Good Reads - Fiction

Mystery

Historical Mysteries - Bookmark

M/BASTABLE
Bastable, Bernard - To Die Like a Gentleman - 1993, 152p.
Miss Frances Weyland, governess at Elmstead Court, works for a family dominated by the thoroughly nasty Sir Richard Hudson and his menacing man-servant Joseph. How death and blackmail alter the dynamics of this Victorian household is revealed by the various characters.

M/BAXT
Baxt, George - The Bette Davis Murder Case - 1994, 200p.
Agatha Christie and Bette Davis find a body in the library. Who could resist a plot like that? This is only one of many mysteries by Baxt featuring movie stars and related Hollywood types from the glamorous '30s and '40s.

M/BURNS
Burns, Ron - Roman Nights - 1991, 340p.
The year is 180 AD and Livinius Severus, Stoic, lawyer, and nobleman, is dejected by the drop in Roman morality with the waning of Marcus Aurelius' influence. Following the death of a noblewoman in the aftermath of an orgy, it seems a serial killer is targeting Stoics...and Severus wants to stop him.

M/COLLINS
Collins, Max Allan - The Titanic Murders - 1999, 258p.
American mystery writer Jacques Futrelle is on the Titanic when he becomes involved in a mystery surrounding two deaths on board before the Titanic sinks. The real Jacques Futrelle went down with the ship, so we'll never really know what happened.

M/DOHERTY
Doherty, P.C. - An Ancient Evil - 1994, 248p.
This is the first of four books in which various pilgrims to Canterbury entertain their fellow travelers with tales of mystery and intrigue. This, the Knight's story, is about a vampire cult.

M/DOHERTY
Doherty, P.C. - The Death of a King - 1985, 176p.
Edward II is the King in this mystery set in fourteenth-century England. Doherty has also written mysteries about other historical figures.

M/DUKTHAS
Dukthas, Ann - A Time for the Death of a King - 1994, 226p.
Nicholas Segalla is a scholar who turns up in various centuries and tries to solve some of history's most intriguing mysteries. This time it's the question of Mary Queen of Scots' involvement in the death of her first husband, Lord Darnley.

M/JONES
Jones, J.D.F. - The Buchan Papers - 1996, 249p.
Author John Buchan, who wrote the spy novel The 39 Steps, is portrayed as a British civil servant assigned to South Africa in 1903 to find the legendary "Kruger's Gold," missing since the end of the Boer War.

M/MEYERS
Meyers, Maan - The Dutchman - 1992, 306p.
The first of this series of mysteries, featuring detectives from the same family through three centuries, begins in the 1600's in New Amsterdam. Tonneman, the sheriff, must find the causes of three deaths while New Amsterdam is being menaced by the British who are in Manhattan Harbor and Brooklyn.

M/PAUL
Paul, Barbara - A Cadenza for Caruso - 1984, 146p.
In 1910, Enrico Caruso is in New York for the premier of La Fanciulla del West, but when Puccini is suspected of murder, Caruso cannot rest until he clears his friend's name

M/SATTERTHWAIT
Satterthwait, Walter - Miss Lizzie - 1989, 342p.
A summer at the seashore in 1921 becomes far from boring for 13-year-old Amanda Burton when her neighbor and friend, the notorious Lizzie Borden, is again suspected of murder.

M/TEY
Tey, Josephine - The Daughter of Time - 1951, 218p.
Though it takes place in the present, historical mystery readers should not miss this examination by a modern day policeman of the deaths of the princes, supposedly at the hand of Richard III. Tey's 1951 book sparked controversy and inspired rebuttals that continue to this day.

Prepared by Carol Yarmolich, January 2001