Best Historical Mystery Novels

The War Against Miss Winter is the first book in the Rosie Winter series. This story takes place in 1943 during World War 2. Rosie has to deal with rationing, overdue rent, her missing in action boyfriend and her antagonist and neighbor, Ruby.

Rosie works at a detective agency as a part time file clerk. One day she walks into the office to find her boss dead in the office closet when it appears he has hung himself (at least it appears that way to the police).

Rosie ends up trying to run the business herself while working on a play, playing amateur detective and trying to solve her bosses' murder all at the same time. She finds that the murder may be linked to a missing play script. Meanwhile, Ruby, Rosie's neighbor and some time antagonist tries her best to sabotage Rosie's budding show biz career.

This book is very interesting and it shows Rosie as a woman well ahead of her time. She has grit, determination and fortitude as she deals with a murder, annoying acquaintances, a missing in action boyfriend, rationing and other war related issues. The plot is fast paced and the characters are well developed and make for a great debut book in this series.

The Winter of Her Discontent is the 2nd book in the Rosie Winter series by Kathryn Miller Haines. Like its precursor, The War against Miss Winter, it again features Rosie, best friend Jayne and antagonist Ruby.

The story takes place in New York City during World War Two. Men are off to war including Rosie's absentee boyfriend Jack and meat, stockings and butter are all being rationed. Rosie's pal Al (a mob muscle man) is wrongly accused of murder and sent to jail. To make matters worse, Al confesses to the crime.

This book is very interesting, particularly if you are interested in history. The story includes a lot of background information regarding what is happening in New York at the time of World War 2. The book combines this historical view with a more personal view of Rosie and her friend Jane, and her antagonist Ruby.

The author weaves the various stories well and you really start to feel as if you know the characters personally. It shows how Rosie works hard to help a friend wrongly accused of a crime because she has a keen sense of loyalty.

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The War Against Miss Winter

The Winter of Her Discontent:
A Rosie Winter Mystery
(Rosie Winter Mysteries)

Winter in June is the latest book in the Rosie Winter series by Kathryn Miller Haines, and I found it to be the best. In the first two novels of the series, The War Against Miss Winter and the Winter of Her Discontent, the action takes place in New York City at war time and revolves around the theatre where Rosie, Jane and antagonist Ruby are working.

In this third novel, Rosie and Jane have decided to join the USO camp shows. Rosie sees this as the perfect opportunity to hunt down her missing in action ex-boyfriend Jack. Before Rosie and Jane could even board the Queen of the Ocean ship to start their journey, a woman's body is discovered face down in the water. When Rosie looks at the woman, she seems familiar, but it isn't until later in the novel that we discover why.

While on the boat, Rosie and Jane meet Kay, Violet and Gilda, a rising star. Although meeting the other performing women is a treat, Rosie has difficulty finding her sea legs, and ends up spending a great deal of the trip sick.

Once overseas at Tulagi, the main South Pacific base, Rosie starts to question all around her in hopes of finding out any type of information regarding Jack. However, few if any appear to know anything about Jack's disappearance. Rosie and the women start to perform for the soldiers while trying to keep some type of normalcy amongst themselves, the WAC's (who don't like them), and the soldiers.

The mystery starts to pick up when a sniper kills one of the performers and injures another and the identity of the mysterious dead women back at the harbor is identified as a former WAC connected to acting.

This is a great mystery within a mystery as the murders; missing supplies and the disappearance of Jack are all tied in together well.

When Winter Returns is the latest Rosie Winter mystery by Kathryn Miller Haines. Like its predecesers, this mystery is a really good one. Rosie and her best friend Jane return from a USO trip to the South Pacific to find that their room has been rented to someone else. They find that Jane has to room with the new person and Rosie has to stay with her nemesis Ruby.

All the women find that they are unable to get any jobs due to their work against a mobster who is out for revenge. The girls also learn that Rosie's one time boyfriend Jack not only is in trouble for desertion but has severe war injuries, and Jane's deceased fiancee isn't who he appeared to be. The girls also find themselves trying to hide Jane's friend Al from her former boyfriend, mobster Tony.

All in all a great read with the same enjoyable characters that are present in the previous novels. Hopefully there are more Rosie Winter novels to come!

Death Was the Other Woman stars private investigator Dex Theroux, and his loyal secretary Kitty Pangborn. While Dex may be the private investigator, Kitty really holds things together. You see, Dex had a penchant for booze and lots of it. So when Dex and Kitty get the case of Rita Heppelwaite, Kitty has to not only help her boss with the case, but also with his sobriety. Dex and Kitty are asked by Rita to trail her lover; Harrison Dempsey who Rita thinks is cheating on her.

This was an enjoyable mystery filled with disappearing dead bodies, and a lot of 1930's details. The mystery starts has sharp dialogue and well defined characters. Kitty and Dex soon learn, that cheating is only the tip of the iceberg in this well written, fast paced period mystery.

Death Was in The Picture is the second book in the Kitty Pangborn series, which stars Kitty and her private investigator boss, Dex Theroux. In this installment, Dex is hired to trail Laird Windham a movie star with supposed questionable morals. When Dex goes to a party, he sees Windham leaving the scene of a murder.

It doesn't take long for Dex and Kitty to realize that Xander Dean, the man who hired them set them up to see the murder, or rather, the after affects of the murder. Windham then hires Dex to prove his innocence.

This is a great follow-up mystery to Death Was The Other Woman. It has everything a great mystery needs; a lot of twists and turns and red herrings. All is not as it seems with any of the clients in the story. Again, there is great descriptions of life during the 1930's and the depression.

Death Was in the Picture:
A Mystery

Death Was the Other Woman:
A Mystery

Masie Dobbs was only 13 when her mom died, so Massie had to work hard to help her dad make ends meet. Employed by Lady Rowan Compton as a servant, Maisie shows a great interest in reading and a thirst for knowledge. Her employer's friend, Dr. Maurice Blanche encourages Maisie and becomes her mentor. She is bright enough to go to Cambridge, but shortly after finishing her studies, she becomes a nurse and falls in love with a doctor. She then becomes a private investigator, starting her own business in 1929 after having been an apprentice to Mr. Blanche.

Maisie's first case is a matter of infidelity, but things are not as simple as they appear to be. Maisie is a bright, working class heroine who discovers her first case is very complicated. It ends up involving the death of a soldier, a man simply known as Vincent, a soldier somehow tied to the woman she has been following.

Maisie uses her smarts and intuition to figure out the mystery involved. There are no usual red herrings or twists and turns in this first book of the series, leading it to be not a big mystery novel, but definitely an enjoyable read.

The character of Maisie isn't that well defined, but near the
end, we see a different side of her when she comes face to face with the man she had fallen in love with during the war, Captain Simon Lynch.

In Jacqueline Winspear's Birds of A Feather, Maisie Dobbs has been hired by Joseph Waite to find his missing daughter Charlotte. Charlotte has a way of taking off and disappearing for short periods of time probably because her father treats her like a child. Charlotte's father, not wishing to get the police involved, decides to hire Maisie to look for Charlotte.

Soon, Maisie discovers that former friends of Charlotte have either killed themselves or are being murdered. Maisie has the difficult task of not only finding Charlotte, but also finding out if Charlotte is also a target for murder, or is she herself is committing the crimes.

This is a very intriguing book and the characters are well defined. The author does a thorough explanation at the end of the book regarding the role of the white feathers found at two of the murder scenes. Overall, this is a great book in the series, and I would rate it a 5/5.

Maisie Dobbs

Birds of a Feather
(Maisie Dobbs Mysteries)

Pardonable Lies, a Maisie Dobbs novel, by Jacqueline Winspear, is the third book in the Maisie Dobbs series, following Maisie Dobbs and Birds of A Feather. While I really enjoyed the first two books, I found Pardonable Lies a weaker entry in the series.

In this book, psychologist and investigator Maisie is involved in three cases. At the very beginning of the book, we meet a 13 year old girl, Avris who is accused of murder and who wouldn't speak to anyone questioning her until she meets Maisie. Next Maisie is asked to find the only son of Sir Lawton, a man supposedly shot down behind enemy lines during the war. Finally, Maisie's friend Priscilla, asks her to look into the circumstances surrounding her brother's disappearance in France.

While these cases seem very diversified, it will become obvious that there is some link between them, even before you get very far into the book. While all of the Maisie Dobbs mysteries tend to start out slowly, the pace in this one pretty much stayed there. There are some attempts on Maisie's life as she tries to piece together where the missing brother, Peter and the missing son Ralph are connected.

While there is the usual setting and descriptions relating to the post war era, the character of Maisie seems to spend a lot of her time, just wandering around, waiting for clues to find her. I don't feel that this book was well thought out, and it drags on with Maisie, Billy (her handyman) and the other characters, lifeless and dull. As she often does, Maisie sends Billy off to investigate one of the mysteries, while she works on the other two. While I have enjoyed the first two books in this series immensely, I cannot recommend this one.

Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear is an excellent mystery in the Maisie Dobbs series. At the beginning of this novel, Maisie witnesses a man commit suicide with a bomb on a busy London Street. While Maisie is witnessing this, Maisie herself was being witnessed, by a person who will be threatening to cause mass destruction should his/her demands not be met.

Maisie is questioned about what she sees by Chief Superintendent Robert MacFarlane of Scotland Yard and then enlisted as a special advisor on the case. Maisie deduces that whoever the man is who killed himself and whoever is making the threats, could very well be suffering from shell-shock.

As Maisie and the Superintendent and his men work to try and find the connection of the dead man to the man making the threats, the man follows through on his threats by killing a group of dogs. Now believing this person's threats may be escalated, Maisie steps up her investigation and soon learns that a Dr. Lawrence may somehow be involved. Dr. Lawrence, an expert in the treatment of psychological damage which is war related, has some secrets of his own, and may be related to the person behind the threats.

This book explores a little more about shell-shock from the Great War than the previous books in the series. I found Among the Mad to be more interesting and a little better written than Pardonable Lies and An Incomplete Revenge. The book moved at a good pace and although the mystery wasn't profound, it certainly kept your interest. My only complain about this book was that the story was a little slow about three quarters of the way through the book. Things could have been summed up nicely in a quicker fashion.

This book also explores the problem with Billy Beale's wife, Doreen, who is still having a great deal of trouble dealing with the loss of their daughter the previous year. This book gives good insight into the troubling way Doreen was treated by doctors trying to "shock" her back into her old self.

Again, Maisie is seen as a strong independent woman, who is capable of being a good investigator, and a good friend. She is not willing to compromise on what she feels is important. We also see a little bit of a more personal side of Maisie as she invites the Superintendent to have dinner with her. I suspect that the author may be trying to set up a little romance between Maisie and either the Superintendent or Detective Inspector Stratton. I hope this is the case. Among the Mad is an excellent book in the Maisie Dobbs series and I highly recommend it.

Wendy's books





A Fatal Waltz

by Tasha Alexander

A Fatal Waltz is the third book in the Lady Emily Ashton series, set in Victorian England. In this installment, Lady Emily agrees to attend a party at the home of Lord Fortescue, a powerful man who Emily finds despicable. But her good frie...





Among the Mad

by Jacqueline Winspear


Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear is an excellent mystery in the Maisie Dobbs series. At the beginning of this novel, Maisie witnesses a man commit suicide with a bomb on a busy London Street. While Maisie is witnessing this, Maisi...





Booby Trap

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

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The Call of the Wild

by Jack London

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Poppy Done to Death

by Charlaine Harris




Thirty six year old librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden is a widow who lives in Lawrenceton Georgia, a small town where everyone seems to know everyone else. It's also the sort of place where certain people are divorced from other ...






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