Historical Audiobooks | Mystery, Thriller & Horror

Ginger Gold Mysteries Bundle: Books 1-3 Audiobook

The first 3 books of the acclaimed Ginger Gold Mystery series by USA Today bestselling author Lee Strauss. MURDER ON THE SS ROSA Murder's a pain in the bow! It's 1923 and young war widow fashionista Ginger Gold makes a cross-Atlantic journey with her companion Haley Higgins to London England to settle her father's estate. When the ship's captain is found dead, Ginger is only too happy to lend her assistance to the handsome Chief Inspector Basil Reed. Whatever will she wear? MURDER AT HARTIGAN HOUSE There's a skeleton in the attic! After a weeklong passage over the Atlantic from Boston to Liverpool, Ginger Gold arrives at her childhood London home--Hartigan House--to find decade-old remains from some poor woman on the floor in the attic. Ginger's Boston terrier, Boss, noses out a missing phalange from under the bed. It's a mystery that once again puts Ginger alongside the handsome Chief Inspector Basil Reed. Who is the victim? And how did she end up in Ginger's home? MURDER AT BRAY MANOR A poltergeist guilty of murder? Ginger Gold receives a letter from her sister-in-law, Felicia, requesting Ginger come straightaway to her late husband's family home, Bray Manor. Dowager Lady Gold, Ginger's nervous grandmother through marriage, believes the old manor is haunted. Ginger doesn't believe in ghosts, but is haunted nevertheless by memories of her husband and the lure of his gravesite she just can't bring herself to visit.

Lee Strauss (Author), Elizabeth Klett (Narrator)

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Harlem Sunset

Named a 2022 People Magazine best book of the summer! A riveting Harlem Renaissance Mystery featuring Louise Lloyd, a young Black woman working in a hot new speakeasy when she gets caught up in a murder that hits too close to home... Harlem, 1927. Twenty-seven-year-old Louise Lloyd has found the perfect job! She is the new manager of the Dove, a club owned by her close friend Rafael Moreno. There Louise meets Nora Davies, one of the girls she was kidnapped with a decade ago. The two women-along with Rafael and his sister, Louise's girlfriend, Rosa Maria-spend the night at the Dove, drinking and talking. The next morning, Rosa Maria wakes up covered in blood, with no memory of the previous night. Nora is lying dead in the middle of the dance floor. Louise knows Rosa Maria couldn't have killed Nora, but the police have a hard time believing that no one can remember anything at all about what happened. When Louise and Rosa Maria return to their apartment after being questioned by the police, they find the word GUILTY written across the living room wall in paint that looks a lot like blood. Someone has gone to great lengths to frame and terrify Rosa Maria, and Louise will stop at nothing to clear the woman she loves.

Nekesa Afia (Author), Shayna Small (Narrator)

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Ashton Hall: A Novel

An American woman and her son stumble upon the dark history of a rambling English manor house in this "masterful, riveting, and atmospheric" (Alka Joshi, author of The Henna Artist) novel from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Belfer. "With vibrant prose, Lauren Belfer shepherds us through a centuries-old mystery and into a modern-day introspection on motherhood, marriage, and love."-Georgia Hunter, New York Times bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones When a close relative falls ill, Hannah Larson and her young son, Nicky, join him for the summer at Ashton Hall, a historic manor house outside Cambridge, England. A frustrated academic whose ambitions have been subsumed by the challenges of raising her beloved child, Hannah longs to escape her life in New York City, where her marriage has been upended by a recently discovered and devastating betrayal. Soon after their arrival, ever-curious Nicky finds the skeletal remains of a woman walled into a forgotten part of the manor, and Hannah is pulled into an all-consuming quest for answers, Nicky close by her side. Working from clues in centuries-old ledgers showing what the woman's household spent on everything from music to medicine; lists of books checked out of the library; and the troubling personal papers of the long-departed family, Hannah begins to recreate the Ashton Hall of the Elizabethan era in all its color and conflict. As the multilayered secrets of her own life begin to unravel, Hannah comes to realize that Ashton Hall's women before her had lives not so different from her own, and she confronts what mothers throughout history have had to do to secure their independence and protect their children. "Infused with the brooding, gothic atmosphere of Jane Eyre or Rebecca" (Melanie Benjamin, author of The Children's Blizzard) and rich with female passion, strength, and ferocity across the ages, Ashton Hall is a novel that reveals how the most profound hauntings are within ourselves.

Lauren Belfer (Author), Jayne Entwistle, Kristen Sieh (Narrator)

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A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons

London, 1923. Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh is the first woman to hold the position at University College of London. When she attends a dinner party for the school, she expects to engage in conversations about the university's large expedition to the Amazon. What she doesn't expect is for Mrs. Henry, one of the professors' wives, to drop to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin. Dr. Maxwell, Saffron's mentor, is the main suspect, and evidence quickly mounts. Joined by flirtatious fellow researcher Alexander Ashton, Saffron uses her knowledge of botany as she explores steamy greenhouses, dark gardens, and deadly poisons to clear Maxwell's name. Will she be able to uncover the truth, or will her investigation land her on the murderer's list? In this entertaining examination of society's expectations, debut author Kate Khavari deftly sheds a light on the struggles of women in a male-dominated field, wrapped in mystery and murder.

Kate Khavari (Author), Jodie Harris (Narrator)

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Tomboy: A Jane Benjamin Novel

It’s 1939. Jane’s got five days at sea to solve the murder of a Wimbledon champion’s coach and submit a gossip column that tells the truth. If not the facts... On the brink of World War II, Jane Benjamin wants to have it all. By day she hustles as a scruffy, tomboy cub reporter. By night she secretly struggles to raise her toddler sister, Elsie, and protect her from their mother. But Jane’s got a plan: she’ll become the San Francisco Prospect’s first gossip columnist and make enough money to care for Elsie. Jane finagles her way to the women’s championship at Wimbledon, starring her hometown’s tennis phenom and cover girl Tommie O’Rourke. She plans to write her first column there. But then she witnesses Edith “Coach” Carlson, Tommie’s closest companion, drop dead in the stands of apparent heart attack, and her plan is thrown off track. While sailing home on the RMS Queen Mary, Jane veers between competing instincts: Should she write a social bombshell column, personally damaging her new friend Tommie’s persona and career? Or should she work to uncover the truth of Coach’s death, which she now knows was a murder, and its connection to a larger conspiracy involving US participation in the coming war? Putting away her menswear and donning first-class ballgowns, Jane discovers what upper-class status hides, protects, and destroys. Ultimately—like nations around the globe in 1939—she must choose what she’ll give up in order to do what’s right.

Shelley Blanton-Stroud (Author), April Doty (Narrator)

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Murder at the Dressmaker's Salon: Cleopatra Fox Mysteries, book 4

As fashion designer to London’s elite, she had an eye for detail and a flare for the dramatic. But there’s nothing stylish about her cold-blooded murder. With the social season just around the corner, the women in Cleo’s family are having new outfits made by the most sought-after designer in the city. Madame Poitiers is bold, self-absorbed and not French, despite her claims. When Cleo stumbles on her dead body in the salon, she is in a unique position to gather clues and speak to witnesses. But she doesn’t expect to find Harry Armitage’s business card in Madame’s possession. What is the alluring private detective’s connection to the victim? And why is he avoiding Cleo? As she peeks behind the veil of lies, Cleo uncovers the secrets Madame Poitiers tried to hide. But which secret led to her murder? And which one of the suspects turned the fashion icon into a fashion victim?

C.J. Archer (Author), Marian Hussey (Narrator)

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The Physicists' Daughter

New Orleans, 1944. Sabotage-that's the word on factory worker Justine Byrne's mind as she is repeatedly called to weld machine parts that keep failing with no clear cause. Could someone inside the secretive Carbon Division be deliberately undermining the factory's war efforts? Raised by her late parents to think logically, she also can't help wondering just what the oddly shaped carbon gadgets she assembles day after day have to do with the boats the factory builds... When a crane inexplicably crashes to the factory floor, leaving a woman dead, Justine can no longer ignore her nagging fear that German spies are at work within the building, trying to put the factory and its workers out of commission. Unable to trust anyone?not the charming men vying for her attention, not her unpleasant boss, and not even the women who work beside her?Justine draws on the legacy of her unconventional upbringing to keep her division running and protect her coworkers, her country, and herself from a war that is suddenly very close to home.

Mary Anna Evans (Author), Kimberly M. Wetherell (Narrator)

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The Secret Adversary

Two young adventurers for hire. Willing to do anything, go anywhere. Pay must be good. No unreasonable offer refused. Tommy Beresford and Prudence “Tuppence” Cowley are young, in love … and flat broke. Restless for excitement and facing a shortage of job opportunities in postwar London, they decide to embark on a daring business scheme: Young Adventurers Ltd.—“willing to do anything, go anywhere.” But they get more than they bargained for when their first assignment leads them into a series of increasingly dangerous situations involving international spies, a society beauty, a Russian count, the wreck of the RMS Lusitania, an amnesia patient, an American millionaire, and a fiendishly clever archcriminal known only as “Mr. Brown.” Dame Agatha Christie’s second novel is the first in a series that spanned her career as a writer, and she has said that the Tommy and Tuppence mysteries were the stories she enjoyed writing the most. With a special, dramatized reading by Gabrielle de Cuir and Paul Boehmer, and featuring Stefan Rudnicki as “Carter,” you will soon see why!

Agatha Christie (Author), Gabrielle De Cuir, Paul Boehmer, Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator)

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The Darling Dahlias and the Red Hot Poker

It's Labor Day weekend, 1935, and members of the Darling Dahlias?the garden club in little Darling, Alabama?are trying to keep their cool at the end of a sizzling summer. This isn't easy, though, since there's a firebug on the loose in Darling. He?or she!?strikes without apparent rhyme or reason, and things have gotten to the point where nobody feels safe. What's more, a dangerous hurricane is poised to hurl itself in Darling's direction, while a hurricane of a different sort is making a whirlwind campaign stop: the much-loved-much-hated senator from Louisiana, Huey P. Long, whom President Roosevelt calls the "most dangerous man in America." Add Ophelia Snow's secret heartthrob, Liz Lacy's Yankee lover, and the Magnolia Ladies' garden of red hot pokers, fire-red salvia, and hot pink cosmos, and you have a volatile mix that might just burst into flames at any moment. Author Susan Wittig Albert has brought us another delightful assortment of richly human characters who face the challenges of the Great Depression with courage and grace. Her books remind us that friends offer the best of themselves to each other, community is what holds us together, and even when life seems too hot to handle, there's always hope.

Susan Wittig Albert (Author), Peggity Price (Narrator)

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The Corpse in the Waxworks

Last night Mademoiselle Duchêne was seen heading into the Gallery of Horrors at the Musée Augustin waxworks, alive. Today she was found in the Seine, murdered. The museum's proprietor, long perturbed by the unnatural vitality of his figures, claims that he saw one of them following the victim into the dark; a lead that Henri Bencolin, head of the Paris police and expert of impossible crimes, cannot resist. Surrounded by the eerie noises of the night, Bencolin prepares to enter the ill-fated waxworks. Waiting within, beneath the glass-eyed gaze of a leering waxen satyr, is a gruesome discovery and the first clues of a twisted and ingenious mystery. First published in 1932 at the height of crime fiction's Golden Age, this macabre and atmospheric dive into the murky underground of Parisian society presents a puzzle delivered at a stunning pace.

John Dickson Carr (Author), John Telfer (Narrator)

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The Sister Taken

The Amazon Charts #1 Bestselling Mystery Series A missing twin. A wayward sister. A 'jaw-dropping' twist. The shocking disappearance of a young woman and a suspicious death put Hanna and Alex back in the crosshairs of the ruthless Dellahousaye crime family. Hanna and Alex again find themselves in the troubled waters of love and commitment. Alex returns to South Carolina with the promise of a new start but with strings attached that Hanna may never be able to live with. The story plays out against the compelling backdrop of Charleston, Pawleys Island, and the fictional Dugganville, South Carolina. The Sister Taken is Michael Lindley's latest dark and twisting tale of corruption, betrayal, and murder set in the Low Country of South Carolina, featuring attorney Hanna Walsh and now former Charleston police detective Alex Frank.

Michael Lindley (Author), Emily Sutton-Smith (Narrator)

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Widespread Panic

Brought to you by Penguin. Freddy is an ex-L.A. cop on the skids. He snuffed a cop killer in cold blood - and it got to him bad. Now he's a sleazoid private eye, a shakedown artist, a pimp - and, most notably, the head strongarm goon for Confidential magazine. Welcome to the world of the malevolent monarch of the Hollywood underground - a tale of pervasive paranoia teeming with communist conspiracies, FBI finks, celebrity smut films and strange bedfellows. In Widespread Panic, we traverse the depths of '50s L.A. and dig on the inner workings of Confidential. You'll go to Burt Lancaster's lushly appointed torture den; you'll groove overhyped legend James Dean as Freddy's chief stooge; you'll be there for Freddy's ring-a-ding rendezvous with Liz Taylor; you'll be front and centre as Freddy anoints himself the 'Tattle Tyrant Who Held Hollywood Hostage'. 'Purgatory is rarely this much fun.' - Financial Times © James Ellroy 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

James Ellroy (Author), Craig Wasson (Narrator)

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Historical Audiobooks in Mystery, Thriller & Horror