Historical Mysteries, Part 2

As promised, here is another roundup of historical mysteries I love. Some draw on older literature (Shakespeare, Austen, and Mary Shelley), others go off in various directions, and they range in time from a decidedly modern, tongue-in-cheek view of fourteenth-century Verona to the period immediately following World War II. Read on to find out more.

Christina Dodd, A Daughter of Fair Verona

A Daughter of Montague (Kensington, 2024)

Rosie, aka Rosalind, the wisecracking daughter of Romeo and Juliet—yes, as she says herself, that Romeo and Juliet—may not sound all that Shakespearean, but she does a tremendous job of casting a humorous light on Renaissance Italy. We meet her first at her own engagement party, where she stumbles across her One True Love—alas, not the man she’s contracted to marry. That fiancé doesn’t survive the night, thrusting Rosie into the role of amateur detective, and the series takes off from there. It currently consists of two full-length books and two novellas, the latest of which, Much Ado about Mistletoe, just came out in time for Christmas.

Vanessa Kelly, Murder in Highbury

Emma Knightley Mysteries

(Kensington, 2024)

Although Eliza Bennet and her Darcy get most of the attention in Austen spinoffs, Emma, now married to George Knightley, is by far the most likely of Austen's characters to ask the kind of probing questions and interfere in the suspicious circumstances required of would-be detectives. Just as Christina Dodd does with Shakespeare, Vanessa Kelly has a lot of fun exposing the various characters from Austen’s Emma to new circumstances—some humorous, others serious. You don’t even need to be a fan of Austen’s Emma Woodhouse to enjoy the results. Emma’s latest case, Murder at Donwell Abbey, has just been released.

Heather Redmond, Death and the Sisters

Mary Shelley Mysteries (Kensington, 2023)

Unlike the two series listed above, this one repurposes not characters but their author—the well-known not-yet-creator of Frankenstein, Mary Godwin Shelley. This three-part series, which (I believe, since that was the original plan) ends with the release of Death and the Runaways in July 2025, focuses on Mary and her stepsister Jane Clairmont, in 1814. In the space of a few months, Mary goes from an early, intense attraction to the married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley to running off with him to Europe, accompanied by Jane.

The mysteries themselves are intriguing. The first involves a body discovered in the family bookshop, the second revolves around the arrival of Russian envoys and some stolen diamonds, the third is linked to the suspicious death of a pregnant young woman with ties to Mary and Jane’s brother. It’s the relationships among Mary and her siblings and hints at the author-to-be, though, that make the series stand out.

Katie Tietjen, Death in the Details

Maple Bishop Mystery

(Crooked Lane Books, 2024)

After two journeys into Regency England, here’s an opportunity to leap forward in time. Maple Bishop left her home in Boston some years before the series begins to follow her doctor husband to a small town in Vermont, only to have him sign up for service late in World War II and die not long after his arrival in Europe.

Left with less than $12 in cash, Maple begins selling dollhouses that she makes herself, and the delivery of one such dollhouse leads her straight into a murder. Maple, based on the historical Captain Frances Glessner Lee, has a photographic memory, and she uses her dollhouses to reconstruct the crime. Unlike the previous three series, there is no connection here to known literary characters or their authors, but these books stand beautifully on their own. The second Maple Bishop Mystery, Murder in Miniature, came out in September.

Mary Winters, Murder in Postscript

Lady of Letters Mysteries (Berkley, 2023)

I discovered these novels quite by accident but found them instantly charming.

Amelia, Countess of Amesbury—a widow living in mid-Victorian Britain who never had the chance to become a wife, because her husband died of a never-specified illness within two months of their wedding—entertains herself, when not attending society functions or caring for her deceased husband’s niece, by acting as an agony aunt for a local newspaper.

Each chapter begins with a letter from an anguished advice seeker and Amelia’s reply, and in several instances the letters themselves draw Amelia into solving a mystery. Lord Simon Bainbridge, a troubled marquis, is her usual partner in resolving these various dilemmas, and as of Murder in Matrimony, which came out in October from Severn House, the two of them have become quite the team.