My Review (5 stars out of 5) Newcastle, 1650. Parliamentarian spy James Archer travels back to the city of his birth in search of his sister Meg, missing in the aftermath of Newcastle’s witch trials. Amid an atmosphere of treachery, deceit and lies, Archer strives to find someone he can trust who might lead him…
Category: Historical
‘Something Wicked’ by Carol Ann Lee
My Review (5 stars out of 5) (Audiobook) In 1612, ten people from Pendle were executed as witches. Most of the information known comes from Thomas Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches, but now true-crime author Carol Ann Lee takes an in-depth view of the case, exploring the lives of the people involved, their backgrounds and…
‘A Boundary of Stones’ by Millie Thom
My Review (5 stars out of 5) In the 1660s, bubonic plague sweeps through the Derbyshire village of Eyam. New rector, William Mompesson and his family, must try to work with the community to combat the disease but his faith is at odds with that of the people and their Puritan rector Thomas Stanley. Eventually,…
‘Mary Ann Cotton – Dark Angel’ by Martin Connolly
My Review (5 stars out of 5) In West Auckland, County Durham, in 1872, Mary Ann Cotton was arrested and charged with the murder of her stepson. Married four times and supposedly having borne twelve children, she was found guilty and hanged in Durham Goal. Charting the details of the trials and claims she may…
‘Henry VIII – King and Court’ by Alison Weir
My Review (5 stars out of 5) Alison Weir’s highly researched book explodes the life of Henry VIII and that of his court. While the book does not give as thorough an accounting of the six wives (which Weir delves into in greater detail in another book), we do get the low-down on the day-to-day…
‘The Lost Queen’ by Carol McGrath
My Review (4 stars out of 5) Berengaria of Navarre is destined to be the wife and queen of King Richard I (Richard the Lionheart). This story relates how Berengaria’s future mother-in-law, Eleanor of Aquitaine, took her on a journey to meet up with the young woman’s future husband, Richard. I’d never heard of Berengaria,…
‘The Shadow of Death’ by Philip E Ginsburg
My Review (5 stars out of 5) (Audiobook) During the 1980s, a killer stabbed six women in the Connecticut River Valley, between New Hampshire and Vermont. Despite rigorous investigations, the murderer has never been caught. Author Philip E. Ginsburg reveals the pioneering forensic methods police and FBI agents used to track the killer. The only…
‘The Custard Corpses’ by MJ Porter
My Review (5 stars out of 5) (Audiobook) Birmingham, 1943. A twenty-year-old murder sets Chief Inspector Mason on the trail of a killer. Along with his sidekick Constable O’Rourke, he investigates the death of a boy – Robert McFarlane – who was murdered in 1923. Weirdly, although the body was discovered on dry land, the…
‘A Woman of No Importance’ by Sonia Purnell
My Review (5 stars out of 5) In September 1941, a young American woman posing as a journalist arrived in Vichy, France. Her task was to work with the French resistance to sabotage, upset, and divert the Nazi invaders. By 1942 the Gestapo were hot on her heels, but Virginia Hall continued to slip through…
‘London Tales’ by Tim Walker
My Review (4 stars out of 5) This is another collection of stories from Tim Walker, with eleven tales taken from various points along London’s timeline. Subjects range from legendary Iceni queen, Boudica (seen from the point of view of the Romans), to more modern stories set in the twentieth century, such as a tale…
Colin Garrow 