historical mystery

Watching My Inspirations: Women Sleuths from the Small Screen Who Influenced My Historical Heroine by Celeste Connally, author of All’s Fair in Love and Treachery

By Celeste Connally

November 12, 2024

It goes without saying that there are many fictional female detectives I’ve read and wished that, one, I could walk in her shoes—or just be her sidekick—and, two, that have inspired me in writing my own female sleuths. Miss Marple is at the top, naturally. Nancy Drew, a close second. And Agatha Christie’s other lady…

Featured Excerpt: Death by Misadventure by Tasha Alexander

By Crime HQ

October 11, 2024

Chapter One Villa von Düchtel, Bavaria 1906 Far too many—if not most—social gatherings would be immeasurably improved by the strategic removal of a troubling guest. When said individual’s behavior is particularly egregious, one may be forgiven for considering murder as an acceptable remedy for the situation. The civilized among us curb this instinct. They may…

Book Review: Sherlock Holmes And The Telegram From Hell by Nicholas Meyer

By Doreen Sheridan

September 23, 2024

The genre of Sherlock Holmes pastiche novels has only grown by leaps and bounds since the turn of the 21st century. While very few works can recapture the ingenious spark of the originals without feeling like cheap imitations, I’ve almost uniformly enjoyed the ones that set Holmes and his loyal companion Dr. John Watson in…

Our Most Anticipated Reads: September 2024

By Crime HQ

August 29, 2024

Passions in Death by J.D. Robb Homicide Detective Eve Dallas hunts a killer who turns a wedding party into a murder scene in the next novel by the #1 New York Times bestselling author, J.D. Robb, Passions in Death. The Trap by Ava Glass British spy Emma Makepeace races against the clock to stop the Russians from carrying…

Book Review: Agony Hill by Sarah Stewart Taylor

By Janet Webb

August 28, 2024

Travel back to 1965 in the way-back machine. N.B. The assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in November 1963 is still an open wound. It has been posited that 1965 “marked a turning point in American history.” In March, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, led a weeks-long march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, the…

Book Review: Murder at the White Palace by Allison Montclair

By Janet Webb

July 30, 2024

The Right Sort Marriage Bureau, is, surprisingly, a bonafide success. It was by no means guaranteed that in the aftermath of World War II, a female-helmed marriage bureau would get off the ground, particularly one whose watchword was: “The world must be peopled!” But odd-women-out partners Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge (wealthy widow and former-debutant) and Miss…

The Rise of the Antihero with Erika Robuck, author of The Last Twelve Miles

By Erika Robuck

June 5, 2024

“You could work for us” —A Former CIA Officer I was flattered when a woman I admire proclaimed this. She had read my novels about women WWII spies including Americans Virginia Hall and Virginia d’Albert-Lake and was impressed by the way I was able to follow breadcrumbs through declassified archives and multilingual sources to piece…

Book Review: Kill Her Twice by Stacey Lee

By Doreen Sheridan

May 16, 2024

May and Gemma Chow have been struggling to keep their family’s flower selling business afloat in 1930s Los Angeles, after doctors send the teenaged girls’ beloved father to recuperate from tuberculosis in the dry desert climate of San Bernardino. Business has never been particularly booming, and the girls have had to resort to increasingly ingenious…

Our Most Anticipated Reads: May 2024

By Crime HQ

April 29, 2024

Nest of Vipers by Harini Nagendra The latest novel in the award-winning Bangalore Detectives Club series finds amateur sleuth Kaveri Murthy involved in a dangerous plot that endangers the life of the visiting Prince of Wales. Disturbing the Dead by Kelley Armstrong MacmillanAudio · Disturbing the Dead by Kelley Armstrong, audiobook excerpt Disturbing the Dead is…

Book Review: Murder by Lamplight by Patrice McDonough

By Janet Webb

April 24, 2024

We’ve been here before, examining a mutilated body in the fetid alleys of London’s East End. It’s November 1886, decades before Jack the Ripper terrorized the unfortunate citizens of Whitechapel, in London. The murderer is on the scene, watching, and congratulating himself. Look at me. Look what I have wrought, he wanted to crow.  …

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