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[[Category:New Reviews|Crime (Historical)]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sara Sheridan0571370977|title= Operation Goodwood: a Mirabelle Bevan MysteryThe Lock-Up|author=John Banville|rating= 54|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= In this, It's six months since the fifth novel dramatic events which we read about in [[April in Spain by John Banville|April in the Mirabelle Bevan Mystery series, we have reached 1955. There Spain]] and Dr Quirke is less emphasis on rationing now: time has moved on from the post-war privations we saw back in our first encounter Dublin and living (if somewhat uneasily) with Mirabelle and her warmhis daughter, cheery companion Vesta in 1951, a time when tearing a stocking was a disaster Phoebe. The worst of his grief is over but he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for what happened and this has made the first orderalready strained relationship between them more difficult. Various types They're brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett when the body of prejudice are still rifea young, howeverJewish scholar, Rosa Jacobs, and Sara Sheridan is a real expert at dropping in that small, lightly sketched detail which tells us we are still found in a Britain overshadowed by the aftermath of conflictlock-up. A woman who walks alone into a bar will not be served; the British Empire is still front-page news At first, and the colour of a personit looked as though she's skin d gassed herself but Quirke is still an almost insurmountable barrier to equality of opportunityconvinced that it was murder rather than suicide. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472122364</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= M J Tjia1529337968|title= She Be DamnedIn Place of Fear|author=Catriona McPherson|rating= 45|genre= Crime (Historical) |summary= London, 1863: prostitutes 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 the Waterloo area are turning up dead, their sexual organs mutilated GP surgery and removedher job will be to help patients with those non-medical problems which affect their health. When another girl goes missing, fears grow The hardest part of the job will be to persuade people that the killer may have claimed their latest victim. The police services she offers really are at a loss free and so it falls that they don't have to courtesan and professional detective, Heloise Chancey, do anything to investigatequalify for them. With Some of the assistance problems will require delicate handling but Helen has a problem of her trusty Chinese maid, Amah Li Leen, Heloise inches closer to the truthown which might give her some insight. But when Amah is implicated in the brutal plot, Heloise must reconsider whom she can trust, before the killer strikes again Her marriage has never been consummated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178507931X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=H B Lyle057136358X|title=The Irregular: A Different Class of SpyApril in Spain|author=John Banville|rating=4.5

|summary=London 1909: Revolution is spreading throughout Russia and EuropeTerry Tice was a hitman, although he didn't think of himself in those terms. Meanwhile Britain, He saw what he did as ''a land growing accustomed to peace, is becoming a magnet for spies and disruptionmatter of making things tidy''. Vernon Kell, Head I couldn't resist the thought that he was an extreme version of War Office Counter-IntelligenceMarie Kondo. He enjoyed his job, knows that something which occurred to him when he was in Burma with the countryarmy ''s equilibrium depends on where he got the discovery and disposal chance to kill a lot of the growing number of foreign spy networkslittle yellow fellows and had a fine old time''. Unfortunately his masters in government canHe was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't see what know the purpose of a swizzle stick - surely he can and Kellwouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the ''morning''s own agents are being killed off too fast for him to collect evidence. ? ThatIt was after Percy's when death that he meets Wiggins. This is saw the benefits of taking up a man with a superlative background: trained by Sherlock Holmes and, years back, a star of Holmes' child Irregularsjob in Spain. Now Kell is getting somewhere… Let battle commence!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147365534X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jane MenczerB08Z8BMZ7H|title= An Unlikely AgentThe Mystery of Healing|author=A P McGrath|rating= 4|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary=London, 1905. Margaret Trant lives with her ailing, irascible mother We meet Solon in a dreary boarding house Pergamon in St Johnthe second century of the common era and he's Woodthe physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the amusement of the populace. The pair have fallen on hard times, with only Margaretremuneration isn's meagre salary from t high but the work gives the doctor a ramshackle import-export company keeping them afloatfeeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the warriors to live.When It's quite a stranger on spectacle: the magistri are the tram charge hands her a newspaper open at the recruitment pageand when we first see them, Margaret spots an advertisement that promises to they'open new horizons beyond your wildest dreams!re sprinkling gold dust onto the lions'manes to make them look more impressive. 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 sagitarii are the archers and the beastiarii are the intelligence service, Bureau 8, whose mission is condemned criminals who are going to track down and neutralise a ruthless band of anarchists known as fight for their lives with the Scorpionswild animals.Margaret Today, it'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 lovecrocodiles.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973805</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Wilson1529337925|title= A Talent for MurderThe Mirror Dance (Dandy Gilver)|author=Catriona 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|ratingauthor= 4.5|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary=London, the early 1840s: the newly-opened Reform Club is the focal point for the Liberal elite, where Whigs Maryla Szymiczkova and Radicals can coAntonia Lloyd-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>}}{{newreview|author= George Mann Jones (Editortranslator)|title= Associates of Sherlock Holmes|rating= 43.5|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 Meet Zofia. A socially climbing wife of a medical professor, she needed 's intent on making herself known as a holiday charitable lady, and since it was August when ''nothing'' ever happenedkeen on her husband progressing yet through his esteemed career. In 1890s Cracow, life is pretty good, but she decided that knows it was could always be better. Meanwhile, other people's life could certainly be better – cholera is nearing the ideal time city due to visit her friend Alma lack of hygiene, and many people have to fall on charity and goddaughter Felicity in Whitbyalmshouses to keep a roof over their heads. The timing One such was good too - Mrs Sugden Mohr, although she was going rich enough to visit keep private lodgings and staff in her cousin in Scarborough and Jim Sykes charitable home. I say ''was taking his family '', for she has vanished. Only due to Robin HoodZofia's Bayhelp does she get found, dead and in a place the near-lame woman could never reach by herself. Perfect! Just who could be killing people in a charity home, and to what end? Well, it would have been except And why does Zofia feel the need to make a name for a couple of things...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349406588</amazonuk>herself by answering those questions?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Francis Duncan1786893762|title= Behold A Fair Woman|rating= 3|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Mordecai Tremaine is Things 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>}}{{newreviewJars|author=J D Davies|title=Death's Bright Angel (Matthew Quinton’s Journals 6)Jess Kidd|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Captain Sir Matthew Quinton of King Charles II's navy sets out for another day at work4. 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 A child has gone missing. The detective asked to take on the case is still struggling with the shame and frustration left by a previous case, where the child was not found in time. Hardly original themes for a private eye thriller. And yet . . . take another look. This detective is a woman, and the setting is Victorian London, with all the rich and colourful paradoxes of that Thomas Hawkins has arrived at Aislabieera: technical and scientific progress jostling for space beside superstition and a fascination with the bizarre and the downright hideous. And before you's country mansion to investigate murder threatsre more than a couple of pages in, you realise just how much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. ThatBridie Devine may dress in half-mourning, with a widow's part of it cap and stout, shiny boots, but Thomasthe tobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, what an utterly ''fast'' main reason thing for a lady to do!) is to carry out mixed with a command from Queen Caroline connected nugget of something, well, let's say recreational, created by her chemist friend Prudhoe. The fact that it's actually meant to cure bronchial problems is by the recent South Sea Bubble scandalby. The command was phrased nicely enoughHer housemaid, being seven-foot-tall, is also somewhat remarkable. And then, of course, but there's the sinister intent was clear: Tomghost. Ruby Doyle, world-famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all through her investigation, and it's failure or refusal means loss of Kitty, clear he has a soft spot for the person determined young woman. If he loves most in the worldreally exists, that is. Those murder threats are a little concerning though…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473615097</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna Mazzola0349414327|title=The UnseeingA Snapshot of Murder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)|author=Frances Brody|rating=4.5

|summary=1837: Sarah Gale is found guilty of aiding Even detectives need a break and abetting James Greenwood in for Kate Shackleton, photography gives her the murder of Hannah, his fiancéemental relaxation which she needs. It's particularly gruesome as When the body local Photographic Society proposed an outing, Kate was brutally dismembered and left in various locations around London. Bound for keen to take the gallows opportunity to visit Haworth and fearing for Stanbury, not least because the future deeds of the Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that it can become a museum and her young son George, Sarah petitions parents will be there for mercy from the Home Office andevent. What could be better than seeing her family, as witnessing a result, momentous event and having the Home Secretary appoints barrister Edmund Fleetwood opportunity to re-investigate take photographs of the casesetting for ''Wuthering Heights''? Nothing could go wrong. Edmund approaches Or could it with an open mind but nothing prepares him for what he'll discover and not just in the professional realm.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472234731</amazonuk>?