Earlier this week the organizers of Left Coast Crime announced the nominees for the 2015 Lefty Awards.
In this post, we're presenting the five titles nominated for the Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award. Which is your favorite to win?
Queen of Hearts by Rhys Bowen
A Royal Spyness Mystery (8th in series)
Publisher: Berkley
Lady Georgiana Rannoch, thirty-fifth in line for the British throne, knows how to play the part of an almost royal — but now she's off to Hollywood, where she must reprise her role as sleuth or risk starring in an all-too-convincing death scene …
My mother, the glamorous and much-married actress, is hearing wedding bells once again — which is why she must hop across the pond for a quickie divorce in Reno. To offer my moral support, and since all expenses are paid by her new hubby-to-be, Max, I agree to make the voyage with her.
Crossing the Atlantic, with adventure in the air and wealthy men aboard, Mother all but forgets about Max and matrimony — especially when movie mogul Cy Goldman insists on casting her in his next picture.
Meanwhile, I find myself caught up in the secret investigation of a suspected jewel thief. Lucky for me, the lead investigator happens to be my dashing beau, Darcy!
Mother's movie and Darcy's larceny lead everyone to Cy's Hollywood home, where the likes of Charlie Chaplin are hanging about and there's enough romantic intrigue to fill a double feature. But we hardly get a chance to work out the sleeping arrangements before Cy turns up dead — as if there wasn't enough drama already …
— Queen of Hearts by Rhys Bowen
From the Charred Remains by Susanna Calkins
A Lucy Campion Mystery (2nd in series)
Publisher: Minotaur Books
It's 1666 and the Great Fire has just decimated an already plague-ridden London. Lady's maid Lucy Campion, along with pretty much everyone else left standing, is doing her part to help the city clean up and recover. But their efforts come to a standstill when a couple of local boys stumble across a dead body that should have been burned up in the fire but miraculously remained intact — the body of a man who died not from the plague or the fire, but from the knife plunged into his chest.
Searching for a purpose now that there's no lady in the magistrate's household for her to wait on, Lucy has apprenticed herself to a printmaker. But she can't help but use her free time to help the local constable, and she quickly finds herself embroiled in the murder investigation. It will take all of her wits and charm, not to mention a strong stomach and a will of steel, if Lucy hopes to make it through alive herself.
— From the Charred Remains by Susanna Calkins
A Deadly Measure of Brimstone by Catriona McPherson
A Dandy Gilver Mystery (7th in series)
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Dandy and the whole Gilver clan travel to a spa town for a weekend of relaxation which is quickly interrupted by a slew of mysterious — and deadly — events.
The men of the Gilver family have come down, between them, with influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia and pleurisy. The family repairs to the town of Moffat, there to submit to the galvanic wraps and cold salt rubs of the splendid Laidlaw Hydropathic Hotel.
But all is not well at the Hydro, and the secret of the lady who arrived but never left cannot be kept for long. And what of those drifting shapes in the Turkish bath? Just steam shifting in the air? Probably. But in this town the dead can be as much trouble as the living.
— A Deadly Measure of Brimstone by Catriona McPherson
City of Ghosts by Kelli Stanley
A Miranda Corbie Mystery (3rd in series)
Publisher: Minotaur Books
June, 1940. For the United States, war is on the horizon. For Miranda Corbie, private investigator and erstwhile escort, there are debts to be paid and memories — long-suppressed and willfully forgotten — to be resurrected. Enter the U.S. State Department and the man who helped Miranda get her PI license. A man she owes. A man who asks her to track a chemistry professor here in San Francisco whom he suspects is a spy for the Nazis. Playing along may get Miranda a ticket to Blitz-bombed England and answers about her past … if she survives.
Through sordid back alleys and art gallery halls, from drag dress nightclubs to a Nazi costume ball, Miranda's journey into fear takes her on the famed City of San Francisco streamliner and to Reno, Nevada, the Biggest Little City in the World … where she finds herself framed for a murder she never anticipated. Forced to go underground, Miranda soldiers on alone, determined to find the truth about a murder, a Nazi spy, and her own troubling past.
But Miranda will have to learn the difference between reality and illusion, from despair to deceit and factual to fake, as she tries to get her life back … and navigates a city of ghosts.
— City of Ghosts by Kelli Stanley
Cup of Blood by Jeri Westerson
A Crispin Guest, Medieval Noir Mystery (7th in series)
Publisher: Old London Press
When a corpse turns up at his favorite tavern, Crispin Guest — disgraced knight turned detective — begins an inquiry, but the dead man turns out to be a Templar knight, an order thought to be extinct for 75 years, charged with protecting a certain religious relic which is now missing.
Before he can begin to investigate, Crispin is abducted by shadowy men who are said to be minions of the French anti-pope. Further complicating matters are two women: one from court with an enticing proposition, and another from Crispin's past, dredging up long-forgotten emotions he would rather have left behind. And as if all that weren't enough, a cunning young cutpurse by the name of Jack Tucker has insinuated himself into Crispin's already difficult life.
The deeper Crispin probes into the murder, the more it looks like the handiwork of an old friend turned adversary. With enemies from all sides, Crispin has his hands full in more than murder.
— Cup of Blood by Jeri Westerson
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