Historic Mysteries South

Southern Legacyby Harper Stanwick, Sr. is a captivating mystery novel set in the Gulf States during the sweltering summer of 1888. This gripping tale weaves together elements of historical fiction, intrigue, and Southern Gothic tradition. In the heat of 1888, at a modest station where eastbound and westbound trains exchange a handful of passengers daily, two men meet whose lives will become deeply intertwined. Adley Witt Jr., a sociable and amiable gentleman, steps in to help a young woman named Kitty Palmer, setting off a chain of events that reveals the complexities of Southern life post-...

Greatest Mystery of the Southwest USAPerhaps the most fascinating chapter in Southwest history is the tale of the mysterious, “vanished” Anasazi Indians. Their tremendous achievements can be found in many places, including the spectacular cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde National Park. But the crest of the Anasazi wave was in Chaco Canyon, a shallow, windswept wash in northwest New Mexico. Here, 1,000 years ago, strange and unexplained events unfolded, events which continue to intrigue scientists and visitors today. In this book, you'll delve into the mystery: Why choose inhospitable Chaco...

Ya'll, let me tell you my story!Glad you could find your way here, and I welcome you to the Sellers Plantation here in the deep south of Mobile, Alabama. I'm anxious to get started with my story tellin,' so, I'm sharin' a little bout the story that I be tellin' to ya'll down below. When I wuz born, I be given the name Gertrude Ida Rollins, but as I be growin' folks just be callin' me Ms. Gertie. I wuz born in Mobile, Alabama in the year eighteen and eighty-eight. Yes, that be a long time ago for most of ya'll, but I thinks it be good to be learnin' bout the history that be comin' before you...

Returning to London after his honeymoon (For Deader or Worse), Bow Street Runner John Pickett soon discovers wedded bliss is not without its pitfalls, as he finds it galling to be financially dependent on Julia, his aristocratic bride. When he is summoned to the home of Lady Washbourn, Pickett finds he has something in common with the young countess: like himself, Lady Washbourn has married above her station and now finds herself adrift in a world to which she does not truly belong.

Estranged from her husband through her failure to produce an heir, Lady Fieldhurst resolves to repay his neglect by taking a lover. Fate takes a hand when she and her would-be lover enter her bedchamber to find Lord Fieldhurst lying on the floor - with her nail scissors protruding from his neck.

With a beautiful and clever wife, a growing investigative business, and a baby due any day, former Bow Street Runner John Pickett finally has a respectable life far removed from his beginnings as a juvenile pickpocket in the rookeries of St. Giles.

When a rash of jewel thefts strikes London, magistrate Patrick Colquhoun deploys his Bow Street Runners to put a stop to the crimes. A Russian princess is to attend a production of Handel’s Esther at Drury Lane Theatre, where she will wear a magnificent diamond necklace. The entire Bow Street force will be stationed at various locations around the theatre - including John Pickett, who will occupy a box directly across from the princess.

Sixty-something sisters Mary Alice and Patricia Anne head to Florida to relax at a beachfront condo. But when a body washes up on the waves, the sisters find themselves awash in a sea of dirty real estate dealings and evidence of murders.

When magistrate Patrick Colquhoun orders a habitual thief and ne'er-do-well transported to Botany Bay, he doesn't realize a 14-year-old boy has been left behind to follow in his father's footsteps - not until young John Pickett is hauled into Bow Street for stealing an apple from the produce market at Covent Garden. Feeling to some extent responsible for the boy, Mr. Colquhoun prevails upon Elias Granger, a prosperous coal merchant, to take him on as an apprentice.

Having resigned his position at Bow Street in disgrace (at least in his own mind) and failed in his attempt to establish himself as a private agent, John Pickett toils away at a tedious job as a clerk in the city. When he is approached by a man wishing to hire him to extract a young lady being held against her will at an asylum for opium-eaters, Pickett jumps at the chance to prove himself, and has a very reluctant Julia commit him to the institution as a patient. But nothing at the Larches is exactly as it seems.

It's not good to live in the past; even worse to die in it Paranormal investigator Wyatt Thomas awakens from a vivid dream in his French Quarter apartment. He finds an antique double-moonstone pendant placed in his hand by the ghost of a voodoo mambo. One of the two moonstones is missing, and both gemstones are needed to make the pendant magical. The rightful owner of the pendant is a supernatural fairy named Maurelle. Someone chopped off Maurelle’s wings and buried her alive in the ruins of a French Quarter Creole townhouse. A mystical beast still haunts the grounds of the estate. Now, ...

A rainy night in east Texas leads to murder When private detective Buck McDivit inherits his murdered aunt’s fishing camp on Caddo Lake, he quickly learns all isn’t right in this primordial paradise dripping with antebellum mystique. To retain his inheritance, he must take on a white supremacy group in the nearby racially-torn east Texas town of Deception. Will Buck prevail or become gator bait beneath the coffee-colored surface of the mysterious lake? Ghost of a Chance is Book 1 of Eric Wilder's gripping Paranormal Cowboy Series. See what Amazon readers are saying about Ghost: "...

Eager to escape London following the scandal of her husband's death, Lady Fieldhurst accepts an invitation to spend the summer in rural Yorkshire as the guest of Sir Gerald and Lady Hollingshead. She soon discovers, however, that country life is not the panacea she had hoped for. Tension reigns and tempers flare at Hollingshead Place, due in large part to Lady Hollingshead's ambitions for her daughter, a lovely young lady destined for a brilliant marriage in spite of her love for a penniless curate.

The third installment of the John Pickett series of humorous Regency mysteries finds Bow Street Runner Pickett in Scotland investigating a woman found unconscious on the beach - a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the local laird's daughter, a girl missing and presumed dead for the last 15 years. Pickett is surprised to discover that the woman was found by none other than Lady Fieldhurst and her three young nephews - and gratified to learn that her ladyship has registered at the seaside inn as Mrs. Julia Pickett.

After a modest wedding ceremony, Bow Street Runner John Pickett and his bride, Julia, the former Lady Fieldhurst, set out for a wedding trip to Somersetshire, where Pickett must face his greatest challenge yet: meeting his in-laws. Sir Thaddeus and Lady Runyon are shocked at their daughter’s hasty remarriage - and appalled by her choice of a second husband. Pickett, for his part, is surprised to learn that Julia once had an elder sister: Claudia, Lady Buckleigh, who disappeared 13 years earlier.

When Julia, Lady Fieldhurst, returns from Scotland restless and out of sorts, her friend Emily Dunnington plans a select dinner party with half a dozen male guests from whom Julia may choose a lover.

But Emily's dinner ends in disaster when one of her guests, Sir Reginald Montague, is shot dead.

Bow Street Runner John Pickett and Julia, Lady Fieldhurst, seem to have reached an impasse as they wait for the annulment of their accidental marriage to come before the ecclesiastical court. In the meantime, Pickett is summoned to investigate the theft of almost 200 pounds from a linen-draper's shop - but finds no sign that either the shop or the safe where the money was kept had been forced open. Given the lack of evidence, he can only assume the money was taken by someone inside.

1803. The Napoleonic Wars. A Royal Navy warship is ordered to pursue an enemy frigate to the icy waters far south in the Indian Ocean. There, it must capture the enemy ship and retrieve a mysterious sea chest, contents unknown, failure not permitted. For the determined young captain and his eager crew, this already dangerous mission turns into a battle with a mysterious vessel that appears not in the sea, but unbelievably, impossibly, in the sky above. But nothing could prepare the crew for what lay beyond the 50th latitude of south.

Scandal, Bigamy and Murder Nicole Cuvier went to New Orleans to share wonderful news with her husband only to discover him in a hotel room murdered, with two other women claiming to be his wives. It seems there are three Cuvier Widows and each one is suspected of murder. Pregnant, unmarried, and now a widow with a plantation on the verge of bankruptcy. Nicole needs a temporary husband. Someone to save Rosewood and give her child a last name. Enter a handsome drifter, Maxim Viel, who agrees to marry her, but unbeknownst to Nicole, wants more than a temporary arrangement. Can his strong arms,...

The eighth book in the series finds John Pickett bound for England's scenic Lake District, where an unsigned letter has summoned him for an unspecified reason. Pickett and his wife Julia, the former Lady Fieldhurst, take a room at the Hart and Hound as the letter instructs him. Once installed there, however, Pickett can do nothing but wait for the anonymous contact to identify himself. A midnight search of the inn's register seems to identify the innkeeper, Ned Hawkins, as his man, but before Pickett can discover the reason for his summons, Hawkins is pushed from a cliff - surviving the fall only long enough to call Pickett's attention to the letter in his pocket.