Historical

Rosemary Simpson: Death Takes the Lead

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Gilded Age #9

Death Takes the Lead is the ninth book in Rosemary Simpson’s Gilded Age Mystery series set in New York City in the 1890s, with protagonists Prudence MacKenzie and Geoffrey Hunter.  Prudence comes from one of New York’s wealthiest families–one of Mrs. Astor’s Four Hundred.  Rebelling against the life of a society lady, she has passed the New York bar and become one of the first female lawyers in the state.  Geoffrey is an ex-Pinkerton agent and a Civil War veteran.  He is the son of a Southern plantation owner and, after seeing the horrors of slavery firsthand, has run away from his home and fought for the North.  Both characters are rebels against the society in which they were born, and the two are now partners in an investigative law firm.  A slow-burning romance has developed between them, and, I am pleased to say, without giving away too much, this book takes it to a new level. read more

Kristi Jones: Murder in the Ranks

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Debut

Another WWII book….nooooo….but, wait.  It was a big war with lots of unexpected corners and revelations, and this book highlights a bit of the war I hadn’t ever known about.  It’s focused on the WAACs, or Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.  As originally created, the women who volunteered to serve had none of the rights of the men in the regular army.  This was pretty quickly corrected and the WAACs became simply the WACs, without “auxiliary” in the moniker.  For the purposes of this novel, however, Auxiliary Dottie Lincoln has signed up as a WAAC and is serving alongside other women in Algiers, at a time when the war wasn’t going so well for the Allies. read more

Celeste Connally: All’s Fair in Love and Treachery

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Lady Petra Inquires #2

Celeste Connally introduced the intrepid, fearless, convention defying Lady Petra in last year’s Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord.  Lady Petra is defying convention purposefully, declaring she will never marry, and since she’s given a house and allowance by her father, she is wealthy enough to do as she pleases.  She also has the ear of the Queen.  It’s 1815, and London is on the verge of Wellington’s triumph at Waterloo.  Queen Charlotte was a force at court thanks to the mental health challenges of King George III.  This affects Lady Petra, as the Queen invites her to investigate the mysterious death of the matron at an orphan’s home. read more

Colleen Cambridge: Murder Takes the Stage

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Phyllida Bright #3

Murder Takes the Stage is the fourth addition to Colleen Cambridge’s Phyllida Bright series. Our protagonist is obviously Phyllida Bright, housekeeper of Mallowan Hall. She also happens to be good friends with the lady of the hall, Agatha Christie. Living with the mystery writing legend also gives Phyllida Bright early access to her favorite detective stories featuring Hercule Poirot. Both women have a knack for mysteries, and have helped the local authorities to solve several murders. Now they are traveling to London for a bit of a vacation. Mrs. Christie and her husband are, anyway, and Phyllida isn’t exactly thrilled about it, which isn’t surprising given her rather complicated past revolving around her deceased husband. However, she isn’t about to let a little discomfort keep her from performing her duties. read more

Julia Kelly: Betrayal at Blackthorn Park

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Evelyne Redfern #2

In Julia Kelly’s first book in this series, heroine Evelyne Redfern got a job as a clerk in Churchill’s war rooms only to discover a body on her very first day.  As she’d been asked by a high up family friend to “keep her eyes open,” she ends up investigating. and solves the crime. In book two, she’s already been sent north for training as a member of the ultra secret Special Operations Executive (SOE), where she’ll be working as an investigator.  Her maiden outing is to Blackthorn Park, which has been requisitioned by the government as a center for creating bombs for use in the field. The home office suspects some kind of theft is going on and requests that Evelyne travel there and assess how easily the property can be breached. read more

Anna Lee Huber: The Cold Light of Day

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Verity Kent #7

For those looking for a historical cozy, The Cold Light of Day will fit the bill. The seventh book in the Verity Kent series by Anna Lee Huber takes readers to Dublin, Ireland. Although Verity is an ex-spy, she finds herself dabbling back in the game when one of her fellow agents, Alec Xavier, suddenly goes missing. Now anyone who knows anything about 1920’s Ireland knows that it was not a time of political stability. Revolution is in the air, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) is regularly clashing with the British occupying authority. While the British government tries to play down the unrest and instability, Ireland is a powder keg ready to explode — not the ideal time or place to suddenly go missing. Because of their history together performing war work, Verity is unable to sit back and just wait for Alec to resurface. read more

Andrea Penrose: Murder at King’s Crossing

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Wrexford & Sloane #8

Murder at King’s Crossing is the eighth installment in Andrea Penrose’s Wrexford and Sloane series set in Regency England.  The two protagonists are the Earl of Wrexford, a chemist and amateur sleuth, and his wife Charlotte Sloane, who, under the name of A.J. Quill, is England’s leading satirical cartoonist.  Wrexford has a logical mind and relies on deductive reasoning and the scientific method to solve crimes, while Charlotte uses her intuition and her artist’s eye for detail.  Usually they arrive at the same conclusion using very different methods. read more

Laura Jensen Walker: Death of a Flying Nightingale

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Recently, while reading the Jungle Red Writers blog, I was entranced by Laura Jensen Walker’s description of how she got the idea for this book: a TV show about nursing orderlies in the WWII British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Dubbed the “Flying Nightingales,” these women, some as young as 17, were give a mere six weeks medical training before being put in charge of the care of 24 wounded soldiers per flight. Since the planes carried supplies that included munitions, they could not be marked with a red cross, making them fair game to German fire. As Walker explained in her blog post “On the flights back to England, the nursing orderlies weren’t allowed to wear parachutes. They were expected to remain on board with the wounded if the plane crashed […]. The Nightingales changed bandages, emptied colostomy bags, cleared tracheotomy tubes, wedged sick bags beneath the chins of the wounded, and provided tea and comfort to soldiers with horrific injuries.” read more

Alan Bradley: What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust

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Flavia DeLuce #11

If you haven’t read this series, and I must admit that I have not, you are missing a treat. Flavia is the world’s most precocious 11-year-old chemist and poison expert. A British orphan with very adult British attitudes in 1950s England, Flavia nonchalantly deals with post-war rationing, dead bodies, poisons, spies, kidnapping, and murder – along with a couple of surprises I won’t spoil.

The plot revolves around the death of a neighbor, Major Greyleigh, who apparently died from eating poison mushrooms cooked by Flavia’s housekeeper, Mrs. Mullet. Surely she wouldn’t murder someone, even accidentally! Major Greyleigh was once a hangman. Could he have been murdered by a family member of someone he killed in the line of duty? Investigating the murder leads Flavia to a nearby American airbase with unexpected and surprising complications. read more

Tasha Alexander: Death by Misadventure

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Lady Emily #18

I’ll freely admit that I love this series.  Of course some of them are even yummier than others, and this latest one might be one of the most delicious.  The books follow Lady Emily and her dishy husband, Colin, as they investigate crimes all over the globe, and although Colin has a mysterious secret arrangement with her majesty’s government, it’s often Lady Emily’s intuition and intelligence that solves the case.  Another standard element in the books is a dual timeline, with events from the past connecting or relating to events in the present in some form or fashion, with part of the mystery consisting of figuring out how. read more