looked as though 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'd gassed herself but Quirke is convinced that it was murder rather than suicide. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472126823</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sara Sheridan1529337968|title= Operation Goodwood: a Mirabelle Bevan MysteryIn Place of Fear|author=Catriona McPherson|rating= 5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= In this, It's July 1948 and Helen Crowther is due to start work as a qualified medical almoner the following morning - on the fifth novel in day that the Mirabelle Bevan Mystery series, we have reached 1955NHS is born. There is less emphasis on rationing now: time has moved on from the post-war privations we saw She'll be working for Dr Deuchar and Dr Strasser in our first encounter with Mirabelle their GP surgery and her warm, cheery companion Vesta in 1951, a time when tearing a stocking was a disaster of the first orderjob will be to help patients with those non-medical problems which affect their health. Various types The hardest part of prejudice are still rife, however, 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 the aftermath of conflict. A woman who walks alone into a bar job will not be served; to persuade people that the British Empire is still front-page news, services she offers really are free and that they don't have to do anything to qualify for them. Some of the colour of problems will require delicate handling but Helen has a person's skin is still an almost insurmountable barrier to equality problem of opportunityher own which might give her some insight. Her marriage has never been consummated. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472122364</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= M J Tjia057136358X|title= She Be DamnedApril in Spain|author=John Banville|rating= 45|genre= Crime (Historical) |summary= LondonTerry Tice was a hitman, 1863: prostitutes although he didn't think of himself in those terms. He saw what he did as ''a matter of making things tidy''. I couldn't resist the Waterloo area are turning up dead, their sexual organs mutilated and removedthought that he was an extreme version of Marie Kondo. When another girl goes missing He enjoyed his job, fears grow that something which occurred to him when he was in Burma with the army ''where he got the killer may have claimed their latest victim. The police are at chance to kill a loss lot of the little yellow fellows and so it falls to courtesan and professional detective, Heloise Chancey, to investigatehad a fine old time''. With He was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know the assistance purpose of her trusty Chinese maid, Amah Li Leen, Heloise inches closer to the truth. But when Amah is implicated a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the brutal plot, Heloise must reconsider whom she can trust, before ''morning''? It was after Percy's death that he saw the killer strikes againbenefits of taking up a job in Spain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178507931X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=H B LyleB08Z8BMZ7H|title=The Irregular: Mystery of Healing|author=A Different Class of SpyP McGrath|rating=4.5

|summary=London 1909: Revolution is spreading throughout Russia and Europe. Meanwhile Britain, a land growing accustomed to peace, is becoming a magnet for spies and disruption. Vernon Kell, Head We meet Solon in Pergamon in the second century of War Office Counter-Intelligence, knows that the countrycommon era and he's equilibrium depends the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the discovery and disposal amusement of the growing number of foreign spy networkspopulace. Unfortunately his masters in government canThe remuneration isn't see what he can high but the work gives the doctor a feeling of virtue and Kellhones his skills: Solon 's own agents are being killed off too fast for him 'wants'' the warriors to collect evidencelive. ThatIt's quite a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands and when he meets Wigginswe first see them, they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes to make them look more impressive. This is a man The sagitarii are the archers and the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives with a superlative background: trained by Sherlock Holmes and, years backthe wild animals. Today, a star of Holmesit' child Irregularss the crocodiles. Now Kell is getting somewhere… Let battle commence!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147365534X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jane Menczer1529337925|title= An Unlikely Agent|rating= 4|genre= Crime The Mirror Dance (HistoricalDandy Gilver)|summary=London, 1905. Margaret Trant lives with her ailing, irascible mother in a dreary boarding house in St John'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 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 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 service, Bureau 8, whose mission is to track down and neutralise a ruthless band of anarchists known as the Scorpions.Margaret's guilty love of detective fiction scarcely prepares her for the reality of true criminality, and her journey of self-discovery forms the heart of this remarkable novel, as she discovers in herself resourcefulness, courage, independence and the first stirrings of love.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973805</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Andrew Wilson|title= A Talent for MurderCatriona McPherson

|summary=It's not clear whether was the short story has gone out of fashion, relegated to the pages of certain types of women's magazinesAugust Bank Holiday weekend and, 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 wereso often happened, perhaps we only know about them in retrospect. Whatever the truth of that it would seem that was cold enough to have the golden age of fire lit and Bunty the short story, coincided delightfully with Dalmation wasn't inclined to leave it to keep Dandy Gilver warm on the golden age of crimesofa.|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 The thought of work was stationed almost cheering when Dandy took the call from Sandy Bissett in Berlin as a police officer handling murder cases and occasionally doing work for some high-ranking NazisDundee. Although never a Nazi party member himself (he She was the publisher of 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 magazine and Martin Bormann. So when he is assigned to solve a murder had been told 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 man running the suspect, Punch and he hopes that with Judy show in the help local park had used copies 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 Proberttwo of her cartoon characters - Rosie Cheek and her sister Freckle -Lloyd the London barrister has recently returned to drum up some local interest in his fathershow. Sandy Bissett's house in West Wales due request was simple: she wanted Gilver and Osborne 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 warn the past, not least the Rebecca rioters, members man about infringement of an illegal group from a few years earlier, copyright - and Dandy and officially it looks like justice might not Alex would be on the cards. With the assistance of cheaper than employing a local clerk, John Davies, Harry takes up solicitor to do the investigation himself, but it seems like both of them know more than they are willing to admitsame 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=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 Second World War oldest son of an esteemed family is almost lost but 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 lastman missing parts of his fingers being in the neighbourhood, desperate roll and some mysterious use of a traditional musical instrument at the dice time of the German High command launch Operation Finisterrecrime, this case has a lot of the peculiar about it. In America |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 apparent suicide care of a scientist working on her grandmother. A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to her and the atom bomb conclusion was that she was dead, mainly because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. Kitty has come to terms with this and off in 1933 she was running the coast of Spain 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 shipwreck mix of a German submarineholidaymakers, become catalysts as boating people and the naval college on the plans spiral out edge of control, leading 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 a shattering climax. keep an eye on things 'Finisterre' is a crime thriller packed with grit, suspense and style'' why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of security at the hotel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784977810</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley McKay0349423067|title=1588: A Calendar of Crime The Body on the Train (A Hew Cullan MysteryKate Shackleton Mysteries)|author=Frances Brody

|summary=A lot 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 crime happens in St Andrews during 1588 and therefore in the life porters who was unloading the boxes discovered the body of law lecturer a man, stripped naked and local investigator Hew Cullen toowith no means of identification. As we travel through Scotland Yard hit a dead end and called on the year with him, his recently wedded English wife Frances, doctor brother services of Kate Shackleton in law Giles the hope that her knowledge and his sister Meg, 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 wise fact that she was now a woman, we also encounter some of his most interesting casesexperienced in dealing with murder. In fact there's one He was reluctant to match each of give her all the information which the year's big festivals: Candlemas, Whitsun, Lammas, Martinmas and Yulepolice held.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973635</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Erle Stanley Gardner1472127110|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 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 Indian Summer: a marvel. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783299274</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewMirabelle Bevan Mystery|author=Wray Delaney|title=An Almond for a ParrotSara Sheridan

|genre=Women's FictionCrime (Historical)|summary=It was when Tully gained a step-mother that her education really started. That was the beginning of the road to discovery. The discovery that she can realise ghosts Life has changed dramatically for othersMirabelle, that she can escape our favourite fifties sleuth, since the cruelty of an alcoholic father war, and not always for the discovery of the income and pleasure her body can generatebetter. That, When she first settled in turnBrighton she was alone, leads to the rather classy Fairy House brothel rudderless and, nowsecretly grieving for Jack, the condemned cell in Newgate Prisonlover who died before he could leave his wife. As time went by she awaits her fatefound in herself an ability to solve crimes, Tully writes her autobiography ''An Almond for a Parrot'' made friends including an ebullient and allows us determined young woman called Vesta who refused to read over let a little thing like racial prejudice stop her shoulderdoing what she wanted, and even found consolation in the arms of a rather charming policeman.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000818254X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=S G Maclean1912374439|title=The Black Friar: Damian Seeker 2Courier|author=Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)|rating=3.5

|summary=When a dead monk is discovered walled into a disused monastery the local gossip is awash with remarks on the miracle of his wellNazi-preserved body all these years after the monastery was abandonedoccupied Oslo, 1942. Investigator and Captain of CromwellThere, I's guard Damian Seeker has other ideasve given the game away. This is For in a book that centres around a recent non-clergy death. This is Carter Blythmurder, a man on such a secret mission that even Cromwell didnI't know about ve told you who did it. This will add complications to – the already convoluted and dangerous path Nazis, surely? Well, that Seeker will take certainly has to remain to solve the crimebe 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 complications late 1960s, when great consternation is being very close 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 home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782068449</amazonuk>have died in the War…

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= M J Carter1786075431|title=The Devil's FeastMrs Mohr Goes Missing|author=Maryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)|rating= 43.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary=LondonMeet Zofia. A socially climbing wife of a medical professor, she's intent on making herself known as a charitable lady, and keen on her husband progressing yet through his esteemed career. In 1890s Cracow, life is pretty good, the early 1840s: the newly-opened Reform Club but she knows it could always be better. Meanwhile, other people's life could certainly be better – cholera is nearing the focal point for the Liberal elitecity due to lack of hygiene, where Whigs and Radicals can co-exist in harmonymany people have to fall on charity and almshouses to keep a roof over their heads. Or One such was the intentionMrs Mohr, although she was rich enough to keep private lodgings and staff in her charitable home. With a celebrity chef in its up to the minute kitchen I say ''was'', however, the club seems for she has vanished. Only due to have more of a reputation for its dinners than its politicsZofia's help does she get found, dead and when in a man dies horribly after eating one place the Reform near-lame woman could never reach by herself. Just who could have be killing people in a problem on its hands. Particularly when it begins charity home, and to look like murder. Luckily William Avery agrees what end? And why does Zofia feel the need to look into the matter with some urgency, but – as everyone keeps asking him – where on earth is his professional investigator friend Jeremiah Blakemake a name for herself by answering those questions?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241146364</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= George Mann (Editor)1786893762|title= Associates of Sherlock HolmesThings in Jars|author=Jess Kidd|rating= 4.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary=A child has gone missing. The world-famous consulting detective Sherlock Holmes needs no introduction; 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 private eye thriller. And yet . . . take another look. This detective is a redoubtable protagonist woman, and the setting is Victorian London, with an appeal all the rich and colourful paradoxes of that shows no sign 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 waningpages in, you realise just how much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. Bridie Devine may dress in half-mourning, with a widow's cap and stout, shiny boots, but the tobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, what an utterly 'Associates 'fast'' thing for a lady to do!) is mixed with a nugget of Sherlock Holmessomething,well, let's say recreational, created by her chemist friend Prudhoe. The fact that it' howevers actually meant to cure bronchial problems is by the by. Her housemaid, being seven-foot-tall, is also somewhat remarkable. And then, moves the spotlight away from our hero and focuses on the exploits of some of course, there's the minor players who have featured in his adventures over the yearsghost. Here we get a chance to reacquaint ourselves with friends and foes alikeRuby Doyle, world-famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all keen to give their ownthrough her investigation, unique perspective of and it's clear he has a soft spot for the indomitable investigatordetermined young woman. If he really exists, that is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783299304</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lindsey Davis0349414327|title= The Graveyard A Snapshot of the Hesperides|rating= 5|genre= Crime Murder (HistoricalKate Shackleton Mysteries)|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

|title=Death at the Seaside|rating=4|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Kate Shackleton felt that she needed a holiday and since it was August when ''nothing'' ever happened, she decided that it was the ideal time to visit her friend Alma and goddaughter Felicity in Whitby. The timing was good too - Mrs Sugden was going to visit her cousin in Scarborough and Jim Sykes was taking his family to Robin Hood's Bay. Perfect! Well, it would have been except 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 the blurb ''the island of Moulin d'Or seems to be just the destination'' – except the island isn't called that. Moulin d'Or is the district in the north west of the unnamed Channel Isle to which our hero has been invited by some friends of less than a year's standing: 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 and his men are charged with helping to subdue the Dutch town of Westerschelling. It's only afterwards that the true consequences hit him, along with some other consequences that are and will be open to conjecture. For the year is 1666 and London is about to face a disaster that will be discussed and theorised over for centuries… Fire!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910400467</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Antonia Hodgson|title=A Death at Fountains Abbey (Thomas Hawkins 3)|rating=5

|summary=John Aislabie thinks that Thomas Hawkins has arrived at Aislabie's country mansion to investigate murder threatsEven detectives need a break and for Kate Shackleton, photography gives her the mental relaxation which she needs. That's part When the local Photographic Society proposed an outing, Kate was keen to take the opportunity to visit Haworth and Stanbury, not least because the deeds of the Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that it but Thomas' main reason is to carry out can become a command from Queen Caroline connected to museum and her parents will be there for the recent South Sea Bubble scandalevent. The command was phrased nicely enoughWhat could be better than seeing her family, but witnessing a momentous event and having the sinister intent was clear: Tom's failure or refusal means loss opportunity to take photographs of Kitty, the person he loves most in the worldsetting for ''Wuthering Heights''? Nothing could go wrong. Those murder threats are a little concerning though…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473615097</amazonuk>Or could it?