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…
Get an early look at the gorgeous cover of The Dark Heart of Florence (Minotaur Books, March 2021), by critically acclaimed author Tasha Alexander. Read on for an excerpt of the latest Lady Emily mystery that transports readers to the legendary city of Florence, where Lady Emily and Colin solve a murder with clues leading…
One day, while I was engrossed in Dorothy L. Sayers’s wonderful Gaudy Night, a sentence leapt off the page at me: If you are once sure what you do want, you find that everything else goes down before it like grass under a roller—all other interests, your own and other people’s. I had been saying…
Describe the first time you pictured Lady Emily in your head. Believe it or not, I woke up one morning with a vivid image in my head: a young woman, dressed in Victorian clothing, standing on the cliff path in Imerovigli, a small village in the Greek island Santorini. It was so striking that I…
1902, Italy. Our heroine, Lady Emily Hargreaves, is visiting the ruins of Pompeii in the company of her husband, Colin, and her dear friend, Ivy Brandon, when Ivy notes that one of the plaster casts of corpses felled in the ancient eruption sports surprisingly modern sideburns. Colin, being no stranger to investigating acts of foul…
In this heartwarming new Christmas short story featuring Tasha Alexander’s Victorian sleuth, Lady Emily, and her husband, Colin, the discovery of a clue in a Christmas cracker leads to a true holiday miracle. While most of London society has fled to their country estates for the holidays, Lady Emily and her family are enjoying a few…
…let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings; How some have been deposed; some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d; All murder’d… —William Shakespeare, Richard II People everywhere—even those with little interest in history—were captivated…
In Uneasy Lies the Crown, the thrilling new mystery in Tasha Alexander’s bestselling series, Lady Emily and her husband Colin must stop a serial killer whose sights may be set on the new king, Edward VII. It is the year 1901, and on her deathbed, Queen Victoria has pressed a note into the hand of one of…
Every Wednesday, we here at Criminal Element will put together a list of Staff Picks of the books that published the day before—sharing the ones that we are looking forward to reading the most! This week, Stephen King’s newest Castle Rock-set thriller joins Tasha Alexander’s latest Lady Emily mystery to make for a spooky week of books! See…
In Uneasy Lies the Crown, the thrilling new mystery in Tasha Alexander’s bestselling series, Lady Emily and her husband Colin must stop a serial killer whose sights may be set on the new king, Edward VII. On her deathbed, Queen Victoria asks to speak privately with trusted agent of the Crown, Colin Hargreaves, and slips him a…
