Book picks similar to
The Midwife's Tale by Margaret Frazer


mystery
historical-fiction
medieval
mysteries

The Peacock's Cry


Paul Doherty - 2016
    Includes an exclusive extract from the eighteenth Corbett novel DARK SERPENT, the follow up to THE MYSTERIUM. If you love historical mysteries from Robin Hobb, Susanna Gregory or Bernard Knight you will love this.It is 1311 and England seethes with unrest. Sir Hugh Corbett, former keeper of the Secret Seal, has been absent from royal service for over six years. Content to live a life more relaxed with his wife and children in the country Corbett has enjoyed his time away from the machinations of court and the secrets men will kill to keep. But a visit from his new King, Edward II, brings about change. His former protégé, Ranulf Atte-Newgate, now Senior Clerk in the Chancery, has been implicated in the death of a young novice, and Edward has made it clear that Corbett must resume his post and solve the case if Ranulf is not to hang for the murder...Corbett knows that resuming his post will bring him to the fore of Edward's political machinations but with Ranulf's life at stake, does Corbett have any choice but to accept the Seal once more?

Past Crimes: A Compendium of Historical Mysteries


Ashley Gardner - 2017
     A Soupçon of Poison (Kat Holloway Victorian Mysteries) Kat Holloway, a young cook who is highly sought after by the wealthy of Victorian London, becomes embroiled in murder and must clear her name. Only the mysterious Daniel McAdam, who is much more than he seems, can come to her aid. Blood Debts (Leonidas the Gladiator Mysteries) Leonidas, freedman, once the most popular gladiator in Rome and champion of the games, now must fight for his life outside the arena. A man who owed him money was murdered, and Leonidas is a prime suspect. With the assistance of Cassia, daughter of a Greek scribe who has been bestowed upon him as his slave, Leonidas fights for justice in the back lanes of Imperial Rome. The Necklace Affair (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries) Captain Lacey agrees to help a society matron discover what has become of her cherished diamond necklace and to clear her maid, who has been arrested for its theft. Lacey quickly becomes enmeshed in scandal and past secrets, and finds himself competing with the underworld criminal, James Denis, for the necklace's retrieval. This collection includes three novellas of about 25,000-30,000 words each.

Silent Night


Deanna Raybourn - 2012
    There are missing jewels, new faces at the Abbey, and a prowling ghost that brings back unwelcome memories from a previous holiday—one that turned deadly. Is a new culprit recreating crimes of the past? And will Brisbane let Julia investigate—?

Bellfield Hall: or, the observations of Miss Dido Kent


Anna Dean - 2008
    An engagement party is taking place for Mr Richard Montague, son of wealthy landowner Sir Edgar Montague, and his fiancee Catherine. During a dance with his beloved, a strange thing happens: a man appears at Richard's shoulder and appears to communicate something to him without saying a word. Instantly breaking off the engagement, he rushes off to speak to his father, never to be seen again. Distraught with worry, Catherine sends for her spinster aunt, Miss Dido Kent, who has a penchant for solving mysteries. Catherine pleads with her to find her fiance and to discover the truth behind his disappearance. It's going to take a lot of logical thinking to untangle the complex threads of this multi-layered mystery, and Miss Dido Kent is just the woman to do it.

Veil of Lies


Jeri Westerson - 2008
    Crispin Guest is a disgraced knight, stripped of his rank and his honor - but left with his life - for plotting against Richard II.  Having lost his bethrothed, his friends, his patrons and his position in society.  With no trade to support him and no family willing to acknowledge him, Crispin has turned to the one thing he still has - his wits - to scrape a living together on the mean streets of London.  In 1383, Guest is called to the compound of a merchant - a reclusive mercer who suspects that his wife is being unfaithful and wants Guest to look into the matter.  Not wishing to sully himself in such disgraceful, dishonorable business but in dire need of money, Guest agrees and discovers that the wife is indeed up to something, presumably nothing good.  But when he comes to inform his client, he is found dead - murdered in a sealed room, locked from the inside.  Now Guest has come to the unwanted attention of the Lord Sheriff of London and most recent client was murdered while he was working for him.  And everything seems to turn on a  religious relic - a veil reported to have wiped the brow of Christ - that is now missing.

Lady Helena Investigates


Jane Steen - 2018
     Step into Lady Helena Whitcombe’s world with the first novel in a series that will blend family saga and mystery-driven action with a slow-burn romance in seven unputdownable investigations. 1881, Sussex. Lady Helena Scott-De Quincy’s marriage to Sir Justin Whitcombe, three years before, gave new purpose to a life almost destroyed by the death of Lady Helena’s first love. After all, shouldn’t the preoccupations of a wife and hostess be sufficient to fulfill any aristocratic female’s dreams? Such a shame their union wasn’t blessed by children . . . but Lady Helena is content with her quiet country life until Sir Justin is found dead in the river overlooked by their grand baroque mansion. The intrusion of attractive, mysterious French physician Armand Fortier, with his meddling theory of murder, into Lady Helena’s first weeks of mourning is bad enough. But with her initial ineffective efforts at investigation and her attempts to revive her long-abandoned interest in herbalism comes the realization that she may have been mistaken about her own family’s past. Every family has its secrets—but as this absorbing series will reveal, the Scott-De Quincy family has more than most. Can Lady Helena survive bereavement the second time around? Can she stand up to her six siblings’ assumption of the right to control her new life as a widow? And what role will Fortier—who, as a physician, is a most unsuitable companion for an earl’s daughter—play in her investigations? A new series by Jane Steen, author of the House of Closed Doors series that has delighted thousands of fans (over 300 5-star reviews on Amazon and over 700 5-star ratings on Goodreads.) If you’re looking for an unputdownable Victorian mystery saga, here’s where you start!

Hangman Blind


Cassandra Clark - 2008
    This is no ordinary journey—it is a time of rival popes, a boy king, and a shaky peace in the savage aftermath of Wat Tyler’s murder—and Hildegard has embarked on a perilous mission to try to secure the future of her priory. Traveling alone, she discovers danger, encountering first a gibbet with five bloodied corpses and then the body of a youth, brutally butchered. Who was the boy, how was he connected to the men hanging from the gibbet, and what do these gruesome deaths mean? Hildegard is determined to uncover the truth, no matter how terrible it may be. When even her childhood home, Castle Hutton, turns out not to be a safe haven from murder, Hildegard realizes she will have to summon all of her courage and wisdom to counter the dark forces that threaten her friends and family as well as her country.

Blind Justice


Bruce Alexander - 1994
    Falsely charged of theft in 1768 London, thirteen-year-old orphaned printer's apprentice Jeremy Proctor finds his only hope in the legendary Sir John Fielding. Fielding, founder of the Bow Street Runners police force, then recruits young Jeremy in his mission to fight London's most wicked crimes.

A Rare Benedictine: The Advent of Brother Cadfael


Ellis Peters - 1988
    Here, her chronicles continue with a Christmas story, a tale of robbery and attempted murder, and a narrative of Brother Cadfael's early years.

The King's Justice


E.M. Powell - 2018
    Aelred Barling, esteemed clerk to the justices of King Henry II, is dispatched from the royal court with his young assistant, Hugo Stanton, to investigate a brutal murder in a village outside York.The case appears straightforward. A suspect is under lock and key in the local prison, and the angry villagers are demanding swift justice. But when more bodies are discovered, certainty turns to doubt—and amid the chaos it becomes clear that nobody is above suspicion.Facing growing unrest in the village and the fury of the lord of the manor, Stanton and Barling find themselves drawn into a mystery that defies logic, pursuing a killer who evades capture at every turn.Can they solve the riddle of who is preying upon the villagers? And can they do it without becoming prey themselves?

Death Comes As Epiphany


Sharan Newman - 1993
    She will risk disgrace, the wrath of her family and the Church, and confront an evil older than Time itself--and, if she isn't careful, lose her immortal soul.With Death Comes As Epiphany, the first in the Catherine LeVendeur mystery series, medievalist Sharan Newman has woven dark mystery and sparkling romance into a fascinating and richly detailed tapestry of everyday life in twelfth-century France, and one of the most moving love stories of all time: Abelard and Heloise.

A Shot in the Dark


Neil Richards - 2019
    Mydworth is a sleepy English market town just 50 miles from London. But things are about to liven up there, when young and handsome Sir Harry Mortimer returns home from his diplomatic posting in Cairo, with his beautiful and unconventional American wife, Kat. No sooner have the two arrived, when a jewel robbery occurs at Harry's aunt's home - Mydworth Manor. The police are baffled and overwhelmed with the case. But Harry and Kat have an edge in the hunt for the dangerous culprit: not only do they have certain useful "skills" they've both picked up in service of King, President and Country, they also have access to parts of English society that your average bobby can't reach ...

Cold Comfort


Charles Todd - 2013
    Lieutenant Ian Rutledge has left behind his career at Scotland Yard and is now serving in France. He’s temporarily with the sappers—men digging underground tunnels toward the German lines to set off explosions under the enemy trenches. In his sector, Rutledge and his men set their charges and get out of the tunnel as fast as possible. But the charges don’t go off. It’s madness to go back down and find out why, but Rutledge and Private Williams volunteer. They barely make it back before the tunnel blows up. Rutledge suspects that two Welsh miners cut the fuse too long, even though they deny it.Then Williams confides to Rutledge that these same men, half brothers Taffy Jones and Aaron Lloyd, have tried before this to kill him. And they’re determined enough to risk other men’s lives as well. Rutledge discovers in the midst of a raging battle that murder has made its way to France, and he must find a way to prove it.(This novella can also be found in the anthology Tales: Short Stories Featuring Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford.)

The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes


Lyndsay Faye - 2017
    She immediately became enamored with tales of Holmes and his esteemed biographer Dr. John Watson, and later, began spinning these quintessential characters into her own works of fiction—from her acclaimed debut novel, Dust and Shadow, which pitted the famous detective against Jack the Ripper, to a series of short stories for the Strand Magazine, whose predecessor published the very first Sherlock Holmes short story in 1891.Faye’s best Holmes tales, including two new works, are brought together in The Whole Art of Detection, a stunning collection that spans Holmes’s career, from self-taught young upstart to publicly lauded detective, both before and after his faked death over a Swiss waterfall in 1894. In The Lowther Park Mystery, the unsociable Holmes is forced to attend a garden party at the request of his politician brother and improvises a bit of theater to foil a conspiracy against the government. The Adventure of the Thames Tunnel brings Holmes’s attention to the baffling murder of a jewel thief in the middle of an underground railway passage. With Holmes and Watson encountering all manner of ungrateful relatives, phony psychologists, wronged wives, plaid-garbed villains, and even a peculiar species of deadly red leech, The Whole Art of Detection is a must-read for Sherlockians and any fan of historical crime fiction with a modern sensibility.

Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death


James Runcie - 2012
    Sidney Chambers, vicar of Grantchester and honorary canon of Ely Cathedral, is a thirty-two-year-old bachelor. Tall, with dark brown hair, eyes the color of hazelnuts, and a reassuringly gentle manner, Sidney is an unconventional clerical detective. He can go where the police cannot.Together with his roguish friend, inspector Geordie Keating, Sidney inquires into the suspect suicide of a Cambridge solicitor, a scandalous jewelry theft at a New Year's Eve dinner party, the unexplained death of a jazz promoter's daughter, and a shocking art forgery that puts a close friend in danger. Sidney discovers that being a detective, like being a clergyman, means that you are never off duty, but he nonetheless manages to find time for a keen interest in cricket, warm beer, and hot jazz - as well as a curious fondness for a German widow three years his junior.With a whiff of Agatha Christie and a touch of G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown, The Grantchester Mysteries introduces a wonderful new hero into the world of detective fiction.