The 8 best historical mystery series

Cover image of "Dissolution," a novel about a murder at a monastery that begins one of the best historical mystery series

Historical truth is elusive. At best, an historian’s “factual” account may convey the scholarly consensus about events or people in bygone times. How, then, can we gain a reliable sense of what life might have been like in, say, 16th century England or even 1990s China? Only the rarest scholarly account offers that. Which is why we turn to historical fiction, the best of which may more closely approximate the “truth” than any history book. And that in turn moves me to identify the very best historical mystery series.

Below you’ll find a list of the eight historical mystery series I rate as the very best. I’ve placed them on this list because all the evidence available to me makes it clear that they have been firmly grounded in the history of the times they convey. Of course, they’re also great stories, credible, suspenseful, and well written.

Although my ranking is arbitrary up to a point, I’ve listed the series in that list with the very best at the top and those a little lower not quite as much to my liking.

I’ve also added a second list of historical mystery series that are excellent but don’t quite make the grade of those in my list of the very best series.

I’m including below only those series in which I’ve read and reviewed at least three books. There at least two other authors—Hilary Mantel and A. D. Swanston—whose work might also qualify for one of these lists. I simply haven’t yet read enough books in those authors’s series.

The very best series

Matthew Shardlake: 16^th century London

The seven novels the late C. J. Sansom wrote about Tudor attorney Matthew Shardlake provide a wide, clear window into the reality of life in England under King Henry VIII. And they’re cracking good mysteries.

1. Dissolution (In 1536, a lawyer investigates a murder at a monastery)

2. Dark Fire (King Henry VIII’s search for an ancient superweapon)

3. Sovereign (A lawyer for the Crown in the time of Henry VIII)

4. Revelation (Religious fanatics and other madmen in Tudor times)

5. Heartstone (Two troubling legal cases in Henry VIII’s England)

6. Lamentation (Religious conflicts threaten the stability of Henry VIII’s reign)

7. Tombland (Tudor England comes to life in this brilliant historical novel)

Cover image of "Death of a Red Heroine," a novel in one of the Cover image of "Dissolution," a novel in one of the best historical mystery series

Inspector Chen Cao: 1990s Shanghai

Chinese-American author Qiu Xiaolong built on his experience as a child during the Cultural Revolution to provide a firm foundation for his brilliant novels about Shanghai Chief Inspector Chen Cao in the 1990s and 2000s.

Death of a Red Heroine (A gripping Chinese police procedural)
A Loyal Character Dancer (In a Chinese murder mystery, the legacy of the Cultural Revolution looms large)
When Red Is Black (This gripping crime novel shows China in transition)
A Case of Two Cities (A detective investigates corruption in the Chinese Communist Party)
Red Mandarin Dress (As China changes, a serial murder case challenges the police and the Party)
The Mao Case (Hunting the ghost of Mao Zedong in 1990s Shanghai)
Don’t Cry, Tai Lake (Inspector Chen confronts environmental crime in a Chinese city)

Cover image of "Christine Falls," the first entry in the Quirke series of Dublin crime novels.

Quirke: 1950s Dublin

John Banville’s Booker Award-winning work as a novelist rank him high among Ireland’s most accomplished authors. However, usually writing under the pen name of Benjamin Black, he has also written nine crime novels to date. They feature the alcoholic Dublin pathologist we know only as Quirke, who collaborates with senior members of the Garda to solve murder cases.

Christine Falls (Corruption and mayhem in Dublin and Boston in a superior mystery novel)h
The Silver Swan (A suspenseful novel that will keep you guessing until the end)
Elegy for April (1950s Dublin: murder and the Church)
A Death in Summer (Murder in Dublin, and an unconventional sleuth who solves the case)
Vengeance (Benjamin Black’s Quirke series: Is it “serious literature?”)
Holy Orders (From Benjamin Black, a mystery to savor for its gorgeous prose)
Even the Dead (Dublin’s answer to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson?)
April in Spain (Quirke is back in a new historical murder mystery)
The Lock-Up (Quirke is on a collision course with the Church—again)

A Rising Man is an historical detective novel set in India, one of the best historical mystery series

Wyndham and Banerjee: 1920s Calcutta

In six engrossing thrillers to date, Anglo-Indian novelist Abir Mukherjee paints a compelling picture of the turmoil in Calcutta in the early years of the Indian independence movement. The books revolve around a pair of police detectives, one English (Captain Sam Wyndham), the other Bengali (Sergeant Surendranath “Surrender-not” Banerjee).

A Rising Man (A brilliant historical detective novel set in India following World War I)
A Necessary Evil (A royal murder in colonial India with hundreds of suspects)
Smoke and Ashes (A brilliantly constructed murder mystery set in colonial Calcutta)
Death in the East (A murder mystery in the British Raj)
The Shadows of Men (The latest in a superb historical mystery series set in 1920s India)

Cover image of "Death of a Dissident," a grim murder mystery set in the USSR in one of the best historical mystery series

Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov: 1980s, 90s, 2000s Moscow

The late Stuart M. Kaminsky, a Grand Master named by the Mystery Writers of America, wrote 16 historical detective novels that span the 1980s, 90s, and 2000s. They feature a fiercely independent investigator, Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, who often clashes with the KGB and (later) its successor.

Death of a Dissident (A grim murder mystery set in the USSR)
Black Knight in Red Square (The collapse of the USSR is underway in this detective novel)
Red Chameleon (A Russian police procedural set in the Soviet Union)
A Fine Red Rain (In Gorbachev’s Russia, corruption and a serial killer)
A Cold Red Sunrise (A terrific historical murder mystery set in the USSR)
The Man Who Walked Like a Bear (An honest detective confronts reality in Soviet Russia)
Rostnikov’s Vacation (A government conspiracy in the tumult of the Gorbachev era)
Death of a Russian Priest (A puzzling Russian murder mystery set in Yeltsin’s time)
Hard Currency (A Russian detective on a murder case in Castro’s Cuba)
Blood and Rubles (Crime and corruption in Boris Yeltsin’s Russia)
Tarnished Icons (A brilliant police procedural set in 1996 Moscow)
The Dog Who Bit a Policeman (Moscow cops in Yeltsin’s time take on the mafias)

Cover image of "The Bridge of Sighs" by Olen Steinhauer, the first novel in a series

Communist police: 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s in Eastern Europe

American author Olen Steinhauer is best known for his Milo Weaver novels of espionage and for this remarkable five-novel cycle of crime stories set in a fictional East European country. They depict the rise and fall of Communism there, from the early post-war years through the fall of the Soviet Union a half-century later.

The Bridge of Sighs (A fully satisfying murder mystery set in post-war Europe)
The Confession (An historical thriller set under Communism in Eastern Europe)
36 Yalta Boulevard (Inside the mind’s eye of Eastern European Communism in the 1960s)
Liberation Movements (Love, betrayal, and terrorism behind the Iron Curtain)
Victory Square (A powerful tale of life in Eastern Europe during the fall of Communism)

Cover image of "Maisie Dobbs," a novel about a female detective in one of the best historical mystery series

Maisie Dobbs: 1920s, 30s, 40s London

Anglo-American author Jacqueline Winspear illuminates life in Britain from the First World War to the Second in this series of 18 novels about private detective Maisie Dobbs. We follow her evolution from a life of poverty and nursing on the front line in the First War to wealth and a title, working undercover as a spy for her country in the Second War.

Maisie Dobbs (A female detective like no other)
Birds of a Feather (The cost of war hangs over the action like a shroud)
Pardonable Lies (Maisie Dobbs: living the legacy of World War I)
Messenger of Truth (Class resentment in Depression-era England)
An Incomplete Revenge (The pleasures of reading Maisie Dobbs)
Among the Mad (Shell shock, madness, the Great Depression)
The Mapping of Love and Death (Another great detective novel from Jacqueline Winspear)
A Lesson in Secrets (Nazis, pacifists, and spies in 1930s Britain)
Elegy for Eddie (An excellent Maisie Dobbs novel from Jacqueline Winspear)
Leaving Everything Most Loved (Maisie Dobbs confronts class dynamics in Depression-era England)
A Dangerous Place (Maisie Dobbs in “a place seething with those dispossessed by war”)
Journey to Munich (Maisie Dobbs, now a secret agent, travels to Munich in 1938)
In This Grave Hour (Learn about British life between the world wars from the Maisie Dobbs series)
To Die But Once (Maisie Dobbs, Dunkirk, war profiteering, and the war at home in England)
The American Agent (Maisie Dobbs pursues a killer in Britain during the Blitz)
The Consequences of Fear (Maisie Dobbs investigates a murder involving British intelligence)
A Sunlit Weapon (Maisie Dobbs meets Eleanor Roosevelt)
The Comfort of Ghosts (Farewell, Maisie Dobbs!)

Cover image of "Midnight at Malabar House," the first book in one of the best historical mystery series

Malabar House: 1950s Bombay

Half of British writer Vaseem Khan’s 10 novels to date constitute an historical mystery series featuring India’s first female police detective, Persis Wadia. They’re set in Bombay (now Mumbai) in the years following the country’s independence from Britain. Many revolve around the formative experience of that age: Partition.