A Grand & Batchelor Victorian mystery
4 primary works • 6 total works
Book 1
Introducing 19th-century private investigators Matthew Grand and James Batchelor in the first of a brand-new historical mystery series.
April, 1865. Having been an eye witness to the assassination of President Lincoln, Matthew Grand, a former captain of the 3rd Cavalry of the Potomac, has come to London on an undercover assignment to hunt down the last of the assassin's co-conspirators. Ambitious young journalist Jim Batchelor has been charged with writing a feature article on the visiting American, with the aim of getting the inside story on the assassination.
Both men are distracted from their missions by the discovery of a body behind the Haymarket Theatre in London's Soho district. It's the latest in a series of grisly garrottings by a killer known as the Haymarket Strangler.
As Grand and Batchelor team up to pursue their investigations through the dark underbelly of Victorian London, it becomes clear that there may be a disturbing connection between the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the Haymarket Strangler.
Book 2
July, 1868. On receiving a commission from Matthew's cousin Luther to look into the suspicious death of Lafayette Baker, Head of the US National Detective Police, private investigators Matthew Grand and his business partner James Batchelor leave London for Washington DC. They find a country still scarred by the bitter legacy of the Civil War and even in death Lafayette Baker remains one of the most hated men north or south of the Potomac.
The newly-created Ku Klux Klan wanted him dead. So did the Washington brothel-keepers, bar-owners and gamblers whom Baker had closed down. What does beautiful former spy Miss Belle Boyd know that she's not telling them? And could the President himself be involved?
Matthew Grand finds he has come home to a mixed reception, while Batchelor struggles as an Englishman abroad. Will either of them survive long enough to uncover the truth?
Book 3
June, 1870. The world-famous author Charles Dickens has been found dead in his summerhouse where he had been hard at work on his final, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Did he die of natural causes - or is there something more sinister behind his sudden demise? George Sala, Dickens' biographer, is convinced his friend was murdered - and he has hired Grand and Batchelor to prove it.
Could Dickens' death have something to do with his unconventional private life? Who is the mysterious woman who appears at his funeral?
If they are to uncover the truth, Grand and Batchelor must leave no stone unturned. But are they prepared for the shocking secrets some of those unturned stones will reveal . . .?
Book 4
The wedding of private investigator Matthew Grand's sister is marred by cold-blooded murder in this deftly plotted Victorian mystery.
March, 1873. Private investigators Matthew Grand and James Batchelor have arrived at Matthew's substantial family home on the Maine coast for the wedding of his sister Martha. Friends and relatives have gathered from far and wide to celebrate the occasion - but nothing is going according to plan. A long-lost cousin turns up out of the blue after an absence of fourteen years. The best man is nowhere to be found. And no one seems to have a good word to say about the bridegroom.
Preparations are thrown into chaos when a body is discovered in an upstairs bedroom. As Grand and Batchelor investigate, they discover that more than one member of the household has a scandalous secret to hide. And several more family skeletons are destined to tumble from the closet before the two enquiry agents uncover the shocking truth
Private detectives Grand & Batchelor's latest case draws them into the arcane world of high art and high society in this compelling Victorian mystery.
London. May, 1878. Private enquiry agents Matthew Grand and James Batchelor have been hired by the artist James Whistler to dig into the past of outspoken critic John Ruskin, with whom he has an ongoing feud. Not particularly optimistic of success, the two detectives are sidetracked from the investigation by the murder of a prostitute in nearby Cremorne Gardens. Her body posed on a park bench, a book on birth control sitting on her lap, Clara Jenkins is not the first young woman to have met a similarly grisly fate - and she won't be the last.
Could there be a connection between the Cremorne killer and their art world case? With the investigation heading nowhere fast, Grand comes up with a decidedly unorthodox plan to ensnare the killer. But even the best-laid plans have a nasty habit of going catastrophically awry ...