Showing titles in Historical

A mesmerizing forensic thriller that thrusts the listener into the operating rooms, drawing rooms, and back alleys of 1889 Philadelphia, as a young doctor grapples with the principles of scientific process to track a daring killer. In the morgue of a Philadelphia hospital, a group of physicians...

Amsterdam, 1659: On the world’s first commodities exchange, fortunes are won and lost in an instant. Miguel Lienzo, a sharp-witted trader in the city’s close-knit community of Portuguese Jews, knows this only too well. Once among the city’s most envied merchants, Miguel has suddenly lost...

In his most enthralling novel yet, the critically acclaimed author Matthew Pearl reopens one of literary history’s greatest mysteries. The Last Dickens is a tale filled with the dazzling twists and turns, the unerring period details, and the meticulous research that thrilled readers of the...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER This Cotton Malone adventure blends gripping contemporary political intrigue, Tudor treachery, and high-octane thrills into one riveting novel of suspense. Cotton Malone and his fifteen-year-old son, Gary, are headed to Europe. As a favor to his former boss at...

A return to the form that launched Iain Pears onto bestseller lists around the world: a vast historical mystery, marvelous in its ambition and ingenius in its complexity. In his most dazzling novel since the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller An Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears tells...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A world of invention and skulduggery, populated by the likes of Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla.”—Erik Larson “A model of superior historical fiction . . . an exciting, sometimes astonishing story.”—The Washington Post From Graham Moore, the...

This instant New York Times bestseller reveals the secrets embedded in Leonardo Da Vinci's best-known Christian piece The Last Supper. Milan, 1497: Leonardo is completing The Last Supper. Pope Alexander VI is determined to execute him after realizing that the painting contains clues to a...

A thrilling, "action-packed page-turner" (Wall Street Journal) based on a true story of anarchy and assassination in Edwardian London, centred around one detective’s mission to preserve the life of his king and prevent a bloody war in Europe. From humble beginnings in Ireland, William...

May 1939. When Amy Rowlings and Inspector Bodkin are invited to a black-tie civic awards ceremony at the Town Hall, they expect to be met with the usual boring speeches and toe-curling sycophancy, but when the recipient of the night's 'Businessman Of The Year Award', Nelson Kelly, is found stabbed to death after being called from the stage to answer the telephone, the evening begins to liven up. Nelson's company has just won a lucrative contract to build a new armaments factory and many of the town's elite, having backed a rival bidder, aren't happy at missing out.

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessey is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of 'Southie', the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat's teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn't come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected.

Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret are royal commissioners appointed to investigate irregularities that come to light during the compilation of the Domesday Book in the reign of William the Conqueror. They arrive in Canterbury to be met by the news that the body of a young girl has been found, apparently killed by a poisonous snake. Their investigation takes them to the leper hospital in Harbledown where the girl used to take herbs. Once they establish that she was murdered by human agency, they begin to uncover all sorts of hidden secrets in the town....

Glasgow in the 1950s. Private investigator Lennox is keeping a low profile, enjoying a secret fling with the daughter of shady bookie and greyhound breeder MacFarlane. When MacFarlane is found bludgeoned to death, Lennox is a suspect. Luckily, he has a solid gold alibi: he was in bed with the victim’s daughter. Lennox is quickly drawn into hunting the killer, and it turns out MacFarlane was into some seriously dodgy stuff.

Germany, 1660: When a dying boy is pulled from the river with a mark crudely tattooed on his shoulder, hangman Jakob Kuisl is called upon to investigate whether witchcraft is at play in his small Bavarian town. Whispers and dark memories of witch trials and the women burned at the stake just seventy years earlier still haunt the streets of Schongau.

The summer of 1553 is a time of danger and deceit. Brendan Prescott, an orphan, has been reared in the household of the powerful Dudley family. Brought to court, Prescott finds himself sent on an illicit mission to the king’s brilliant but enigmatic sister, Princess Elizabeth. But Brendan is soon compelled to work as a double agent by Elizabeth’s protector, William Cecil, who promises in exchange to help him unravel the secret of his own mysterious past.

Maggie Lodge, assistant to the reclusive advice columnist known only as Dear Aunt Cornelia to her readers, hires down-but-not-quite-out private eye Sam Sage to help track down the person who is blackmailing her employer. Maggie and Sam are a mismatched pair. As far as Sam is concerned, Maggie is reckless and in over her head. She is not what he had in mind for a client, but he can’t afford to be choosy. Maggie, on the other hand, is convinced that Sam is badly in need of guidance and good advice. She does not hesitate to give him both.

When the mutilated body of midwife and healer Agatha Kyteler is discovered in a hedge one frozen wintry morning, it seems at first that a lack of clues will render the crime impossible to solve. Then a frightened local youth inexplicably flees his village, and a hue and cry is raised in his wake. Sir Baldwin Furnshill, once a Knight Templar, has doubts about the boy's guilt. He enlists his friend Simon Puttock, bailiff of Lydford Castle, in the hunt for a murderer.

With dashing Scotland Yard Inspector Alec Fletcher at her side, Daisy is enjoying a delightful performance of Verdi's Requiem, featuring her neighbor Muriel Westlea's celebrated sister, Bettina. But when all that emerges from the doomed diva's vocal chords is a dying gasp, Daisy soon discovers that the notoriously difficult opera star had her share of adversaries.

Finding an old manuscript in the attic has always been a fantasy of Sylvia’s. She just never expected the fantasy to come true, or for it to lead her to answers about her mysterious family.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Confessions of Frannie Langton, written and read by Sara Collins. They say I must be put to death for what happened to Madame, and they want me to confess. But how can I confess what I don't believe I've done? 1826, and all of London is in a frenzy...

Saffron Everleigh returns to Ellington Manor after her grandfather suffers a heart attack. Back in her childhood home for the first time in years, Saffron faces tense family relationships made worse by the presence of the enigmatic Bill Wyatt, hired on as a doctor to the ailing Lord Easting. But the man is no doctor—in reality, he is a mysterious figure involved in the trafficking of dangerous government secrets, and his presence at Ellington can only mean trouble.