Showing titles in Historical

November 1933. Amateur sleuth-cum-dutiful granddaughter Kitty Underhay stifles a sigh of boredom as she attends the annual Hoteliers' Association Dinner and Dance on behalf of her grandmother, the proprietress of the Dolphin Hotel. She hopes the company of ex-army captain Matthew Bryant will enliven the otherwise dull evening. That is, until bullish and overbearing local councilor Harold Everton drops dead into his bowl of consommé.

1920. Poppy Denby, an aspiring journalist, arrives in London to look after her ailing Aunt. She encourages Poppy to apply for a job at The Daily Globe, but on her first day, a senior reporter is killed and Poppy is tasked with finishing his story. It involves the mysterious death of a suffragette seven years earlier - an event some powerful people would prefer forgotten....

1934 was a pivotal year in the ongoing battle between the FBI and America's most famous outlaws - it was a year of giant personalities and huge shoot-outs, and it marked the deaths of John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, and Pretty Boy Floyd, among others. But that year, FBI agent Sam Cowley's priority was to nab the most dangerous gangster this country has ever produced, a man so violent he scared Al Capone and was booted from the Chicago mob - Baby Face Nelson.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me—well, actually, my true love, Darcy O’Mara, is spending a feliz navidad tramping around South America. Meanwhile, Mummy is holed up in a tiny village called Tiddleton-under-Lovey with that droll Noel Coward! And I’m snowed in at Castle Rannoch with my bumbling brother, Binky, and sourpuss sister-in-law, Fig.

When King Edward II is informed that his wife, Queen Isabella, has defied him and remained in France with their son, he flies into a rage. It is Sir Baldwin de Furnshill and his friend Bailiff Simon Puttock who have broken the news to him and are now no longer in the king’s favour. They return to their homes in Devon, but they find that outlaws hold sway in the land. Sir Robert, a knight from the King’s household, has turned outlaw from his castle near Crediton. When a pair of clerics are found murdered, Baldwin and Simon are asked to investigate.

This hugely engaging story of murder, superstition, religious politics and drama in a medieval monastery was one of the most striking novels to appear in the 1980s. The Name of the Rose is a thrilling story enriched with period detail and laced with tongue-in-cheek allusions to fictional characters, the most striking of which is the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, who displays many characteristics of Sherlock Holmes.

When London’s finest jazz musicians, the Dizzy Heights, are booked to play the glitzy Midsummer Ball at a country house in Oxfordshire, they expect a weekend filled with flappers and toffs having a roaring good time. But the festivities at Bilverton House take a turn for the worse when the group are stranded by a summer storm. And when a member of the Bilverton family turns up dead in a locked room in an apparent suicide, Skins, Dunn and Ellie realize this is going to be a much tougher gig than they thought.

It is November 1890 and London is gripped by a merciless winter. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are enjoying tea by the fire when an agitated gentleman arrives unannounced at 221b Baker Street. He begs Holmes for help, telling the unnerving story of a scar-faced man with piercing eyes who has stalked him in recent weeks.

The nominal king, Edward VI, is 11 years old. His uncle Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, rules as Protector. The extirpation of the old religion by radical Protestants is stirring discontent among the populace while the Protector’s prolonged war with Scotland is proving a disastrous failure and threatens to involve France. Worst of all, the economy is in collapse, inflation rages and rebellion is stirring among the peasantry.

War rages across Europe. France is under the Nazi thumb. Britain has its back to the wall. In London, Scotland Yard detective Merlin investigates a series of disturbing events - a young girl killed in a botched abortion, a French emigre shot in a seedy Notting Hill flat, a mysterious letter written by a British officer gunned down in Crete. With action spanning Buenos Aires, New York, Cairo and occupied France, Merlin and his team are plunged into a dark world of espionage, murder, love and betrayal.

Nine BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramas by Mike Walker, chronicling Rome’s greatest rulers. Drawing on historical sources including Suetonius’ ‘Lives of the Caesars’, Mike Walker’s compelling drama cycle follows the story of the leaders of Rome, from Julius Caesar’s ascension to power to the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West in AD 475.

Set against the terrible struggle of the English Civil War, Rebels and Traitors is the story of how this turbulent era effected everyone, from rich to poor, and the hopes and dreams that carried them through years of deprivation, bloodshed and terror. When Gideon Jukes and Juliana Lovell, who are on opposites sides of the struggle, meet during one of the era’s most crucial events, their mutual attraction brings the comfort and companionship for which they both have yearned.

As Germany goes to war, the Nazis tighten their terrifying grip. Paranoia in the capital is intensified by a rigidly enforced blackout that plunges the city into oppressive darkness every night, as the bleak winter sun sets. When a young woman is found brutally murdered, Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke is under immense pressure to solve the case, swiftly. Treated with suspicion by his superiors for his failure to join the Nazi Party, Schenke walks a perilous line—for disloyalty is a death sentence.

Frances and her husband, George, have two points of interest in Paris. One is an impromptu holiday to visit the Paris Exposition. The other is personal. George's Aunt Julia has requested her nephew's help in looking into the suspicious death of renowned artist Paul Ducasse. Though Julia is not entirely forthcoming about her reasons, she is clearly a woman mourning a lost love. At the exposition, swarming with tourists, tragedy casts a pall on the festivities. A footbridge collapses. Julia is among the casualties. However, she was not just another fateful victim.

In an untouched corner of Craynebrook, the lifeless body of a local farmer is found, his blood mingling with the mud of Blackbird Farm. For Detective Inspector Matthew Stannard, still nursing wounds from a brutal assault, this grisly scene marks the beginning of an investigation unlike any he’s worked on before.

Kate Ardleigh is everything the Victorian English gentlewoman is not - outspoken, free-thinking, American...and a writer of the frowned upon penny dreadfuls. Soon after her arrival in Essex, England, a body is unearthed in a nearby archeological dig - and Kate has the chance to not only research her latest story but to begin her first case with amateur detective Sir Charles Sheridan.

London, 1921. Lord Johnny Fairfax has been found dead in his study, along with a second victim, a mysterious American who arrived unannounced the previous evening. For DCI Paul Stark, the case is personal: he's in a relationship with Lord Fairfax's former wife, Lady Amelia. The dead man had no shortage of enemies. Winston Churchill, his former colleague at the War Office, is convinced the murder is revenge for the disaster at Gallipoli. Lady Amelia herself is accused of the crime.

When it's your job to save the day—where do you start? Librarian spy Irene has standards to maintain, especially while on probation. And absconding from a mission via a besieged building doesn't look good. But when her escape route home goes up in flames, what's a spy to do? However, it seems gates back to the Library are malfunctioning across dozens of worlds. Worse still, her nemesis Alberich is responsible—and he plans to annihilate the Library itself.

England, 1925. When Lord Edgington receives an invitation to spend the Christmas holiday with an old colleague from the police, he expects fine food, good conversation and the warmth of a roaring fire. But on arriving at Mistletoe Hall with his family, they discover the house deserted and no explanation for where their host or his servants could be.

His razor-sharp intellect, uncanny powers of deduction, and knowledge of the criminal underground are legendary throughout London. He solves cases with the able assistance of his close friend and confidant. And, one day, he will become the arch enemy of Sherlock Holmes. Meet Professor James Moriarty - consulting criminal.