Historical Mysteries, Part 3

You’d think that after two previous roundups of historical mysteries (as well one post on their contemporary counterparts), I’d have run out of authors, but not even close! Here are a few more whom I follow, eager to snap up the latest installments even though the number of unread books in my Kindle app would probably stock a small public library … 

Rhys Bowen, Her Royal Spyness Mysteries (Berkley)

I’ve written elsewhere about how much I love Lady Georgiana Rannoch, now married and mother of a child, as the title of the latest book released two months ago, suggests. Rhys Bowen is also one of my all-time favorite interview guests, so don’t miss our conversation on the New Books Network from back in 2021, where she talks about how she came to write this series, among other things.

Lady Georgie is smart and funny and surprisingly unflappable, given the gap between her background and the mysterious deaths that so often cross her path. Best of all, she has a gift for putting even fellow royals in their place, and she never takes herself too seriously, making her a joy to read.

Her latest adventure is From Cradle to Grave, which came out not long before Thanksgiving, but if you haven’t encountered her before, do yourself a favor and start with book 1, Her Royal Spyness. Its opening paragraphs are just too good to miss.

Dianne Freeman, Countess of Harleigh Mysteries (Kensington)

I encountered this series with book 5, in preparation for a blog Q&A with the author, and immediately went back to read the first four. We’re now on book 8, A Daughter’s Guide to Mothers and Murder, which I haven’t yet found time for, but that’s only because I have a long reading list and want time to savor every minute (the same point applies to most of the books listed here).

Lady Harleigh, when we meet her, is a widow, an American dollar princess who chose the man she married but without a clear sense of his rather deep flaws, particularly his disinclination to remain faithful to his wife. When he passes on, Frances keeps his name but defies social expectations by moving into a home of her own, where she soon encounters George Hazelton. Together the two of them solve a series of murders, growing closer along the way. Like Lady Georgie, Frances has a wry sense of humor and a complicated, at times demanding family. These traits, as much as the murders and their solutions, keep pulling me back into the series.

Alison Goodman, The Ill-Mannered Ladies (Berkley)

I received the first book in this new series, The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies, as an advance review copy and really enjoyed it. It, too, became the subject of a blog interview with the author.

A pair of twin sisters, Lady Augusta and Lady Julia Colebrook, are already middle-aged and thus, in the minds of their Regency English contemporaries, elderly spinsters. The sisters, however, don’t consider themselves to be superfluous and engage in a series of investigations that bring them into contact with a dashing highwayman who has an eye for Lady Augusta, in particular. As they work both to solve mysteries and to address the highwayman’s troubled past, Lady Augusta realizes she may not be, in Regency language, “on the shelf” after all.

In addition to the romantic element, the mysteries themselves grow out of the very real restrictions placed on women in the early nineteenth century, offering a useful corrective to fantasies of Austen’s England. For that reason alone, they deserve your time and attention. But they are also a lot of fun.

Book 2, The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin, came out last May. I look forward to starting it any day.

Darcie Wilde, Useful Woman Mysteries (Kensington)

This series, which gave rise to another Q&A on my previous blog, continues the Rosalind Thorne Mysteries and has now given rise to three books of its own, most recently The Matter of the Secret Bride, which came out in 2024.

Rosalind Thorne, like the Colebrook sisters, is considered a spinster in Regency terms. Unlike the Colebrooks, Rosalind has to earn her living—and without compromising her gentility—not an easy task in the early nineteenth century. She takes on cases for aristocratic women, asking questions and going to places the ladies themselves don’t dare venture, and she works in concert with the dashing (but socially inappropriate, in Regency terms) Adam Harkness, a Bow Street Runner who by this third book has gone into business as a private detective.

Their relationship, coupled with Rosalind’s common sense and the freshness of the mysteries she encounters, make for compelling reads.

P. Srigley, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Cat

(Wrigglesworth Press)

This three-part (so far) series, all of which share a title, could be considered a guilty pleasure. Not only does it build on the Sherlock Holmes world, but it sidelines the newly married John Watson, replacing him in Sherlock’s home and hearth with Cat Watson, a stray black tomcat who communicates nonverbally with Sherlock, by which I mean that Cat Watson understands whatever he hears humans say, but he can communicate only by pushing important objects off tables and otherwise drawing attention to the clues he perceives.

As the books progress, not only Watson but his wife, Mary, and Mrs. Hudson evolve in quite unexpected directions. The whole thing is a hoot, although the first book most of all. And watching Holmes adapt to a growing number of cats in his house (Cat Watson not only cares for his street cat friends but is an unneutered tom, it being the Victorian era, so he produces additional cat residents himself as well as rescuing various pals from poverty) is a delight.

If you’re a serious Holmesian, you may well find these books a stretch too far, but if you’re like me and enjoy the sense of play, they’re well worth a try.