I love historical fiction which brings the past to life and allows us to experience other historical periods. For me, historical crime fiction combines this with dynamic plots and interesting characters. My love of history was first kindled by the books of John Prebble which introduced me to the fascinating world of 17th-century Scotland. I went on to study Scottish History at university and research a PhD in the subject. I have gone on to write a history of the Darien Disaster, The Price of Scotland, and a series of historical crime novels set in the late 17th century featuring investigative advocate John MacKenzie and his sidekick Davie Scougall.
Scotland,1689. A country gripped by Jacobite fever. Bonnie Dundee leads a Highland Army looking to crush the government forces and restore the exiled James Stuart as King. Meanwhile, in the dark streets of Edinburgh there are even darker goings-on. A gruesome discovery near the city’s quarry takes investigative advocate John MacKenzie and sidekick Davie Scougall on a dangerous journey through the criminal underworld and clandestine clubs of the old capital.
March Violets plunges us into the darkness of 1930s Germany. The book is thoroughly researched and brilliantly evokes the decade which saw the terrible rise of Hitler and the Nazis. The narrative is fast-paced and introduces the character of Bernie Gunther, ex-cop turned private investigator, through whose eyes we witness the collapse of German society into savagery.
Discover the first crime novel in the late Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series - Berlin Noir - set in Hitler's Germany during the 1930s . . .
Winter, 1936. A man and his wife shot dead in their bed, their home burned. The woman's father, a millionaire industrialist, wants justice - and the priceless diamonds that disappeared along with his daughter's life. He turns to Bernhard Gunther, a private eye and former cop.
As Bernie follows the trail into the very heart of Nazi Germany, he's forced to confront a horrifying conspiracy. A trail that ends in the hell that…
Dissolutionbrings Tudor England of 1537 brilliantly to life. In vast detail, the book evokes all the sounds and smells of the period while dealing with the huge topic of Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries in an engaging and interesting way. A cracking whodunnit in the classic sense which introduces Matthew Shardlake, lawyer turned detective.
Awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger - the highest honor in British crime writing
From the bestselling author of Winter in Madrid and Dominion comes the exciting and elegantly written first novel in the Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery series
Dissolution is an utterly riveting portrayal of Tudor England. The year is 1537, and the country is divided between those faithful to the Catholic Church and those loyal to the king and the newly established Church of England. When a royal commissioner is brutally murdered in a monastery on the south coast of England, Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's feared vicar general, summons…
The Seekertakes us through the streets of Cromwellian London in the 1650s, a period rarely considered by historical crime novelists, but one of paranoia as Cromwell’s regime struggles to crush the enemies seeking to overthrow it. The novel introduces the character of Captain Damian Seeker, Cromwell’s mysterious agent who is a force to be reckoned with.
Winner of the 2015 CWA Endeavour Dagger for Historical Fiction
London, 1654. Oliver Cromwell is at the height of his power and has declared himself Lord Protector. Yet he has many enemies, at home and abroad.
London is a complex web of spies and merchants, priests and soldiers, exiles and assassins. One of the web's most fearsome spiders is Damian Seeker, agent of the Lord Protector. No one knows where Seeker comes from, who his family is, or even his real name. All that is known of him for certain is that he is utterly loyal to Cromwell, and that…
The Black Dahlia is a piece of classic noir which takes us into the darkness of 1940s Los Angeles. Brilliantly paced and using pulsating vernacular, the novel is a disturbing journey through all the sleaze and horror of post-War America. Once hooked, you can delve into the other three novels in Ellroy’s LA Quartet.
The highly acclaimed novel based on America's most infamous unsolved murder case. Dive into 1940s Los Angeles as two cops spiral out of control in their hunt for The Black Dahlia's killer in this powerful thriller that is "brutal and at the same time believable" (New York Times). On January 15, 1947, the torture-ravished body of a beautiful young woman is found in a Los Angeles vacant lot. The victim makes headlines as the Black Dahlia -- and so begins the greatest manhunt in California history. Caught up in the investigation are Bucky Bleichert and Lee Blanchard: Warrants Squad cops,…
Set in India in 1919,A Rising Man plunges us into all the colours and chaos of India just as the British Empire is beginning to crumble. We see events through the eyes of English policeman Captain Sam Wyndham who has joined the Calcutta police. This is a riveting read and a fascinating exploration of the end of an empire.
Calcutta, 1919. Captain Sam Wyndham, former Scotland Yard detective, is a new arrival to Calcutta. Desperately seeking a fresh start after his experiences during the Great War, Wyndham has been recruited to head up a new post in the police force. He is immediately overwhelmed by the heady vibrancy of the tropical city, but with barely a moment to acclimatize or to deal with the ghosts that still haunt him, Wyndham is caught up in a murder investigation that threatens to destabilize a city already teetering on the brink of political insurgency.
The Road from Belhaven is set in 1880s Scotland. Growing up in the care of her grandparents on Belhaven Farm, Lizzie Craig discovers as a small girl that she can see the future. But she soon realises that she must keep her gift a secret. While she can sometimes glimpse the future, she can never change it.
Nor can Lizzie change the feelings that come when a young man named Louis, visiting Belhaven for the harvest, begins to court her. Why have the adults around her never told her that the touch of a hand can change everything? When she follows Louis to Glasgow, she begins to learn the limits of his devotion and the complexities of her own affections.
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy, a novel about a young woman whose gift of second sight complicates her coming of age in late-nineteenth-century Scotland
Growing up in the care of her grandparents on Belhaven Farm, Lizzie Craig discovers as a small child that she can see into the future. But her gift is selective—she doesn’t, for instance, see that she has an older sister who will come to join the family. As her “pictures” foretell various incidents and accidents, she begins to realize a painful truth: she may glimpse the future, but…
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