Historical Medical Mystery

Keeping watch over the Easter Sepulchre, where the Host and crucifix are stored between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, is considered a privilege. So it is shocking when it is discovered that Odo, the priest’s clerk, has abandoned his post. But as the hours pass and Odo is not found, Hugh de Singleton is called upon. It is Hugh that finds the dried blood before the altar, and fear grows for the missing man … Will Hugh be called upon to investigate another murder, or will the man be found hale and hearty? But if so, where has the blood come from?

The Sherlockian Canon, as prolific as it is, contains few accounts in which Mr. Holmes and his medical colleagues Doctors Watson and Verner solve cases involving frightening medical conditions. It strikes me that many more such cases were successfully solved by Mr. Holmes and his associates. It is unlikely that Doctors Watson and Verner would allow such mysteries remain unsolved.

When the Black Death enters England through the port in Dorsetshire in June 1348, no one knows what manner of sickness it is - or how it spreads and kills so quickly. The Church cites God as the cause, and fear grips the people as they come to believe that the plague is a punishment for wickedness. But Lady Anne of Develish has her own ideas. Educated by nuns, Anne is a rarity among women, being both literate and knowledgeable. With her brutal husband absent from the manor when news of this pestilence reaches her, she looks for more sensible ways to protect her people than confession.

Penrose and Pyke go together like fire and kerosene in this first-in-series Victorian era mystery. Trouble’s brewing in the Devil’s Half Acre. A death in an alleyway, a tragic accident in a factory, rumours of a murderer loose on the streets. It’s enough to give a genteel lady a fit of the vapours. Fortunately, Grace Penrose isn’t one to swoon at the sight of blood. All she wants is the chance to become the first female doctor in the colony. Instead, she must confront the harsh realities of the city’s most notorious sweatshop. When the police prove reluctant to investigate the ...

Philadelphia, 1875: It is the start of term at Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. Dr. Lydia Weston, professor and anatomist, is immersed in teaching her students in the lecture hall and hospital. When the body of a patient, Anna Ward, is dredged out of the Schuylkill River, the young chambermaid’s death is deemed suicide. But Lydia is suspicious and she is soon brought into the police investigation.

Hambledon, Pennsylvania, is still reeling from the sensational murder trial that shattered the peace of the bucolic hamlet less than a year ago. Dr. Jonathan Ferrier was accused of killing his beautiful young wife after she died following a botched abortion. The scion of a powerful old eastern family, Jonathan hired the best attorneys money could buy. When he was acquitted, many believed he had bought his freedom. Now, he has returned home to sell his practice and move on. But haunted by his wife's death, Jonathan still strives to heal the judgmental people of his divided town.

Napoleon has been defeated at Waterloo, and the ensuing peace brings with it both the desertion of nearly half of Captain Aubrey's crew and the sudden dimming of Aubrey's career prospects in a peacetime navy. When the Surprise is nearly sunk on her way to South America - where Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are to help Chile assert her independence from Spain - the delay occasioned by repairs reaps a harvest of strange consequences.

Murderous Affair A thrilling murder mystery novel set in the foggy streets of Northstead during the late 1920s. Follow Dr. Simon, a weary and overworked doctor, as he navigates through a web of deceit and danger in this compelling tale of love, jealousy, and murder. Dr. Simon’s night takes a sinister turn when he is mistakenly called to the neighboring Ivy Lodge instead of Mr. Cooper’s home. There, he discovers the dying Ronald Farrah, a young man with a connection to the enigmatic Cooper household. As the dense fog envelops the town, Dr. Simon finds himself drawn into a complex ...

November 1866: The grisly murder site in London's East End is thronged with onlookers. None of them expect the calmly efficient young woman among them to be a medical doctor, arrived to examine the corpse. Inspector Richard Tennant, overseeing the investigation, at first makes no effort to disguise his skepticism. But Dr. Julia Lewis is accustomed to such condescension . . . To study medicine, Julia had to leave Britain, where universities still bar their doors to women, and travel to America. She returned home to work in her grandfather's practice.

Neither is his young assistant, Abigail Platford, immune to Dr. Rome's persuasive charm. Abigail once dreamed of becoming a doctor, though of a much different sort. That dream ended with her father's tragic death from a medical error for which she holds herself responsible. But Dr. Rome, who proudly displays his medical degree from Johns Hopkins, seems to believe in her. If he were willing to act as her mentor, might there still be a chance to fulfill her dream of someday becoming a doctor serving New York City's poor?

In the morgue of a Philadelphia hospital, a group of physicians open a coffin and uncover the corpse of a beautiful young woman. What they see takes their breath away. Within days, one of them strongly suspects that he knows the woman's identity - and the horrifying events that led to her death.

Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon Stephen Maturin sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy - and a dangerous disease which decimates the crew.

Claire Shipley is a single mother haunted by the death of her young daughter and by her divorce years ago. She is also an ambitious photojournalist, and in the anxious days after Pearl Harbor, the talented Life magazine reporter finds herself on top of one of the nation's most important stories.

Whispers of misconduct swirl around Grace Penrose, when a prominent surgeon has a fatal seizure on their moonlit stroll together. Grace and the victim are on opposing sides of a feud over hospital services for women. How could she refuse his invitation to resolve their differences in private? When he dies despite her attempts to save him, and his unusual symptoms further implicate her, it’s not only her personal and professional reputation at risk. As the case becomes ever more baffling, the only thing Grace needs more than Charlie Pyke’s sleuthing skills is his uncanny knack of ...

A Small Town, Absurdist, Dark Humor from the Twisted Mind of Count Fathom. A dying man delivers, with his last breath, a message to a tavern full of drunks, in a storm. Struck by lightning, this modern prophet says he speaks with the stars and beyond. His message he sets in the hearts of the new apostles. They, in turn, spread the message to build a brand around the Martyr, bringing unity, hope, and financial prosperity to the town, and to themselves most of all. The drunks spill their cups in a mad dash down fortune’s path, as greed leads the town astray. Cursed with the common self-...

In Hearts Beneath the Ashes of Pompeii, healer Lucia Valerius and Egyptian physician Khai risk everything to uncover a deadly secret—and protect a love society forbids. As Pompeii teeters on the brink, they must fight prejudice, passion, and time itself in a race to heal a city—and their hearts.

Fourteenth-century physician Alejandro Guzman, caught performing an autopsy in Spain, flees across Europe at the time of the Black Death to escape execution for his heretical deed. When he arrives in the Papal city of Avignon, he is conscripted against his will to serve as a Plague Doctor in the court of England's Edward III. Unfolding in a dramatic counterpoint is the story of American medical archaeologist Janie Crowe, in England at the turn of the 21st century to recover from the tragic loss of her family.

In the shadows of New York City lies forbidden North Brother Island, where the remains of a shuttered sanatorium hide the haunting memories of century-old quarantines and human experiments. The ruins conceal the scarred and beautiful Cora, imprisoned by contagions and the doctors who torment her.

Jeff's cancer has metastasized and he is preparing himself for death. He has never married and he has no children. At thirty-five years old he's never found the one. Until he meets Nurse Madison. A mysterious woman whom no one knows anything about. Jeff is smitten. This is the woman of his dreams. The best part is she can cure Jeff. But in doing so could make her have to leave his reality. The sixth episode of The Night Portals series explores what lengths some people will go to for the person they love.

Penrose and Pyke are under siege. A mischievous gossip, a series of robberies, and now a callous murder and a looming epidemic. How much worse can it get? When a shopkeeper is killed during a robbery, Detective Charlie Pyke is desperate to track down the killer for reasons close to his heart. If only it was that simple. A tell-all article in the local ladies’ journal threatens both his investigation and his private life. Charlie needs Grace Penrose to stand by him, but she has her hands full preventing a deadly outbreak of measles. The rash of clues only starts to make sense when they ...