Historical Mystery
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One Corpse Too Many (1979), Ellis Peters
Rating: 7/10 Accuracy: Based on the real siege of Shrewsbury in 1138 by King Stephen during…
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The Cater Street Hangman (1979), Anne Perry
Rating: 6/10 Accuracy: Good on Victorian domestic life and the gulf between classes, though the dialogue…
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Waxwork (1978), Peter Lovesey
Rating: 8/10 Accuracy: Superb on the Victorian photography trade, capital punishment and Madame Tussaud’s. Plot: A…
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The Blackheath Poisonings (1978), Julian Symons
Rating: 7/10 Accuracy: Strong on Victorian middle-class family life, law and the social importance of respectability.…
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A Morbid Taste for Bones (1977), Ellis Peters
Rating: 8/10 Accuracy: Well grounded in twelfth-century England and Wales, from monastic life to Welsh law…
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Crocodile on the Sandbank (1975), Elizabeth Peters
Rating: 7/10 Accuracy: Knowledgeable on Egyptology and on Egypt in the 1880s; the author was a…
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The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1974), Nicholas Meyer
Rating: 7/10 Accuracy: Solid on the Vienna of Freud and on Victorian drug culture, though the…
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The Hungry Goblin (1972), John Dickson Carr
Rating: 5/10 Accuracy: Pleasant period detail on 1869 London and on Wilkie Collins, but the history…
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Wobble to Death (1970), Peter Lovesey
Rating: 7/10 Accuracy: Excellent on the Victorian craze for pedestrianism, the six-day walking races that drew…
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Papa Là-Bas (1968), John Dickson Carr
Rating: 6/10 Accuracy: Lively on antebellum New Orleans, with its Creole society, duelling codes and voodoo…
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Murder in Canton (1966), Robert van Gulik
Rating: 6/10 Accuracy: Vivid on the cosmopolitan port of Canton and its Arab traders, though the…
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The Willow Pattern (1965), Robert van Gulik
Rating: 6/10 Accuracy: Evocative of a plague-stricken capital and its aristocratic families, with van Gulik’s usual…
