Do you remember learning about super-spy Virginia Hall in social studies or history class back in the day? No? Well, neither did I. This is not a bad thing because that indicates that she did her job well. As an American fighting with the resistance forces during WWII, Virginia did indeed remain invisible. The spy…
Cecilia Ekbäck was born in Sweden and now lives with her family in Canmore, Alberta, Canada—but it is evident from her novel The Historians that her heart is still firmly in Sweden. Specifically, she has chosen one of the most stressful times in the history of the world—the midst of World War II—to create a…
Season 4 of The Crown, all 10 episodes, hit Netflix on November 15th, 2020. By now every avid fan has gobbled it up. Fortunately, help is at hand for aficionados of royal stories—Nicola Cornick’s The Forgotten Sister. Two women’s lives are intertwined, one historical, Amy Robsart, the first wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester…
Fortune Favors the Dead opens with a real corker: “The first time I met Lillian Pentecost, I nearly caved her skull in with a piece of lead pipe.” And, BAM!—we already know we’re in for a thrilling ride. It’s 1940’s New York, and our heroes are an unconventional pair. For starters, they’re not heroes—they’re heroines.…
Chapter 1 When you’re a detective, certain things come with the job. Getting shot at, for example, or tossing a man twice your size over your shoulder. From time to time, there might be a little light burglary. If you’re with the special branch of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, you can add to the…
Why are so many crime authors writing historical novels today? It’s a great question with about a hundred answers. Some are writing about specific people or events in the past, both public or personal, that have piqued their curiosity. Others are writing about an era in which civilization and people were so different from today…
The time is 1703, the dawn of a new century. Amateur botanist Lady Cecily Kay has traveled from Smyrna to London. Her diplomat husband encouraged her to leave Turkey; theirs is not an amicable marriage. Cecily has arranged to stay in London at the house of noted collector Sir Barnaby Mayne. Access to his research…
Matthew Carr has written another historical thriller that is as action-packed as it is thought-provoking! Centered, as with his debut novel The Devils Of Cardona, on his beloved Spain, Black Sun Rising examines the events leading up to and around the riots of the Tragic Week of 1909, deftly weaving a fictional murder mystery involving…
In her debut historical mystery, The Companion, Kim Taylor Blakemore takes readers to New Hampshire in 1855, where Lucy Blunt revisits the events that landed her on death row. I first came across Kim Taylor Blakemore on Instagram. The photos she posts of her research drew me in. Many were in relation to her writing…
If you look up the literal translation for ‘the Fifth Column’ the resulting definition is: ‘a group of people who undermine a larger group from within’. Taken within the confines of the latest release by author Andrew Gross we are talking about German operatives and Nazi sympathizers operating within the United States during World War…
