a couple of months ago

An historical spy thriller in the Elizabethan Age

Britain during the reign of Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was wracked by turmoil and intrigue rooted in doctrinal differences between the newly independent Church of England and the deeply entrenched forces of Catholicism. To root out the many conspiracies mounted by her foreign and domestic enemies, the Queen’s principal private secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham (1532-90) operated […]

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a few months ago

A worthy murder mystery set in the court of Queen Elizabeth I

Nearly a quarter-century ago, an English technical journalist and industrial editor named Valerie Anand (1937-) sat down to write a series of mystery novels set in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. To Shield the Queen, published in 1997 under the pen name Fiona Buckley, was the first of what to date is a series […]

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a few months ago

A murder mystery in the British Raj

In the far northeastern corner of India, on land near a border disputed by China, lies the tribal village of Jatinga. There, every year following the monsoon rains, thousands of birds dazed by high winds descend toward the village’s lights on foggy, dark nights. Local people, convinced they are spirits come to terrorize them, capture […]

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6 months ago

A lawyer is murdered in the Elizabethan Age

The year is 1586, the Spanish Armada two years in the future. A brilliant young English lawyer named Francis Bacon is headed for glory and high office. He was the youngest man yet to have been admitted to the bar and still is only twenty-five. Yet his impulsive nature has landed him in disrepute with […]

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7 months ago

Brother Cadfael stars in a gripping medieval murder mystery

Imagine yourself projected back in time to the High Middle Ages in the west of England. The Benedictine Monastery of Saints Peter and Paul in the town of Shrewsbury, to be exact. It’s less than a century since the Norman Conquest, and the First Crusade had ended just forty years earlier. King Stephen reigns from […]

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8 months ago

Booker Award winner Benjamin Black returns to historical fiction

In 1940, 14-year-old Princess Elizabeth and her 10-year-old sister, Margaret, were sent to Windsor Castle in the Berkshire countryside to escape the nightly bombing of London by the Luftwaffe. Their parents, King George VI and Queen Mary, remained behind in Buckingham Palace to boost the public’s morale. But in his clever new novel, The Secret […]

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9 months ago

Undercover at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

She navigates through Berlin during the 1936 Summer Olympics under an assumed name, interacting with a turncoat SS officer, a mercenary dwarf, and an aging anti-Nazi journalist. But for reporter Hannah Vogel it’s just another episode in the long-running saga of her attempts to undermine Adolf Hitler’s government. Because she’s not just a reporter. Hannah […]

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9 months ago

Attica Locke’s brilliant second mystery novel

The dead weight of slavery hangs over American society to this day, and Attica Locke has found the perfect way to explore its impact on us in her second mystery novel, The Cutting Season. The novel is set on a plantation in Louisiana where history is brought back to life through a staged reenactment of […]

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10 months ago

An intriguing murder mystery set in 18th century China

It’s 1708, and the still-young Qing Dynasty is consolidating its power. The Kangxi Emperor, second in the dynastic line, plans a year-long journey to loosely-held Yunnan Province to secure the allegiance of the local people. He will arrive in 1708 in time for a mammoth festival, where he will predict the precise time of a […]

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