Two historical mysteries steeped in autumnal gloom give new meaning to the phrase “curl up and die.”

Perhaps the best way to describe these two historical mysteries bound for bookshelves this October comes from Detective Inspector St. John Strafford, hero of Booker Prize winner John Banville’s new novel, Snow. Musing about finding patterns in crimes and trying to make the pieces fit, Strafford says, “The pieces don’t stay still. They tend to move around, making patterns of their own, or what seem to be pat- terns. Everything is deceptive.” Both novels are steeped in secrets and intrigue that will keep readers guessing right along with the detectives, perfect for the time of year when shadows grow longer and darker by the day.

In Snow, set in 1957 Ireland, Strafford responds to the death of Father Tom Lawless, whose body has been found in the library of Ballyglass House, the estate of wealthy aristocrat Colonel Osborne. Osborne is convinced the death is the result of a break-in gone awry, while the archbishop of Dublin wants to deem the death an accident, despite obvious evidence to the contrary. A Protestant in predominantly Catholic Ireland, Strafford isn’t convinced either way, and the pursuit of the killer is on. When one of Strafford’s deputies goes missing during their inquiry, the stakes ramp up exponentially.

Centuries earlier, in the chaotic 16th-century Paris of S.J. Parris’ vibrant new mystery, Conspiracy, philosopher Giordano Bruno becomes embroiled in the hunt for the murderer of Father Paul Lefèvre, whom he had hoped would help him get back into the church’s good graces.

Bruno is soon swept into plots and counterplots wrought by King Henry III’s rivals, the Queen Mother Catherine de Medici and the king’s archnemesis, the Duke of Guise. Bruno stumbles onto one murder after another and is on the verge of being blamed for the entire trail of death when help comes from an unanticipated source: Charles Paget, an English Catholic and enemy of Queen Elizabeth I.

Snow follows a more traditional approach to its mystery, with Strafford reflecting that the case seems straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. Conspiracy, meanwhile, is a much denser, historically rich novel complete with palace intrigue and a vividly rendered setting. Both books offer intricate puzzles, a paucity of clues and an array of potential suspects, all of whom have motive to do the deed. Further complicating things is pressure from outside forces to cover up the crimes from the public.

Ultimately, as Strafford points out, the culprits’ undoing lies in their very plans. “A plan always has something wrong with it,” he reflects. “There’s always a flaw.”

A mystery can unfold anywhere at all, but there’s something about England—with its fascinating history, class divisions, that ever-present fog—that makes it a consistent favorite setting. Two books cover three eras in England between them, and you can be confident that things get dark and stormy throughout.

Moonflower Murders, Anthony Horowitz’s sequel to Magpie Murders, opens with Susan Ryeland living on Crete and running a hotel with boyfriend Andreas, having retired from her career in publishing and with England well behind her. She’s done and happy. Or is she? When a couple visit the hotel and ask her to investigate a disappearance that may be linked to a novel by her old client Alan Conway, she agrees to travel back to England. She needs the money, and the job includes a stay in a much fancier hotel than her own. From there, this nested mystery only gets more twisted.

The neat trick of clues to a current dilemma being salted away in a fictional novel is as delightful here as it was in Magpie Murders. This split narrative keeps the reader hyperalert as they bounce between Susan’s investigation and the Conway mystery that might hold the key to it all. Susan has mixed feelings about Crete, the hotel, maybe even Andreas, and is nostalgic for the world of publishing. Revisiting her old haunts and connecting with friends lifts her spirits, and that high sometimes blinds her to red flags. Alan Conway based the Atticus Pünd mystery in question on the owners and guests at the hotel where Susan is now staying—and where a grisly murder once sent a young employee to prison. His brutal caricatures of an already twisted cast of characters made nearly everyone angry, and Susan makes a handy target for that rage, since her edits to the novel did not soften the blow.

Both stories play dead straight, but there’s glee under the surface in the way Horowitz uses the tropes of modern and cozy mysteries. The pursuit of justice gets rather messy, but in both stories, unraveling means and motives leads to satisfying, highly traditional reveals, one by a seasoned fictional detective, the other by a woman in midlife, weighing her future options.

In Death and the Maiden, Adelia Aguilar, Mistress of the Art of Death, has also comfortably retired and is teaching her daughter, Allie, the trade—a combination of anatomy, forensics, and the subtleties of detection, medieval-style (1191, to be exact). Allie excels at the work and bristles at her parents' pressure to marry. When a family friend becomes ill, she’s honored to be able to help and unaware of a matchmaking scheme that leads her to meet the dashing Lord Peverell. There’s scarcely time for romance, though, as the village is being terrorized by the serial kidnapping and murder of young women. Masterfully written, this series closer is a creepy wonder.

Samantha Norman has finished the series begun by her mother, Ariana Franklin, based on ideas Franklin had laid out prior to her death. The story has some poignant mother-daughter moments that resonate even more powerfully in context. But even beyond that, it’s a stellar bit of storytelling. Allie’s family ties are strong and part of why she’s in no rush to marry. That independence can make her cocky, though, and when she sees evidence on the body of a victim that is disregarded, following the lead means putting herself in danger. The village is having other problems as well: Visiting royalty and religious edicts that won’t allow burials for the dead (who are then left in trees or by the side of the road) give a real sense of the gulf between rich and poor.

While this is a true nail-biter of a mystery, many of its best moments are quiet ones, when characters have a moment alone to talk while waking up in the morning or gathering plants for medicine. Series fans will love this volume even as they grieve Franklin’s passing. Norman has done her mother proud.

A priest, a Regency lady and a snippy private investigator are all faced with fiendish puzzles in this month's cozy mystery column.

★ Hope, Faith & a Corpse

Laura Jensen Walker’s Hope, Faith & a Corpse begins a promising new series. Hope Taylor has moved to the quaint town of Apple Springs in Northern California to start over. The young widow is the first female pastor of Faith Chapel Episcopal Church, which not all parishioners are comfortable with. When she finds a widely disliked church elder dead on the grounds, she quickly becomes a suspect. After all, Stanley King had said a woman would preach there over his dead body. Walker makes great use of Hope’s job: Pastors are sworn to confidentiality when people share information, and a gossipy small town has plenty to share. By the end, justice has been served, along with English tea (for which recipes are provided) and several diner meals that are the stuff of dreams. Readers will finish this mystery already hungry for more.

Hot to Trot

If you’re a cozy fan, then you know how often a knitter or bookstore owner stumbles onto a crime and solves it, launching a new side hustle as a sleuth. So the beloved Agatha Raisin is a breath of fresh air simply because she’s an investigator by trade. Hot to Trot finds Agatha fuming as her friend (and ex) Charles Fraith prepares to marry a mean-spirited socialite. When the woman turns up dead, Agatha and Charles are both suspects. Agatha’s creator, M.C. Beaton, died in 2019, but prior to her passing, she worked with author R.W. Green to ensure the series would continue as she intended. Hot to Trot would have made Beaton proud, with no fewer than three brawls as Agatha flits between exes and new loves before returning to her cottage and cats. Brew a pot of tea and join her.

A Lady Compromised

Rosalind Thorne is on the move in A Lady Compromised, the latest entry in Darcie Wilde’s series set in Regency England. A trip to help plan a friend’s wedding also means a chance to visit old flame Devon Winterbourne, but Rosalind is soon investigating whether an aristocrat’s suicide was actually murder. Wilde writes about high society social codes the same way Phoebe Waller-Bridge makes cheeky asides in “Fleabag.” A storyline involving Rosalind’s faithful maid, Mrs. Kendricks, whose security relies upon the decisions of her impulsive, independent employer, is a harsh reminder of the class differences concealed beneath the period’s polite veneer.

The lead characters in Tessa Wegert’s The Dead Season and Paige Shelton’s Cold Wind are haunted by past traumas—men who forcibly held them against their will and mercilessly tormented them before their escape—and are facing new mysteries that require their unique set of skills. These suspense-filled novels may have uncannily similar concepts, but they are uniquely thrilling in their executions.

In The Dead Season, Shana “Shay” Merchant’s role as sheriff’s investigator is on temporary hold as she deals with the psychological ramifications of her previous ordeal, chronicled in the first book of the series, Death in the Family. But with a psych evaluation only days away and a pair of new mysteries begging to be solved, Shay is determined to prove she is still capable of doing the job.

She has the added fortune of her own personal mentor—affectionately nicknamed “Sensei Sam”—helping with her self-defense skills and getting her mind right. But while his lessons are helpful (and entertaining for the reader), Shay believes that staying busy with new cases will be more than enough to work through her trauma.

One of Shay’s cases involves the discovery of her long-lost uncle’s body in a remote forest near her hometown of Scranton, Vermont. Missing for 20 years, the remains show evidence of blunt force trauma to the back of the head, meaning he was likely murdered. But while Shay interviews possible suspects for clues, including estranged family members, a young boy goes missing in her new home in New York’s Thousand Islands. A cryptic note on the boy’s bloody hat seems to link both cases together and point to Shay’s cousin, Abe, as being the same man who kidnapped her a year ago, whom she knew as Blake Bram. Even as she relives her childhood memories with her cousin, Shay insists she’s not hunting or obsessing over Bram: “Bram is hunting me.” A confrontation between the two builds toward a thrilling crescendo.

Cold Wind, meanwhile, takes readers to the remote Alaskan wilderness where novelist Elizabeth Fairchild has started a new life as Beth Rivers, safe from the reaches of the obsessed fan who kidnapped her in St. Louis. Or so she thinks.

The sequel to last year’s Thin Ice, Cold Wind picks up shortly after its predecessor with Beth acclimating to life in Benedict, Alaska, where she serves as the town’s only journalist. When a pair of young girls are found, followed by the discovery of a frozen body at a remote cabin after a mudslide, Beth becomes obsessed with finding out the truth of what happened. Thanks to a highly cooperative police department, she’s able to quickly insert herself into the investigations.

While the interactions between the quirky characters of the community provides some lighthearted moments, Shelton, who is best known for her cozy mystery series, proves she is more than capable of crafting a darker, more mature tone.

The Dead Season and Cold Wind are both the sophomore efforts in their series. Reading the predecessors would be helpful but isn’t necessary, as both Wegert and Shelton ably weave backstory in where needed, while letting the chills and thrills flow freely.

From foggy moors to gritty city streets, the setting of a mystery often tells the reader what to expect in terms of tone. In A Stranger in Town and Black Widows, isolated settings keep the reader off balance, unsure and ill-at-ease, creating an extra layer of tension that dials up the suspense to 11.

The sixth book in Kelley Armstrong’s Rockton series, A Stranger in Town brings the reader to the small Yukon town of Rockton, population 150. This is not a cozy mystery small town—Rockton is completely off the grid and populated entirely by people who need to shed their old lives.

Rockton exists within our world but apart from it in a way that’s almost reminiscent of science fiction. Those looking to start fresh in the town need permission from a mysterious town council, and those who are accepted face threats not only from the wilderness, but also from a nomadic group of almost feral humans known as “hostiles” that lurk outside its borders. All of this could feel too surreal, but Armstrong makes her fictional town seem grounded in reality.

When a badly wounded hiker stumbles upon Rockton while looking for aid. Casey Duncan, the town’s resident detective, manages to save the woman’s life, but her presence only brings more questions. Casey and her husband, Eric Dalton, go looking for the woman’s companions only to find a scene worthy of a horror novel. Her fellow hikers have been killed, literally torn apart, with monstrous brutality. Casey’s careful observations lead her to believe that the murders were staged to look as though the hostiles were responsible.

Adding to her worries, Casey has noticed that fewer residents are being admitted to Rockton, and those that wish to stay beyond their two-year term are being denied an extension. The town council is silent on the matter, and Casey can’t help but feel boxed in by threats from within the town and outside it.

Armstrong’s detailed world building allows the reader to immerse themselves in the narrative, though new readers may want to orient themselves by starting with the first Rockton novel, City of the Lost.

While A Stranger in Town offers up an odd community, Black Widows by Cate Quinn relies on a sense of otherness to create its atmosphere. When Blake Nelson is strangled and his body mutilated, detectives look to the most common perpetrator—the wife. The problem is Blake had three of them. Rachel, Tina and Emily lived with Blake on their family compound in the Utah desert, 40 miles from their nearest neighbor.

Their polygamous marriage was as fraught with tension as it was unconventional. Rachel is the first, most obedient wife, but she has a past so traumatic her mind has blacked some of it out. Tina is a reformed drug-addict and sex worker who met Blake when he preached at her rehab center. She’s all too aware of how dark and cruel the world can be. Emily is the youngest, naive to point of being childlike and existing largely in a fantasy world she’s created for herself. Living in a small house in the middle of a huge desert, the women’s differing personalities and the family’s poverty make for a fraught existence.

Each chapter of this gripping and, at times, graphic psychological thriller is told from the point of view of one of the wives, and the reader is never certain if the narrators can be trusted. As the police poke into their lives, secrets are revealed, suggesting that Blake’s death may be part of something larger and darker than just a domestic conflict. Quinn does a masterful job of creating a world where her characters are isolated—both physically due to their home and socially due to the fact that they are outcasts from their church and community. Polygamy is not sanctioned by the Church of Latter-day Saints, so even Blake’s family has shunned his wives and disapproves of his choice of lifestyle. All of this means that Rachel, Tina and Emily can only rely on each other for support when their world collapses around them. With a wonderfully twisty end, Black Widows is the type of thriller you read in one sitting.

Historical mysteries truly allow amateur sleuths to shine. Without modern technology, forensic analysis or instantaneous communication to aid them, the historical detective must rely on their powers of deduction and observation to solve the crime.

Deanna Raybourn delivers wit and humor aplenty in her sixth installment of the Veronica Speedwell series, An Unexpected Peril. Fresh from her last case chasing Jack the Ripper, lepidopterist and amateur sleuth Veronica Speedwell is assisting with an exhibition on the small country of Alpenwald for a naturalist club in London—and enjoying some downtime with her partner turned lover, Stoker. 

Trouble is never far from Veronica, however. As the club assembles items donated by the late alpinist Alice Baker-Greene’s estate, Veronica uncovers evidence that Alice was murdered, rather than dying in a climbing accident. Princess Grisela of Alpenwald, who is visiting London and the exhibition, is less than enthusiastic about the discovery. Her small nation relies on tourism for its income, and the murder of a famous English mountain climber would cause a scandal. Veronica is undeterred, and as she and Stoker investigate Alice’s murder, they find themselves embroiled in a second mystery when Princess Grisela vanishes. 

Irreverent, funny and with a razor-sharp intelligence, Veronica is a delightful narrator and a keen detective. Her total disregard for the opinions of “good society” and her vicious wit in cutting down her detractors are a joy to read. As An Unexpected Peril unfolds, we see her relationship with her longtime partner, Stoker, develop as well. Fans of the series have waited five novels for their will-they-won’t-they attraction to resolve, and now that the pair are together, they must navigate the tiny irritations and frustrations that come with any new relationship. Veronica, as always, rushes headfirst into danger, while Stoker tries to maintain a tempering influence.

Best read in order, Raybourn’s Victorian-era series is never bleak, always funny and wonderfully fast-paced. An Unexpected Peril has the perfect blend of action, romance and mystery. 

The Diabolical Bones by Bella Ellis is the complete opposite in terms of atmosphere. The second Brontë Sisters mystery is set in bleak, frozen West Yorkshire and begins when a neighbor of the Brontës, the eccentric Clifton Bradshaw, finds the skeleton of a young child interred in a fireplace in his late wife’s rooms. 

Rumor has it that Clifton went mad after his wife’s death, selling his soul to the devil and shutting off her rooms completely. The discovery of the bones 13 years later certainly implies that something sinister occurred before her death, and the Brontë sisters are determined to identify the child and how it came to be hidden in the fireplace.

Ellis carefully weaves biographical details into her mystery, and readers familiar with the Brontës’ story will see the beginning of Branwell Brontë’s decline as well as the first glimpses of Charlotte’s relationship with Arthur Bell Nicholls. Ellis portrays Charlotte as a fierce and dynamic figure, Emily as a dreamer and recluse and Anne as the mediator between them. Isolated in their Yorkshire village, these three brilliant sisters yearn for intellectual stimulation, and solving the mystery of the bones is too intriguing for them to resist. Unfortunately, not everyone appreciates their meddling. 

Easily read as a standalone, The Diabolical Bones tackles subjects as bleak as the frigid February moors where it is set, from the cruelties of child labor in Victorian England to the limitations of women at the time, as the sisters often have to drag their begrudging brother with them on their investigations. Fans of gothic mysteries will find this novel wonderfully creepy and suspenseful, even if they are unfamiliar with the work or lives of the Brontë sisters. 

With espionage, secret love affairs and hidden treasure, The Dark Heart of Florence by Tasha Alexander offers a mystery set in Florence, Italy in both 1903 and 1480. Jumping in with the 15th novel in the Lady Emily mystery series may seem intimidating, but Alexander provides enough context for characters and events referenced from previous books in the series that very little is lost for newcomers. 

When Lady Emily Hargreaves’ husband, Colin, is summoned to Florence, she knows it’s on secret business. Tensions are rising in Europe, and while Colin cannot admit it, Emily knows he is a spy for England. When a man is killed in their palazzo, Emily and her best friend, Cécile, launch a parallel investigation, determined not to sit by on the sidelines as danger surrounds them.

Interspersed are chapters set in the 15th century, where a young woman named Mina struggles to align with the gender roles traditionally assigned to her while the wonder of the Renaissance surrounds her. Mina enters into a forbidden affair with a young priest that will change the course of her life and entangle her in the fanatical puritan campaign of Girolamo Savonarola. 

Mina’s actions directly impact the murder that Emily and Cecile are investigating in 1903, which is intensified by the increasingly tenuous political situation and the frustration Emily feels at being left in the dark as to her husband’s intrigues. The Florentine setting, both in the Renaissance and early Edwardian eras, is explored in rich detail, allowing the reader to travel vicariously through Mina’s and Emily’s eyes.

With gothic chills, laugh-out-loud humor and international intrigue, these three mysteries whisk the reader off to the past and ensnare them with carefully crafted plots and plenty of suspense.

Two intense mysteries feature terrifying serial killers—and the cunning detectives who catch them.

Authors Eva García Sáenz and C.S. Harris balance shocking violence with the slow and steady thrill of watching a detective meticulously unravel a case.

Sáenz’s chillingly graphic The Water Rituals follows Spanish inspector Unai López de Ayala—better known by his nickname, Kraken—on the trail of a killer who has been drowning pregnant women in ways that mimic a 1,000-year-old ritual. 

Kraken, a behavioral profiler, is especially taken aback when he learns that the first victim is his former girlfriend, graphic novelist Ana Belén Liaño. Her body is found hanging upside down by her ankles, her head submerged in a Celtic cauldron of water. 

Unable to speak because of a traumatic brain injury (from his first adventure, The Silence of the White City), Kraken can only communicate with his fellow detectives by writing his thoughts on scraps of paper. The trauma of Ana’s death sparks a series of flashbacks as he recalls their relationship, and the memories prompt him to seek clues to her death as he tries to regain the ability to speak. News that Kraken’s boss, Deputy Superintendent Alba Díaz de Salvatierra, may be pregnant with his child ups the tension and the stakes as his pursuit of the killer continues.

Sáenz, who began her career by self-publishing before becoming an award-winning short story writer, maintains a tight point of view from Kraken’s perspective, creating a claustrophobic, psychologically intense experience for readers en route to a dramatic finale.

Harris’ novel What the Devil Knows is equally brutal. The novel opens in 1814 London, three years after the real-life Ratcliffe Highway murders and decades before the more notorious Jack the Ripper slayings. The lead magistrate in the Ratcliffe Highway case, Sir Edwin Pym, has been killed in the same manner as the Ratcliffe killer’s victims.

Lead investigator Sebastian St. Cyr immediately voices his concern to fellow investigators: “You assume this murderer has a logical reason for what he does. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s more likely whoever did this simply enjoys killing.” So begins the methodical, purposeful pursuit of a killer who has no qualms about what he does, whether he is the actual Ratcliffe Highway killer or, as Sebastian muses, a copycat “deliberately modeling his acts on the sensational murders of the past.”

What the Devil Knows is Harris’ 16th novel featuring Sebastian, but it is easily accessible to anyone new to the series. While a subplot deals with Sebastian’s family lineage, the novel mostly follows a procedural course, building suspense and dread as Sebastian questions the victim’s acquaintances and possible enemies. Harris guides us through London’s streets with detail and dialects that firmly establish the novel’s immersive historical setting. In her afterword, Harris recounts which elements of the novel she drew from actual depositions, testimonies and newspaper reports.

Whether your passion lies with a detective’s meticulous pursuit of evidence or you thrill to the hunt for a killer, these books deliver on both accounts.

Cute canine sleuths, the glamour of Gilded Age Broadway and a prickly, private librarian—this month's column has something for every kind of cozy reader.

★The Unkindness of Ravens

Greer Hogan left her life in New York City behind after her husband’s murder. Starting over as a librarian in the village of Raven Hill has offered some distance from that trauma—until she finds her best friend dead in the library. Greer is still considered an outsider in the tightknit village, so she leans on her own research skills to find her friend’s killer while coming to grips with uncomfortable truths about her husband’s death. The Unkindness of Ravens pushes the boundaries of cozy mysteries: It’s moody and tense, literary and urbane, and an edgy delight to read. Author M.E. Hilliard is herself a librarian, and she gets the job’s balance of fun and drudgery note-perfect. Yes, there are bake sales and charming patrons, but there are also a lot of repetitive tasks and the occasional creep. Analytical and not overly social, Greer keeps to herself, even shying away from the reader at times, which only serves to heighten the suspense. Nods to Trixie Belden, Kinsey Millhone and Edgar Allan Poe tempt the reader to relax into the novel’s bookish atmosphere, until a fast-paced conclusion that’s truly surprising whips things to a close. The Unkindness of Ravens is an exciting debut, and I’m already eager for another installment.

Animal Instinct

When private investigator Corey Douglas was still a police officer, he responded to a domestic violence call in which he could do nothing to help the victim, Lisa Yates. Now, years later, Lisa has died in an unsolved shooting, and Corey decides to try and right a past wrong by solving her murder. Animal Instinct, David Rosenfelt’s second K Team novel, builds suspense by shifting points of view between Corey’s team and their extremely dangerous enemies, who are always a step ahead. Lisa’s job at a medical records company makes for a very data-centric thriller, but plenty of muscle is exerted as well, by dogs as well as humans. Rosenfelt has artfully spun off Corey and his K-9 partner, Simon Garfunkel, from his hit Andy Carpenter series, and Andy appears here in more than a mere cameo, which adds to the fun.

Death of a Showman

Death of a Showman finds lady’s maid Jane Prescott on Broadway, chaperoning her rich employer, Louise Tyler, to rehearsals of a show Louise has been persuaded to invest in. Jane’s not thrilled to be there; her passionate dalliance with composer Leo Hirschfeld abruptly ended when he married a chorus girl, but that doesn’t stop him from flirting with every woman he sees. It’s almost a welcome distraction when the show’s tough-guy producer, Sidney Warburton, is murdered. Author Mariah Fredericks has clearly done her research on Gilded Age New York and its colossal theaters, because she creates a real sense of being behind the scenes and behind the curtain. The murder is nearly upstaged by the drama, backbiting and infighting among the cast and crew, but it’s all told with understated elegance.