39 books like The Last Kashmiri Rose

When you turn the pages of this book, you feel you can see, smell, and hear the dark streets and alleys of Tudor London. This book inspired me to place my books in Tudor England and start The Tudor Rose Murders Series.

It is Tudor Crime at its best. I was so captivated by the characters, the detail, the pace, and the plotting that I could not put it down and felt wretched when I turned the last page. 

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor is the first of Stephanie Barron’s 14 Jane Austen mysteries, based on Austen’s “discovered” diaries about her adventures as a sleuth.  The series’ witty tone is true to Austen’s, and portrayals of Austen’s family are based in fact. In this opening volume, Jane is visiting a friend “of more fashion than means” newly married a middle aged earl—who dies, poisoned, after a celebratory party. His will divides his estate between his countess and an heir known to be too fond of her, making the pair obvious suspects. As Jane works to prove her friend innocent, the descriptions of aristocratic Regency life, dress, manners, and law are superb. 

Lisa M. Lane’s Murder at Old St. Thomas’s opens in Old St. Thomas’s Hospital, recently closed to make way for railroad lines. In the once-famous operating theater, the body of an eminent surgeon is found nailed to one of the seats in which medical students once watched him operate. The cause of death: toxic inhalation of chloroform. As Detective Inspector Cuthbert Slaughter and his American sergeant Mark Honeycutt interview suspects, their investigation provides a portrait of Victorian surgery (anesthetics still experimental; hygiene ignored by all but the nurses taught by Florence Nightingale). This 2022 mystery has fascinating characters, and it provides a wonderful picture of Victorian London and Southwark. 

Blind Justice, set in 1768, is the first of Bruce Alexander’s 11 Sir John Fielding mysteries. Its hero is the famous blind magistrate of London’s Bow Street Court; its narrator is thirteen-year-old Jeremy Proctor, whom Fielding’s wisdom has saved from an unjust accusation of theft. The pair investigate the death of Sir Richard Goodhope, who has been discovered shot in his library, locked from the inside. Sir John assumes suicide, but Jeremy’s observation of a detail that the magistrate could not see suggests murder. Proof of murder involves following Goodhope’s history through London’s streets, gambling houses, coffee houses, and great houses—to Drury Lane theater and Newgate—in a compelling portrait of eighteenth-century London.

I began reading Grimes in the 80s, but her books still hold up today, and this one establishes all of the cozy/Gothic things I love. Grimes has a gift for ironic humor, so even though she sets her books in a very cozy English village called Long Piddleton, she tends to satirize the residents and the narrow-mindedness of the provincial town.

In this way, she is similar to Agatha Christie, except that Grimes is much funnier. In this small town, Melrose Plant, a Lord by inheritance who has thrown off his title and tries to live a quiet life in the family manse, is a long-suffering, sane person in an often chaotic existence. He is continually terrorized by his “Aunt Agatha,” an American who married his uncle and refers to herself as “Lady Ardry,” although her late husband had no title. Their relationship is a source of great humor, but… show more.

If you love underdog stories, this one offers a double helping. First, Inspector Witherspoon’s career is threatened by ambitious and unscrupulous men who want to see him fail. Secondly, his household staff are the real heroes, tracking down clues that they cleverly feed to their unsuspecting employer to help him solve murder cases. Each staff member has unique methods for uncovering information, and together they make an effective team. I chuckle at their close calls as they scramble to hide their secret sleuthing from the inspector and the rest of the police force.  

This first novel gives the backstory: what’s at stake for the inspector and his household, plus why his housekeeper (Mrs. Jeffries) is a plausible and capable sleuth.

A cult novel from the early twentieth century, beloved of everyone from C.S. Lewis to Neil Gaiman to literally Kafka.

It starts at a peaceful suburban garden party, then plunges us into the secret anarchist conspiracy to bring down civilization, and the equally secret police force dedicated to stopping them. Duels, disguises, and mind-blowing revelations ensue, with writing just packed with Edwardian-era wit and charm.

I loved the main character of this book from the very first: Sgt Cribb of Scotland Yard. I came across this book through a television adaptation. I watched, then went scouring the shelves of my local library, finding, to my delight, that the book was the first in a series.

This was the first Cribb novel, and I found it charming, with a great mystery at its core. I love the fact that the background is a little-known Victorian sport: pedestrianism or endurance walking.

This is the first book in George’s twenty-one book series featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton, and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, a commoner.

When I read A Great Deliverance, I fell in love with George’s beautiful writing, found her two characters fascinating, and adored the cast of characters supporting the detectives. Plus, the book is unusual because the reader knows from the start who the killer is and the investigation focuses on why she killed him.

When I sat down to write my first ever fiction, Linley and Havers were the inspiration for my two detectives, NYPD Detectives Chiara Corelli and P.J. Parker. And I learned from George that the characters are as important, if not more important, than the plot. She inspired my writing.

As a writer I look to Crombie’s Constable Duncan Kincaid/Sergeant Gemma James series for guidance on how to have your characters grow professionally and personally, to age and experience the kind of changes people go through in real life. I recommend book one of the nineteen in the series, A Share in Death, because it sets up the relationship between the two detectives.