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20th Century Prewar America:Novels Set in Canada and the U.S. from 1900 to Before World War I
Canada 
Not until after World War I did the United States become a major world power. Before then, it was still a raw, young country in the eyes of the world. Canada did not gain legislative autonomy from England until 1931. For both countries, the prewar period was a time of rapid economic growth. Particularly in the industrialized U.S., where conditions in the late nineteenth century had exploited workers, this was a period of progressive social reform. Teddy Roosevelt became President in 1901 and championed anti-trust laws. Novelists like Upton Sinclair were instrumental in alerting the public to the bad practices of certain big businesses. Vividly portraying conditions in the meat-packing industry that exploited workers and produced meats in disgustingly unsanitary conditions, Sinclair's novel The Jungle led to the creation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Alaska and Hawaii had not yet been admitted to the U.S. as states, but the few novels set there during this time period are included in this section for the sake of convenience.
Prewar Canada
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Thomas B. Costain, Son of a Hundred Kings Corinne Jeffery, Arriving: 1909-1919
Wayne Johnston, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (1998), about an ambitious Newfoundland man who climbs from poverty to become a journalist and politician. Wayne Johnston, The Custodian of Paradise (2006), about a lame woman who retreats to the coast of Newfoundland near the end of World War II to nurse her broken heart; sequel to The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. Rosalind Laker, What the Heart Keeps Howard Norman, The Bird Artist (1994), about a Newfoundland artist who paints birds and has murdered the local lighthouse keeper. Review at the Los Angeles Times Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries (1993), a novel which follows the life of an ordinary woman through the twentieth century from her birth in Manitoba 1905 to her death in Florida in the 1990s. Review at The Independent Susan Vreeland, The Forest Lover (2004), a biographical novel about the early twentieth-century Canadian artist Emily Carr. Review
Mysteries Set in Prewar Canada
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Allan Levine, Sins of the Suffragette Allan Levine, The Bolshevik's Revenge The United States and its People Before WWI
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Beryl Bainbridge, Every Man for Himself (1996), about the sinking of the Titanic from the perspective of an American passenger who was a nephew of the shipping line's owner. Kevin Baker, Dreamland (1999), about New York City and Coney Island around 1910. Andrea Barrett, The Air We Breathe (2007), about wealthy patients in a tuberculosis sanitarium in 1916. Louis Bayard, Roosevelt’s Beast (2014; titled The Beast in the Jungle in the UK), about the disastrous expedition Theodore Roosevelt and his son Kermit make down an uncharted river in the Amazon in 1914. Lauren Belfer, City of Light (2005), about the headmistress of a girls' school in 1901 Buffalo, New York, as Niagara Falls is harnessed to produce electrical power. William Peter Blatty, Crazy (2010), about an elderly Hollywood screenwriter who recalls his life as a seventh-grader in New York during the year before Pearl Harbor and his crush on a girl with mysterious powers. Chris Bohjalian, The Sandcastle Girls (2012), about a young Boston woman who travels to Syria as a volunteer to provide medical care for survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide. T.C. Boyle, The Women (2009), about the unfortunate women who loved Frank Lloyd Wright. Alan Brennert, Honolulu (2009), about a young Korean woman who goes to Hawaii as a "picture bride" and discovers her husband is a poor laborer, not the wealthy man she expected. Olive Ann Burns, Cold Sassy Tree (1984), about a fourteen-year-old boy whose grandfather elopes with a woman half his age three weeks after his wife dies in 1906, causing a scandal in their small Georgia town. Bo Caldwell, City of Tranquil Light (2010), about an Oklahoma man who becomes a missionary in China, where he meets and marries a fellow missionary and lives through the turmoil of civil war. Roma Calatayud-Stocks, A Song in My Heart Rebecca Chace, Leaving Rock Harbor (2010), a coming-of-age story about a fourteen-year-old girl who moves with her family to Rock Harbor, Massachusetts, where her father gets work in a cotton mill and she becomes friends with two young men, one the son of a senator, the other a mill worker. Alan Cheuse, The Bohemians Colleen Coble, The Lightkeeper's Daughter (2010), historical romance about a young woman who takes a job as a governess for a wealthy California family in 1907; Christian message. J. California Cooper, Life Is Short But Wide Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist (2012), about a grower of apples and apricots in Washington State whose decision to take in two pregnant teenagers results in a violent confrontation. Nancy Crocker, Seeing America (2014), about a young man who, after graduating from high school in 1910, agrees to drive a blind friend across the country to Yosemite in his new Ford Model T, amid racial tensions stirred up by the Jack Johnson vs. Jim Jeffries boxing match. Lynn Cullen, Twain's End (2015), about Isabel Lyon, who served as private secretary for Samuel Clemens, who used the pen name Mark Twain, during most of the last eight years of his life. Review Sandra Dallas, Fallen Women (2013), about a New York socialite who travels to Denver in 1885 after learning of her sister's death and reads in a newspaper about the murder of a prostitute who may have been her sister. Rebecca Dean, The Shadow Queen (2012), a novel based on the life of Wallis Simpson up to the time she met the future King Edward VIII. Frank DeFord, Bliss, Remembered (2010), about an American woman who competes as a swimmer in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where she falls in love with a young German man. E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime (1975), about a wealthy New England family whose lives are changed when Harry Houdini crashes his car into a telephone pole by their house in 1906. Ivan Doig, Dancing at the Rascal Fair (1987), a literary novel about Scottish emigrants in Montana during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ivan Doig, The Whistling Season (2006), about a Montana school superintendent who must close the state's one-room schools and his memories of 1909, the year he was thirteen, when a gifted schoolteacher came into his life. Review Peter Donahue, Madison House (2005), about a widow who owns a boarding house on Seattle's Denny Hill and refuses to sell when the city begins demolishing the hill for a regrading project. David Dyer, The Midnight Watch: A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian (2016), about an officer on the SS Californian, a ship which failed to rescue passengers on the sinking Titanic, and a Boston newspaper reporter's efforts to find out why. Review at The New York Times Samuel Edwards, 55 Days at Peking Carl Eeman, Encampment Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves (2008), about a 1911 murder of a rural family in North Dakota for which three innocent Ojibwe were blamed and lynched, and its effect on the nearby town's residents into the 1970s. Review Louise Erdrich, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (1999), about a woman who takes on a priest's identity and ministers to the Ojibwe in North Dakota. Ellen Feldman, Terrible Virtue (2016), a biographical novel about Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. Jennie Fields, The Age of Desire (2012), about novelist Edith Wharton and her love affair in 1907 at age 45, which threatens her close friendship with her former governess. Jack Finney, From Time to Time (1995), about a man who travels back in time to the early twentieth century to try to prevent World War I. Matthew Flaming, The Kingdom of Ohio (2009), the overlapping stories of a present-day antiques dealer in Los Angeles and two New Yorkers in 1901, a worker building the new subway system and a woman who claims to have time-traveled into the future from the "Lost Kingdom of Ohio." Janice Holt Giles, The Plum Thicket (1954), about a child in rural Arkansas in the summer of 1913. Susan Jane Gilman, The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street (2014), about a Russian immigrant adopted by an Italian family after her own family abandons her, and who builds an ice cream business after her adoptive family excludes her from theirs. Deeanne Gist, Love on the Line (2011), historical romance about a switchboard operator in Brenham, Texas, in 1904, who becomes involved with a Texas Ranger who has gone undercover to catch a gang of train robbers. Robert Goolrick, A Reliable Wife (2009), about a wealthy businessman in Wisconsin and the scheming woman who responds to his advertisement for a wife in 1907. Alex Haley and David Stevens, Mama Flora’s Family (1998), a family saga about three generations of a black family from 1912 to the 1980s, co-authored by David Stevens and the author of Roots. Brian Hall, Fall of Frost (2008), a literary novel about the tormented life of poet Robert Frost, who began publishing his work during the early 1900s. Kathryn Harrison, The Seal Wife (2002), about a meteorologist in 1915 Alaska and his relationship with a strangely silent woman. Brian Hart, The Bully of Order (2014), about a man practicing as a doctor in coastal Washington State whose practice and marriage fall apart after his lack of a medical degree is revealed. Ann Hood, An Italian Wife (2014), about an Italian girl forced into marriage with a man emigrating to America, and the family she raises after joining him. Nancy Horan, Loving Frank (2007), a literary novel about a woman who has an affair with the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright after he designs a home for her and her husband. Review Katherine Howe, The House of Velvet and Glass (2012), about a young Boston socialite whose mother and sister died on the Titanic. Beverly Jensen, The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay (2010), linked short stories about two sisters from rural New Brunswick beginning with their childhood in 1916 and following seventy years of their lives as they move from Canada to Boston and the Maine coast. Review at The New York Times Denis Johnson, Train Dreams (2011), a novella about a day laborer who loses his family and witnesses radical changes in the American West as he works on railway construction. Wayne Johnston, The Navigator of New York (2002), about arch-rivals Cook and Peary and their race to reach the North Pole first. Ward Just, Rodin’s Debutante (2011), about a wealthy man who turns his home into a boy's school in the early 20th century and a Chicago sculptor who attends the school during the 1940s. Review at the New York Times Mary Beth Keane, Fever (2013), about Mary Mallon, who became known as "Typhoid Mary" because, while working as a cook, she infected dozens of people before being forced into isolation by public health authorities. W. Mae Kent, Titanic: The Untold Story Jane Kirkpatrick, A Flickering Light (2009), a coming-of-age story about a fifteen-year-old girl who dreams of a career in photography in 1907, when it was considered to be hazardous work for men only; Christian message. Ann-Marie MacDonald, Fall on Your Knees (2002), a darkly comic saga of a dysfunctional family centering on four sisters from Nova Scotia during the first half of the twentieth century. Adrienne MacDonnell, The Doctor and the Diva (2010), about a Boston mezzo-soprano, her husband, and the obstetrician they consult whose experimental technique may help her conceive after years of a childless marriage. Review Bruce Machart, The Wake of Forgiveness (2010), a literary novel about the son of a distant and harsh Texas man who appreciates him only for his talent at horseracing. Paul Malmont, Jack London in Paradise (2009), about a Hollywood film maker who tracks down Jack London in Hawaii in the winter of 1915 and asks him to write one more script. David Mamet, The Old Religion (1997), about the Jewish community in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1915. Anne Mateer, At Every Turn (2012), historical romance set in 1916 about a wealthy man's daughter who impulsively pledges a large sum for missionary work and then struggles to raise it by driving a race car; Christian message. Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country (2008), a literary novel about the life and death of Edgar J. Watson, a violent outlaw from the Florida Everglades; Shadow Country won the 2008 National Book Award and is a condensed reworking in a single volume of three novels originally published separately as Killing Mister Watson (in 1990), Lost Man's River (in 1997) and Bone by Bone (in 1999). Susan Meissner, A Fall of Marigolds (2014), about a New York woman in 1911 who lost the man she loved in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, and a woman of the present day whose husband died in the 2001 Twin Towers collapse, and the beautiful scarf that connects them. Johanna Moran, The Wives of Henry Oades (2010), about an English emigrant in California who remarries, believing his former wife dead in New Zealand where she and their children were kidnapped by Maori, and the troubles that ensue after she and the surviving children turn up in California and he and his new wife take them in. Joyce Carol Oates, The Accursed (2013), about a curse that begins haunting the elite families of Princeton, New Jersey, in 1905. Gary E. Parker, Highland Hopes (2001), about a family in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina during the early twentieth century, #1 in the Blue Ridge Legacy series; Christian message. James Patterson and Richard DiLallo, Alex Cross's Trial (2009), a novel-within-a-novel written by series protagonist Alex Cross about his grandfather, a Washington D.C. lawyer who returns to his hometown in Mississippi in 1906 at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt to investigate rumors of the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan; other novels in the series are contemporary. Virginia Pye, River of Dust (2013), about an American missionary couple in China whose child is stolen by Mongol bandits in 1910. David Rakoff, Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish (2013), a novel in verse about different people at various times and places in twentieth-century America who are linked to each other by acts of generosity or cruelty. Review at Paste Magazine Helen Klein Ross, The Latecomers (2018), about a sixteen-year-old Irish girl who emigrates to America in 1908 and finds work as a housemaid, linked to a ghost story that carries through the next hundred years of life in the house. Jack Salem, Heirs To The Pushcart Fortune Mary Fremont Schoenecker, Finding Fiona (2008), romantic suspense about a young New England teacher who finds herself traveling a hundred years back in time to the beginning of the twentieth century. Mary Lee Settle, The Scapegoat Walt Shiel, Devil in the North Woods (2005), about a historical wildfire in Metz, Michigan, in 1908; self-published. Jane Smiley, Private Life (2010), about a Missouri woman who in 1905 at the advanced age of twenty-seven marries an astronomer who is both brilliant and emotionally unbalanced. Review Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943), a classic coming-of-age novel about a girl in an impoverished family in Brooklyn, New York, during the early twentieth century; technically not historical fiction. Danielle Steel, A Good Woman (2008), about a young woman born into a wealthy New York family whose life is utterly changed with the sinking of the Titanic and her decision to volunteer and become a medic during World War I. Thomas Steinbeck, In the Shadow of the Cypress (2010), about Chinese immigrants in California in 1906 and a present-day marine biologist who connects their story with that of some much older Chinese artifacts found in California during their time.
Amy Stewart, Lady Cop Makes Trouble (2016), about a New Jersey deputy sheriff whose position is threatened by a German-speaking con man; #2 in the Constance Kopp series. Amy Stewart, Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions (2017), about a New Jersey deputy sheriff in 1916 who defends a group of young women unjustly jailed for behavior considered unfeminine; #3 in the Constance Kopp series. Amy Stewart, Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit (2018), about a New Jersey deputy sheriff troubled by the story of a woman she is transporting to an insane asylum; #4 in the Constance Kopp series.
Rosie Sultan, Helen Keller in Love (2012), about the love affair between Helen Keller and her private secretary, Peter Fagan, hired to assist her after her teacher Annie Sullivan falls ill with tuberculosis. Marta Tandori, Continuance Barbara J. Taylor, Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night (2014), about a Pennsylvania coal-mining family in the aftermath of a nine-year-old daughter's tragic death for which the eight-year-old daughter is blamed. D.J. Taylor, Ask Alice (2009), about an American girl who becomes a "fallen woman" after being taken advantage of while on a train trip in 1904, and her rise to high society in London in the 1920s. M. Glenn Taylor, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart (2008), about a West Virginian born in 1903, orphaned and raised by a mountain woman, and dogged throughout his long and eventful life by a mouth infection. Cindy Thomson, Grace’s Pictures (2013), historical romance about an Irish immigrant in 1900 New York whose efforts to earn money through photography bring her into danger, and the policeman who wants to help her; Christian message. Laura Mazzuca Toops, The Latham Loop Laura Mazzuca Toops, Slapstick Amor Towles, Rules of Civility (2011), about a young woman working in a secretarial pool in 1938 New York whose chance meeting with a banker introduces her to a wealthy social circle and its hidden discontents. Ciji Ware, A Race to Splendor (2011), about a woman architect hired to remodel the luxury hotel her grandfather lost in a card game shortly before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Katherine Webb, The Legacy (2010), about sisters who, sorting through their grandmothers belongings after she dies, uncover a family secret relating to an ancestress, a society heiress who comes to Oklahoma at the turn of the twentieth century. Ann Weisgarber, The Promise (2014), about Ohio woman who escapes scandal by marrying a widowed dairy farmer in Galveston, Texas, a few months before the devastating Galveston hurricane of 1900. Review Gene Wilder, The Woman Who Wouldn't (2008), a love story about a Cleveland concert violinist sent to a health resort in Germany where he meets a beautiful and reserved woman who seems impervious to his efforts at flirting. Terri Wiltshire, Carry Me Home (2009), about a young woman in Alabama who claims to have been raped by a black vagrant in 1904, and the child she bears. Jean Zimmerman, Savage Girl (2014), a mystery about a wealthy family in Gilded Age New York who adopt a girl supposedly raised by wolves on the frontier, and their son who is later charged with the murder of the girl's lovers.
Mysteries set in the U.S. Before WWI
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Rhys Bowen, Death of Riley (2002), about an Irish immigrant in New York whose new work assisting a private investigator suddenly becomes more challenging when the investigator is murdered; #2 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, For the Love of Mike (2003), about an Irish immigrant in New York whose work as a private investigator is hampered because she is a woman; #3 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, In Like Flynn (2005), about a female private investigator whose latest assignment, a case of kidnapping, takes her to the Hudson River Valley; #4 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, Oh Danny Boy (2006), about a female private investigator hunting for a serial killer of prostitutes; #5 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, In Dublin's Fair City (2007), about a female private investigator whose trip back to Ireland lands her in the middle of a murder case; #6 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, Tell Me, Pretty Maiden (2008), about a female private investigator who takes on a wrongly suspended police captain as an associate; #7 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, In a Gilded Cage (2009), about a female private investigator trying to find out what became of an orphan's inheritance; #8 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, The Last Illusion (2010), about a female private investigator hired to protect illusionist Harry Houdini after an onstage performance goes horribly wrong; #9 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Review Rhys Bowen, Bless the Bride (2011), about an Irish immigrant in New York who takes on one final case as a private investigator in 1903 before she marries the policeman she loves; #10 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, Hush Now, Don't You Cry (2012), about a honeymooning bride who has promised her policeman husband she will stop sleuthing but feels compelled to investigate when an alderman is found dead; #11 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, The Family Way (2013), about a woman expecting her first child who helps her policeman husband investigate a case of kidnapping; #12 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, City of Darkness and Light (2014), about a female private investigator who travels to Paris with her husband and infant son, and discovers the friends they intended to stay with have vanished; #13 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, The Edge of Dreams (2015), about a female private investigator whose husband, a police captain, receives taunting notes from the murderer he is trying to track down; #14 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, Away in a Manger (2015), about a female private investigator whose gift of a coin to a orphan girl singing in the street at Christmastime draws her into a dangerous investigation; #15 in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Rhys Bowen, Time of Fog and Fire (2016), about a woman detective who travels to San Francisco in 1906 to assist her policeman husband with a covert Secret Service mission; #16 in the Molly Murphy mystery series.
Clive Cussler and Justin Scott, The Wrecker (2009), a thriller about a detective sent to hunt down a saboteur who has been destroying railroad facilities along the Southern Pacific line in 1907 and leaving murdered accomplices in his wake; #2 in the Isaac Bell Adventures series. Review at NY Journal of Books Clive Cussler and Justin Scott, The Spy (2010), a thriller about a detective hired to investigate the death of a gunship designer in 1908 during the military build-up leading to the First World War; #3 in the Isaac Bell Adventures series. Clive Cussler and Justin Scott, The Race (2011), about a detective hired to protect an aviatrix from her murderous husband while she competes to be first to fly across America in less than fifty days; #4 in the Isaac Bell series. Clive Cussler and Justin Scott, The Bootlegger (2014), about a detective investigating a 1920 bootlegging operation that is part of a Soviet plot to take over the United States; #5 in the Isaac Bell series. Clive Cussler and Justin Scott, The Assassin (2015), about a detective hoping to land the contract to investigate John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil monopoly, when a sniper begins murdering opponents of the company; #6 in the Isaac Bell series.
Dianne Day, Fire and Fog (1996), about a young woman in San Francisco who wakes up amid the Great Earthquake of 1906; #2 in the Fremont Jones mystery series. Dianne Day, The Bohemian Murders (1997), about a young woman who follows her suitor to Carmel-by-the-Sea after the San Francisco Earthquake and takes a job at the lighthouse, where a woman's body washes up, involving her in another murder investigation; #3 in the Fremont Jones mystery series. Dianne Day, Emperor Norton's Ghost (1998), about a young woman who returns to a San Francisco rebuilding after the 1906 Earthquake and worries about her new friend, whose involvement in spiritualism becomes dangerous when a killer begins to stalk the city's mediums; #4 in the Fremont Jones mystery series. Dianne Day, Death Train to Boston (1999), about a young San Francisco woman and her partner whose train trip to Boston is disrupted when the train blows up and they are rescued by an odd man who leads a group of renegade Mormons; #5 in the Fremont Jones mystery series. Dianne Day, Beacon Street Mourning (2000), about a young woman who wonders whether her stepmother might be implicated in her father's death, until her stepmother is shot to death; #6 in the Fremont Jones mystery series.
Anthony Flacco, The Last Nightingale (2007), a thriller about a twelve-year-old boy who loses his family during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the detective who is stalking the serial killer who murdered them; #1 in the Randall Blackburn series. Anthony Flacco, The Hidden Man (2008), a thriller about a detective and his adopted son who must find the killer who is stalking the mesmerist at the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair; #2 in the Randall Blackburn series. Irene Fleming, The Edge of Ruin (2010), a humorous mystery about a woman whose husband recklessly decides to become a movie producer in 1909, flouting Thomas Edison's ruthless determination to dominate the film industry; #1 in the Emily Weiss mystery series. Review or Author Interview Irene Fleming, The Brink of Fame (2011), about a woman offered a film-directing job in 1913 Hollywood, provided she can find and return a film tycoon's star actor; #2 in the Emily Weiss mystery series.
David Fulmer, Jass (2005), about a Creole detective investigating the murders of four musicians in New Orleans' Storyville district who played a new type of music known as "jass"; #2 in the Valentin St. Cyr mystery series. David Fulmer, Rampart Street (2006), about a Creole detective trying to find out who murdered a wealthy gentleman in an unsavory part of town as political pressure mounts for him to abandon the investigation; #3 in the Valentin St. Cyr mystery series. David Fulmer, Lost River (2008), about a Creole detective who agrees to investigate a series of murders in Storyville brothels when a madam appeals to him for help; #4 in the Valentin St. Cyr mystery series.
D.E. Johnson, Motor City Shakedown (2011), about the son of an automobile manufacturer who investigates a murder during a 1911 mob war; #2 in the Will Anderson mystery series. D.E. Johnson, Detroit Breakdown (2012), about an auto mechanic in 1912 who investigates a murder in an insane asylum; #3 in the Will Anderson mystery series.
Gregory Murphy, Incognito (2011), a mystery about a New York lawyer who tries to buy a rural cottage for a client in 1911 and becomes obsessed with helping its owner after she refuses to sell. Shelley Noble, Ask Me No Questions (2018), about an English widow who arrives in Manhattan in 1907 with her butler and maid to visit an old friend, and when the friend's husband is shot to death sets out to clear her friend of a murder charge; #1 in the planned Lady Dunbridge mystery series. Charles O'Brien, Death of a Robber Baron (2013), about a New York widow who goes to work for a private detective and soon finds herself investigating the murder of the financier who ruined her husband; #1 in the planned Gilded Age mystery series. Bernadette Pajer, A Spark of Death (2011), about a professor of electrical engineering who must clear his name when he becomes the suspect in the murder of a colleague found dead inside an electrical device; #1 in the Professor Bradshaw mystery series. Bernadette Pajer, Fatal Induction (2012), about a professor of electrical engineering whose work on a telephonic system for music in 1901 is interrupted by his search for a missing gypsy peddler and the peddler's daughter; #2 in the Professor Bradshaw mystery series. Stefanie Pintoff, In the Shadow of Gotham (2009), about a New York police detective who relocates to a smaller town in the wake of his wife's tragic death in 1904, only to be faced with a brutal homicide to investigate just months later. Jed Rubenfeld, The Interpretation of Murder (2006), a thriller which imagines what may have happened during Sigmund Freud's 1909 visit to New York which led him to call Americans "savages" and "criminals." Jed Rubenfeld, The Death Instinct (2010), a thriller about a New York police detective in search of the terrorists who set off a bomb on Wall Street in 1920, a mission which takes him to visit Freud in Vienna; sequel to The Interpretation of Murder.
Rosemary Simpson, Lies that Comfort and Betray (2018), about an heiress whose maid is killed in Central Park as part of a series of murders resembling the work of jack the Ripper; #2 in the Gilded Age mystery series. Rosemary Simpson, Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets (2018), about an heiress who teams up with a former Pinkerton detective to run their own private detective firm, and goes undercover to investigate an opera singer's suspicion that her sister and sister's baby; #3 in the Gilded Age mystery series.
Victoria Thompson, Murder on St. Mark's Place (2000), about a New York midwife who helps a police detective investigate murder; #2 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder on Gramercy Park (2001), about a New York midwife whose discovery of the cause of a baby's mysterious illness uncovers a case of scandalous greed and deception; #3 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder on Washington Square (2002), about a New York midwife who helps a police detective investigate a case of murder linked to a seductress caught in her own schemes; #4 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder on Mulberry Bend (2003), about a New York midwife who helps a police detective investigate a case of murder arising from the squalor in the poor districts; #5 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder on Marble Row (2004), about a New York midwife who helps a police detective investigate the death of a wealthy industrialist in an explosion, a case he thinks is arson and she thinks is more complicated; #6 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder on Lenox Hill (2005), about a New York midwife who agrees to help a family find out who impregnated their mentally impaired daughter; #7 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder in Little Italy (2006), about a New York midwife who suspects that a woman did not die from complications of childbirth as her family insists, but was murdered; #8 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder in Chinatown (2007), about a New York midwife who investigates a case of murder in a family of mixed Irish-Chinese heritage; #9 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder on Bank Street (2008), about a New York midwife and a police detective whose friendship is threatened when he investigates the murder of a doctor; #10 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder on Waverly Place (2009), about a New York midwife and a police detective who must investigate after her mother attends a seance that ends in murder; #11 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder on Lexington Avenue (2010), about a New York midwife and a police detective who investigate the murder of a man who opposed his deaf daughter's wish to marry a deaf teacher on the grounds of eugenics; #12 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder on Sisters’ Row (2011), about a midwife who, after helping a wealthy woman rescue a young woman and her baby from a brothel, learns the wealthy benefactor has been murdered; #13 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder on Fifth Avenue (2012), about a New York midwife and her policeman husband who investigate a murder in Manhattan's ritzy Knickerbocker club; #14 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder in Chelsea (2013), about a New York midwife who has taken in a child and, shortly after she learns that a woman is claiming the child and asks her policeman friend to investigate, discovers the woman has been murdered; #15 in the Gaslight series. Victoria Thompson, Murder in Murray Hill Victoria Thompson, Murder on Amsterdam Avenue (2015), about a midwife whose wedding plans are interrupted when a family friend asks to investigate the death of his son, whom he believes was poisoned; #17 in the Gaslight mystery series. Victoria Thompson, Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue (2015), about a former midwife who investigates the murder of a wealthy man whose young bride, a poor Irish girl, is charged with the crime; #18 in the Gaslight mystery series. Victoria Thompson, Murder in Morningside Heights (2016), about a former midwife married to a private detective who investigate the death of a woman professor who had many secrets; #19 in the Gaslight mystery series. Victoria Thompson, Murder in the Bowery (2017), about a private detective's wife who helps her husband investigate the death of a newsboy in the Bowery on the same night as a young lady of high social standing was also murdered there; #20 in the Gaslight mystery series. Victoria Thompson, Murder on Union Square (2018), about a private detective's wife who must clear her husband of a murder charge after he is accused of killing the father of a child they wish to adopt; #21 in the Gaslight mystery series. Review Victoria Thompson, Murder on Amsterdam Avenue (2015), about a midwife whose wedding plans are interrupted when a family friend asks to investigate the death of his son, whom he believes was poisoned; #22 in the Gaslight mystery series.
Victoria Thompson, City of Secrets (2018), about a former con artist who tries to help her suffragette friend, whose second husband dies in what seems to be a terrible accident leaving her with debts instead of the wealth he led her to believe he possessed; #2 in the Counterfeit Lady mystery series.
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(1950), about a young boy sent to Canada around the turn of the twentieth century to join his father, who finds upon arriving that his father is dead.
(2011), about a young German-Lutheran man who applies for a homestead grant in Saskatchewan in 1909 and discovers his parents have arranged his marriage to a sixteen-year-old girl; #1 in the planned Understanding Ursula trilogy.
(2011), about a young pianist from Minneapolis who travels the world in pursuit of her dream of becoming an orchestra conductor; self-published.
(1982), about the early twentieth century American journalist and Communist John Reed and his wife Louise Bryant.
(2009), a family saga narrated by a 91-year-old woman and her 105-year-old mother about life in Oklahoma beginning with the arrival of the railroad; Christian message.
(1963), about the U.S. Marines' defense of the American Embassy in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900; a movie starring Charlton Heston and David Niven was based on this novel; Samuel Edwards is a pen name of Noel B. Gerson.
(2009), a novel of alternative history that imagines what might have happened if 5,000 black Civil War veterans had attended the July 1913 reunion at Gettysburg along with the 54,000 white veterans.
(2008), about a black passenger on the Titanic; self-published. 
(2007), a family saga about immigrants from the Ottoman Empire and their descendents in New York beginning in 1912; self-published.
(1980), about miners in 1912 West Virginia; #4 in the Beulah Quintet (#5, The Killing Ground, is set in the 1980s).
(2013), about a present-day woman in Savannah, Georgia, who learns that a kidnapping may be connected to the discovery of a century-old corpse in a tunnel under her restaurant; and the 1905 murder that is linked to the kidnapping; self-published.
(2003), about the birth of the Hollywood film industry; #1 in the Harold Gilbert series.
(2003), about a Hollywood comedian caught unprepared in 1927 when the "talkies" become more popular than silent films; #2 in the Harold Gilbert series; self-published.
(2014), about a New York midwife whose partner, after being fired from his police job, continues, with her assistance, to investigate the case of a missing woman who answered a "lonely hearts" ad; #16 in the Gaslight series.