Victorian Detective Fiction

Edgar Award winner Otto Penzler returns with a new anthology of exhilarating mysteries, assembling Victorian society's lords and ladies and most miserable miscreants. Behind the velvet curtains of horse-drawn carriages and amid the soft glow of the gaslights are the detectives and bobbies sniffing out the safecrackers and petty purloiners who plague everything from the soot-covered side streets of London to the opulent manors of the countryside. Brush off your dinner jackets and straighten out your ball gowns for these exciting, glitzy mysteries.

Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, with cold-blooded killings transformed into novels, broadsides, ballads, opera, and melodrama - even into puppet shows and performing-dog acts. Detective fiction and the new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other - the founders of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P. D. James and Patricia Cornwell.

"Brilliant! Six really well written SH tales that capture the atmosphere of the era to perfection. I can't praise this enough." - Goodreads (paperback edition) SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEADLY SECRETS is a Victorian/Edwardian detective short fiction collection featuring Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Mycroft Holmes, as well as several other characters of the Holmesian universe created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The following six stories are included in this volume: SECRET CHILD Miss Clara Anderson, a young Canadian heiress visiting England, seeks out Sherlock Holmes, hoping he can save the ...

Narrated by acclaimed British actor Edward Petherbridge, The Last Moriarty is set in London, 1895. On a cold November morning, a young American actress visits 221B Baker Street, desperate for Sherlock Holmes to protect her from the threats of a mysterious, menacing man who has recently appeared in her life. Holmes agrees to help, even though he has just promised the Prime Minister to solve the murder of John D. Rockefeller's security agent before the incident can derail an upcoming British-American summit.

Narrated by acclaimed British actor Edward Petherbridge. On the eve of war, Sherlock Holmes is asked by the Prime Minister of England to recover a new British superweapon that has fallen into the wrong hands. But Lucy James, an actress and Holmes's recently discovered grown daughter, has inherited the family sleuthing skills and strong-willed nature. Despite her father's objections, she insists on helping him, although several horrific murders have been linked to the weapon's disappearance.

An intriguing Victorian mystery… The first case for Inspector Abbs. A wealthy spinster has been poisoned in the Devonshire town of Seaborough. Inspector Abbs and Sergeant Reeve are sent to investigate. With no apparent motive, they must uncover the secrets of the close-knit community. Untangling the past may provide the answer… but not before a second body is found. Their visit to Seaborough will change everything for the two detectives. Discovering the truth may even prove deadly…

Inspector Lestrade considers a young man's death merely accidental but his rival Tobias Gregson is not completely convinced and solicits the opinion of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes concludes that Lestrade is mistaken but even the great detective is unaware of how deep the waters run in the affair. As he and Watson tug at the thread, they uncover a plot of murder and deception intended to bring down an empire. PRAISE FROM GOODREADS.COM: "A great and exciting Sherlock Holmes story, that I really enjoyed reading. The story and mystery, keeps you guessing and flipping through the pages, to see how ...

A young American actress arrives in London hoping to learn her identity, just as Sherlock Holmes is closing in on a master criminal. Their worlds collide, and not even Holmes could have foreseen the impact!

Boxed set of four #1 bestselling Watson Files mystery novels, starring the legendary sleuth of Victorian London, Sherlock Holmes, including: Sherlock Holmes and the Missing Shakespeare (#1) Sherlock Holmes, legendary sleuth of Victorian London, is asked to authenticate the work of what appears to be a long lost Shakespearean play. Alas, just as the famed detective is about to announce his conclusion, the manuscript is stolen―and the chase is on to locate and recover it. As Sherlock Holmes and his trusted sidekick, Dr. John Watson, begin to unravel the mystery of the missing play, their ...

A lovely American actress awakens in London on a cold morning in 1897 - lying face down on the concrete pavement outside the British Museum. She has no memories. She does not even know who she is, although she has a vague recollection of the name Sherlock Holmes. What she believes is that she has may have just killed someone, and that someone is definitely trying to kill her. As she searches for clues to her true identity, she will learn that she is not the only target.

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.

Previously published as Deadly Secrets: Hidden Guilt by Madalena Melchior. SECRET GUILT London, 1905. Under the pretext of retrieving some books he has left behind at Number 221B, Sherlock Holmes temporarily trades his small farm upon the Downs, five miles from Eastbourne, and his beehives, for Baker Street. Before he has time to unpack his Gladstone, however, there's already a client at the door asking for his help with a case. So much for retirement...

You enjoy historical mysteries? You love Sherlock Holmes? This is for you. Four new novels in one collection set. All are part of the best-selling series of sixty New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries by Craig Stephen Copland. In this set you can read The Stock Market Murders in which Holmes and Watson solve the mysterious murders of several young men who worked in The City; The Glorious Yacht, when on the morning after the Titanic disaster, Holmes recalls a much earlier sea voyage when they were accompanied by a crew of famous pirates; The Most grave Ritual, where a young man is accused of murder ...

Previously published as Deadly Secrets: Hidden Hand by Madalena Melchior. SECRET HAND After a meeting with Sherlock Holmes, Sir Albert Allerton returns home and (apparently) decides to commit suicide along with his wife. Sherlock Holmes must discover the truth about these and other deaths linked to an old Allerton family secret. Were they all suicides, or the result of something unfathomably grimmer?

Previously published as Deadly Secrets: Hidden Prince by Madalena Melchior. SECRET PRINCE A few days before King Edward VII's rescheduled coronation (9 August 1902), a plea for help mysteriously signed "I. Adler" lures Sherlock Holmes, his brother Mycroft, and Doctor Watson, into solving a murder at the center of an international intrigue while trying to avoid a scandal that could damage the royal event.

The sole survivor of his family’s gruesome murder years earlier, poor little Ned Lawton has struggled to put the dark events behind him. So, when a brash New York detective darkens his doorway demanding an interview, the wealthy young gentleman immediately shuts him out. But a rash of murders in America are mirroring of the London killings, and Patrick Kelly knows Ned might be the key to stopping the bloodshed.

Christmas at a snowed in country house. You know what happens next… Not necessarily. Agatha Aston is invited to spend the weekend before Christmas with some old friends. Accompanied by her Machiavellian Basset hound, Talleyrand, Agatha encounters murder, ghosts and romance at a country house where nothing is as it seems. While Agatha has her hands full solving a murder, Talleyrand has his own problems in the shape of Bismarck, the hosts’ unfriendly German Shepherd. Expect fireworks. Containing a short ghost story within a story, The Christmas Murder Mystery is a twisty box of delights, ...

Bubble, bubble, toil, and murder... When a woman is found dead near her village in Norfolk, the verdict is suicide. Not everyone agrees. Detective James Simpson is ordered to investigate and he brings Agatha Aston, Betty Simpson and Talleyrand the hound, with him. They stumble across a tale of murder that stretches back two centuries. Part occult story, part murder mystery - this creepy tale is steeped in witchcraft and strange rural festivals where everything is not as it seems. The second Agatha Aston murder mystery is full of laughs, twists and things that go bump in the night. Golden ...

Previously published as Deadly Secrets: Hidden Game by Madalena Melchior. SECRET GAME In the absence of Sherlock Holmes, his brother Mycroft helps to solve a deadly mystery – while sitting on a sofa in Holmes and Watson's apartment at 221B Baker Street. There's another mystery besides the crime – and Mycroft Holmes will solve that one, too.

THE FIRST 5 EPISODES OF THE EXCITING, TIME-TRAVELING, STEAMPUNK MYSTERY SERIES! Episode 1: The "Ghost" Division Agent Artful Doyle, the Bureau's expert on Reports and Regulations, has been unexpectedly given an assignment after three years doing desk work. She's been sent to "bring to heel" their foremost Ripperologist, Agent Darrish Fox, who shows signs of going rogue. But when she finally arrives in Victorian London and discovers what Agent Fox has been investigating, she realizes that situations in the field are rarely as cut-and-dried as they are on paper. The Bureau has always used ...