Showing titles in Historical

Twin sisters Keziah and Tilly Lovell are identical in every way, except that Tilly hasn't grown a single inch since she was five. Then at the age of 15 the girls are sold to a mysterious Italian known as 'Captain'. Theo is an orphan, raised by his grandfather. Resenting his grandson for his mother's death in childbirth, Theo is forced to leave home without a penny to his name when he remarries, and a new heir is produced. Unable to train to be a doctor as he'd hoped, Theo finds employment in Dr Summerwell's Museum of Anatomy in London, and here he meets Captain and his theatrical 'family'.

The year is 1911. Chief Investigator Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Detective Agency has had many extraordinary cases before. But none quite like this. Hired to find a young woman named Anna Pape who ran away from home to become an actress, Bell gets a shock when her murdered body turns up instead. Vowing to bring the killer to justice, he begins a manhunt which leads him into increasingly more alarming territory.

William Constable, a physician and astrologer, is summoned to the presence of the Queen’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. He is charged to assist a renowned Puritan, John Foxe, in uncovering the secrets of a mysterious cabinet containing an astrological chart and coded message. Together, these claim Elizabeth has a hidden, illegitimate child (an “unknowing maid”) who will be declared to the masses and serve as the focus for an invasion.

In The Angel Of Darkness, Caleb Carr brings back the vivid world of his bestselling The Alienist but with a twist: this story is told by the former street urchin Stevie Taggert, whose rough life has given him wisdom beyond his years. Thus New York City, and the groundbreaking alienist Dr. Kreizler himself, are seen anew. It is June 1897. A year has passed since Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a pioneer in forensic psychiatry, tracked down the brutal serial killer John Beecham with the help of a team of trusted companions and a revolutionary application of the principles of his discipline.

It's 1986, the heart of the Cold War. Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She's brilliant and talented, but she's also a black woman working in an all-white boys' club, and her career has stalled with routine paperwork - until she's recruited to a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic, revolutionary president of Burkina Faso, whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention. In the year that follows, Marie will observe Thomas, seduce him and ultimately have a hand in the coup that will bring him down.

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, veterans of many battles, return in this novel to the seas where they first sailed as shipmates. But Jack is now a senior captain, commanding a line-of-battle ship sent out to reinforce the squadron blockading Toulon, and this is a longer, harder, colder war than the dashing frigate action of his early days.... A sudden turn of events takes him and Stephen off on a hazardous mission to the Greek islands. All his old skills of seamanship - and luck when fighting against odds - come triumphantly into their own as the story concludes with some fierce and thrilling action.

Ludmilla "Mili" Petrova was once the most hunted woman on Earth, having raised the fury of two of the most powerful leaders on either side of World War II: Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. But Kathy Reilly of The Washington Post doesn’t know any of that when she encounters a brief mention of Mili in an old Russian propaganda magazine, and becomes interested in the story of a legendary, beautiful female sniper who seems to have vanished from history.

In 1982, Italian financier Roberto Calvi, known as “God’s Banker”, was discovered hanging under London’s Blackfriars Bridge. What wasn’t found was the briefcase he was known to have had with him the night before, reportedly stuffed with incriminating documents, a special key, and a computer disk filled with codes, which together unlock a piece of the Vatican’s troubled past. When the briefcase mysteriously reappears in the Vatican Secret Archives, Father Michael Dominic and his team are up against two powerful and enigmatic organizations.

As the year 1349 approaches, the Black Death continues its devastating course across England. In Dorseteshire, the quarantined people of Develish question whether they are the only survivors. Guided by their beloved young mistress, Lady Anne, they wait, knowing that when their dwindling stores are finally gone they will have no choice but to leave. But where will they find safety in the desolate wasteland outside? One man has the courage to find out. Thaddeus Thurkell, a free-thinking, educated serf, strikes out in search of supplies and news.

The Great Fire has ravaged London. Now, guided by the Fire Court, the city is rebuilding, but times are volatile and danger is only ever a heartbeat away. James Marwood, a traitor’s son, is thrust into this treacherous environment when his father discovers a dead woman in the very place where the Fire Court sits. The next day his father is run down. Accident? Or another murder....

1939. As Europe teeters on the brink of war, Alfred Kendall is tasked with carrying out a minor mission for the British Intelligence Service. Travelling to Prague, he takes his troubled young son, Hugh, as cover. When Hitler invades Czechoslovakia, Alfred is given an ultimatum by the Czech Resistance. They will arrange for him to return to England, but only if he leaves his son Hugh behind as collateral. Hugh is soon taken under the wing of a Nazi colonel - Helmuth Scholl.

Young women are being discovered dead across the Old Town, all having suffered similarly gruesome ends. In the New Town, medical student Will Raven is about to start his apprenticeship with the brilliant and renowned Dr Simpson. Simpson's patients range from the richest to the poorest of this divided city. His house is like no other, full of visiting luminaries and daring experiments in the new medical frontier of anaesthesia.

From global superstar Matthew Reilly comes a gripping historical thriller - a tale of murder, passion and intrigue set in the majestic city of Constantinople. England, 1546. A young Princess Elizabeth is in a dangerous position as her older siblings jostle for the throne. Roger Ascham, Elizabeth's teacher and mentor, is determined to keep her safe.

Missouri, 1955. Loretta Davenport has led an isolated life as a young mother and a wife to Pete, an ambitious assistant professor at a Bible college. They’re the picture of domestic tranquility—until a local girl is murdered and Loretta begins receiving messages from beyond. Pete dismisses them as delusions of a fevered female imagination. Loretta knows they’re real—and frightening.

Unverified reports tell of a hidden treasure trove deep beneath the Owl Mountains in Poland. Many have tried, but all have failed to locate the legendary Nazi gold train. Jack Reilly mourns the loss of his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, and an esteemed historian. In memory of her, the retired Delta operator tours the place of her imprisonment, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, site of the infamous Nazi concentration camp.

Survivor, genius, perfumer, killer: This is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. He is abandoned on the filthy streets of Paris as a child, but grows up to discover he has an extraordinary gift: A sense of smell more powerful than any other human's. Soon, he is creating the most sublime fragrances in all the city. Yet there is one odour he cannot capture. It is exquisite, magical: The scent of a young virgin. And to get it he must kill. And kill. And kill...

1546, and the great heretic hunt is underway across England. The radical Protestant preacher Anne Askew has been arrested and condemned to death and Shardlake is ordered to attend the burning. It's a grisly, cruel spectacle that leaves him feeling disturbed. Rumours are circulating that Anne had connections to his protector, Queen Catherine Parr - and if she falls, he could be next.... His unease deepens when a messenger arrives from Whitehall Palace: the queen is in trouble and asking for his help.

Normandy. Sark Island. London. The Pacific. The Littlefield siblings, separated by the grim tide of war, fight on all fronts. The Dame of Sark, the Littlefield matriarch, faces starvation on Sark Island, while Lance grapples with the Wehrmacht on French soil. With every step shadowed by death, his sole goal is to liberate Paris and prepare for the final assault on Germany. With World War II raging, the Littlefield's stories intertwine with old and new friends alike.

Summer, 1551, and Francis Crawford of Lymond is in Malta to assist the Knights of St John defend the island from an invading Turkish fleet. But under a weak leader there is dissension in the ranks of the Knights - and the chances of repelling invasion look slim. Here Lymond meets Knight Grand Cross Graham Reid Malett - known as Gabriel - a fellow Scot famed for his virtues. It is soon clear that Gabriel's wiles in war and intrigue rival Lymond's own as he attempts to bring his new comrade in arms into the bosom of his scheming.

A gripping BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation based on the second novel in C. J. Sansom's best-selling Tudor crime series. Summer, 1540. It has been three years since the terrible events at Scarnsea monastery, and lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake is living a quiet life in London - until a summons from Cromwell sees him embarking on another dangerous secret assignment.