The Mystery Press

Following in the great British traditions of novelists such as Agatha Christie and characters like literary detective Sherlock Holmes, The Mystery Press imprint is home to our historical crime fiction books and offers a real mix of genres to appeal to serious crime fiction readers as well as all those who just simply love a good read. From detective fiction and Victorian crime, to stories of killers, villains and underworld mob bosses, each title is steeped in historical detail with a strong regional setting.

Discover our series:

Frances Doughty
London, 1881: Frances Doughty, Bayswater’s very own Lady Detective, undertakes a thrilling series of cases that stretch her powers of deduction – and her courage – to the limit.

Dan Markham
A gritty noir series set in 1950s Leeds and featuring private enquiry agent Dan Markham – this gripping series will appeal to all fans of historical thrillers.

Edwin Weaver
Yorkshire 1217: England has been invaded and civil war rages as the King tries to fight off the French. Most of this means nothing to commoner Edwin Weaver, son of the bailiff at Conisbrough Castle, until he is suddenly thrust into the noble world of politics and treachery: he is ordered by his lord the earl to solve a murder which might have repercussions not just for him but for the future of the realm.

John the Carpenter
Orphaned by the Black Death in medieval Leeds, all young John has left are the tools his father, a carpenter, leaves behind. Leaving the poverty and plague of the city behind, John travels to Chesterfield, where he soon finds himself embroiled in cases of corruption and murder.

Lottie Armstrong
Leeds, 1924: Still reeling from the effects of the Great War, life in the city of Leeds is hard: poverty is rife, work is scarce and crime is becoming more sophisticated. Bravely entering this maelstrom is one of the city's first policewomen to walk the beat, WPC Lottie Armstrong.

Ursula Grandison
An Edwardian mystery series set in Somerset and London sees American sleuth Ursula Grandison become tangled in a web of lies and deception that ultimately leads to murder.

Detective Inspector Paul Snow
Set in Yorkshire in the 1980s, these dark and chilling thrillers maintain a high level of tension and dramatic surprises. Detective Inspector Paul Snow races against the clock to unmask some brutal killers, following a murderous trail that leads all the way to a dark and shocking climax.

Jack Swann
Murder mysteries set in Regency Bath at the time of Jane Austen. Jack Swann is, on the surface, a typical gentleman of the Regency period; educated, literate and well-heeled. Haunted by the murder of his father when he was a child – the perpetrators of which having never been caught – Swann has, however, turned his back on this world and chosen instead to fight crime as ‘The Regency Detective’.

Antonia Darcy and Major Payne
Husband-and-wife detective duo Antonia Darcy and Major Hugh Payne take on two murder mysteries that pay homage to the classical detective stories of Agatha Christie.

Sergeant Best
Victorian London: Scotland Yard’s Ernest Best straddles the conflicting worlds of wealth and privilege and that of poverty and squalor in a series of dramatic cases set against true-life tragedies.