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Europe Between the Wars:The British Isles and Continental Europe after WWI and before WWIIJump to: Britain and Ireland Spain and the Spanish Civil War Germany during the Weimar Republic The European Continent, Elsewhere (Russia, France, Italy, Austria, Hungary) 
Novels set in Europe in the years after World War I feature a host of interesting subjects. The heady beginnings of the European film industry flourished especially in Weimar Republic Berlin. Pioneering directors like Fritz Lang and Ernst Lubitch made stars of actors and actresses like Béla Lugosi, Emil Jannings, Greta Garbo and Asta Nielsen. In Ireland, the sentiment for independence from England came to a boil during the 1916 Easter Rising. The 1919-1922 Irish War of Independence soon followed, culminating in the establishment of the Irish Republic in 1922. The Russian Revolution, which began before the World War I years and came to a head during them, made Russia a communist nation and led to Stalinism and the Soviet Union. As the 1920s gave way to the 1930s, a worldwide economic depression coincided with the the rise of the Nazis in Germany, Mussolini's Fascisti in Italy, and the Spanish Civil War.
Britain and Ireland
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Lyn Andrews, From Liverpool with Love (2015), about a girl who takes a very different path in life than her brother after their mother dies in the Liverpool workhouse where all three of them live in the 1920s.
Jeffrey Archer, The Sins of the Father (2012), about an unjustly accused young man who joins the Merchant Navy as WWII begins and, after his ship sinks, has the opportunity to escape his past by assuming a dead man's identity; #2 in the Clifton Chronicles series. Jeffrey Archer, Best Kept Secret (2013), about a best-selling novelist and his family who encounter enemies from their past; #3 in the Clifton Chronicles series. Jeffrey Archer, Be Careful What You Wish For (2014), about a family that encounters a variety of threats as their shipping company begins planning to build its new ocean liner; #4 in the Clifton Chronicles series. Jeffrey Archer, Mightier than the Sword (2015), about a writer who campaigns for the release of a Soviet political prisoner during the Stalin era, and various members of the writer's family who are involved in other events during the 1960s and 1970s; #5 in the Clifton Chronicles series.
Anne Baker, Wartime Girls Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture (2008), about a 100-year-old Irishwoman in a mental institution whose recollections of her life in the 1930s differ from what her psychiatrist learns about her. Sebastian Barry, The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (1998), about a young Irishman who, on his return from WWI, makes the mistake of joining the Royal Irish Constabulary. Sebastian Barry, On Canaan's Side (2011), about a woman who leaves Ireland for Chicago at the end of World War I when the IRA targets the man she loves, a member of the Black and Tans auxiliary police, for revenge. Sebastian Barry, The Temporary Gentleman (2014), about an Irishman looking back on his life while living in Ghana in 1957, and recalling especially the beautiful but emotionally fragile woman he married in the 1920s. Sally Beauman, The Visitors Vanora Bennett, The White Russian (2014), about a young American woman who visits Paris in 1937 and is asked by her dying grandmother to find a mysterious man from her grandmother's past among the city's Russian émigré community. Niamh Boyce, The Herbalist (2013), about four women taken advantage of by a man they trust to provide them with herbs and advice in 1930s Ireland. Review at the Express William Boyd, Sweet Caress (2015), about a British woman photographer whose work sparks controversy from Weimar, Germany, in the 1920s through the Vietnam War era. Barbara Taylor Bradford, Cavendon Hall (2014), about an aristocratic family and the family of servants who live with them in a Yorkshire manor house in the years before World War I. Barbara Taylor Bradford, The Cavendon Women (2015), about an aristocratic Yorkshire family from 1926-1929; #2 in the Cavendon Family series. John Broderick, The Irish Magdalen, a man in an Irish village funds a church with his illegal sweepstakes winnings in the 1930s. Benita Brown, Memories of You (2011), about an orphaned girl separated from her siblings who goes to London where she finds a job and romance but never gives up the hope of finding her sister and brothers. J.L. Carr, A Month in the Country, about a World War I veteran restoring a medieval mural in a village church in Yorkshire. Tim Clare, The Honours Cressida Connolly, After the Party (2018), about a woman who returns to England in 1938 and, during a party at her sister's country house, makes a slip that connects her to a British fascist organization. H.S. Cross, Wilberforce (2015), about a troubled student in a British private school in 1926 and the teacher who tries to help him. Michael Cunningham, The Hours (1998), about Virginia Woolf in 1923 as she was writing Mrs. Dalloway, a woman reading Mrs. Dalloway in 1949 as she plans a birthday party for her WWII veteran husband, and a present-day New York woman planning a party for a poet friend; won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Martin Davies, The Year After (2011), about a young man who returns from fighting in the trenches and, attending a party at a country house he swore never to return to, begins to question what he understood about events there before the war. Anna Davis, The Jewel Box (2009), about a woman who writes a society column for a newspaper in jazz-age London and becomes involved with two attractive American men whose enmity complicates her life. Jill Dawson, Lucky Bunny (2012), about a London slum girl who grows up during the 1930s and the WWII years to become an accomplished thief during the 1950s and '60s. Elizabeth Day, Home Fires (2013), about a woman in present-day England who, after her critical mother-in-law comes to stay with her and her husband in the aftermath of the death of their only son, a soldier, reflects on her childhood when her difficult father returned from the Great War. Louis de Bernières, So Much Life Left Over (2018), about a flying ace and a war nurse whose marriage falters after WWI, and their group of friends who survived the war and must now decide what to do with their lives at the beginning of the 1920s. Frank Delaney, Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show Frank Delaney, The Matchmaker of Kenmare (2011), about an Irish man upset by his wife's disappearance who makes friends with a matchmaker and her sweetheart, an American intelligence officer, during the early days of World War II; sequel to Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show. R.F. Delderfield, To Serve Them All My Days, about life in an English boarding school during the years between the wars. Margaret Dickinson, The Buffer Girls (2016), historical romance about a Derbyshire brother and sister and their childhood sweethearts after the end of WWI. Elaine di Rollo, Bleakly Hall (2011), a comic novel about friends who met during World War I while serving as a nurse and an ambulance driver when they meet again at a spa after the war.
Anne Doughty, The Hawthorns Bloom in May Anne Doughty, A Girl Called Rosie Anne Doughty, For Many a Long Day (2009), about two families in Ulster, Ireland, in the 1930s whose lives lack happiness even though they have work when many others are unemployed; #4 in the Hamilton saga. Anne Doughty, Shadow on the Land (2010), about two Ulster families in 1942 during World War II when American soldiers are stationed near the city; #5 in the Hamilton saga.
Helen Dunmore, The Lie (2014), about a young soldier who returns home to his Cornish fishing village after World War I, and is haunted by the consequences of a lie. Pamela Evans, Harvest Nights Pamela Billings Ewen, The Moon in the Mango Tree, about a woman who marries a medical missionary in 1919 and goes to Siam with him, but longs for a career as an opera singer; Christian message. Patricia Falvey, The Yellow House (2010), about a woman who works in a mill in northern Ireland and is torn between two men, one working for Irish independence, the other the black-sheep son of the mill owner. J.B. Farrell, Troubles, a humorous novel set in Ireland in the post-WWI depression year 1919. Katie Flynn, The Forget-Me-Not Summer (2013), about a girl whose mother disappears, which means she must live with an unkind aunt and cousin, where she meets a boy who becomes her friend shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Lucy Foley, The Book of Lost and Found (2015), about a young woman in present-day London, who after the death of her ballerina mother, searches for the identity of a woman who resembles her in an old portrait, and about that woman's life in the 1920s. Maggie Ford, The Fisherman’s Girl (2018), about a young woman in Leigh-on-Sea who is pregnant by a man whose family is feuding with hers, in the aftermath of the 1929 market crash as they struggle to make ends meet. Essie Fox, The Last Days of Leda Grey (2016), about a British silent film actress who becomes a recluse after a torrid love affair in the 1920s and the journalist who finds an old photograph of her in 1976 and discovers she is still alive. June Francis, Sunshine and Showers (2010), historical romance about two women in 1926 England, one of whom works as a live-in maid for a couple who have been at odds with each other since he returned from the war, the other of whom receives a marriage proposal from the man who employs her as his cook and housekeeper. Pat Friedberg, 21 Aldgate Kate Furnivall, Shadows on the Nile (2013), about a young London woman who goes to Egypt in search of brother after he disappears in 1932. Elizabeth Gill, The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton (2014), about a young woman in 1920 who finds work as a legal secretary in Durham, England, after her father disowns her, and a soldier returned from the war to discover he has inherited an old house in Durham. Philippa Gregory, Fallen Skies Julia Gregson, East of the Sun (2009), about three young British women who travel to India together in the 1920s. Melissa Harrison, All Among The Barley (2018), about a fourteen-year-old girl on a farm in Suffolk in 1933, and the glamorous-seeming London woman who visits their rural community to document their traditions. Alan Hollinghurst, The Stranger's Child (2011), about the threatened reputation of a poet whose lines in a child's notebook become famous after he is killed in World War I. Anna Hope, Wake (2014), about three London women grieving the losses they suffered during World War I and struggling to cope with postwar life.
Elizabeth Jane Howard, Marking Time (1991), about a wealthy British family in 1939 as World War II begins; #2 in the Cazalet Chronicle. Elizabeth Jane Howard, Confusion (1993), about a wealthy British family during the World War II years of 1942-1945; #3 in the Cazalet Chronicle. Elizabeth Jane Howard, Casting Off (1995), about a wealthy British family and the son who returns from the war and struggles to adjust to peacetime and regain his place in the family; #4 in the Cazalet Chronicle. Elizabeth Jane Howard, All Change
Suzanne Joinson, A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar Suzanne Joinson, The Photographer’s Wife (2016), about a British architect in Jerusalem in the 1920s, his affair with a photographer's wife, and the architect's artist daughter who in 1937 finds her life changed when the photographer visits her in Sussex with revelations that send her to Jerusalem in search of answers. Wendy Jones, The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals (2012), a humorous novel about a man in a Welsh village in the 1920s who proposes to one woman shortly before falling in love with another.
Kate Kerrigan, City of Hope Kate Kerrigan, Land of Dreams (2014), about an Irish immigrant who follows her runaway adopted son to Hollywood, where her friendships with a film composer and a Japanese woman change her views about her adopted country; #3 in the Ellis Island trilogy.
Stephanie Lam, The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House Mary Larkin, Shades of Deceit Morgan Llywelyn, 1916, A Novel of the Irish Rebellion, about a young man in Dublin during the Irish fight for independence; #1 in the Irish Century series. Morgan Llywelyn, 1921, The War for Independence, about an Irish newspaper reporter during the Irish Civil War; #2 in the Irish Century series. Morgan Llywelyn, 1949, The Irish Republic, about the daughter of a famous revolutionary whose struggles against repressive Irish policies limiting women's freedom drive her to a career on the Continent and a job with the League of Nations as World War II begins; #3 in the Irish Century series. Lesley Lokko, The Last Debutante (2016), about two sisters and their family secrets, beginning in 1930 when the eldest is presented at Court, into the present day. Elizabeth Lord, Julia's Way (2011), about a young London woman whose financé jilts her in 1921 after her father dies. Alison Love, The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom (2016), about a young London woman and an Italian man who first meet when she is a dancer at a nightclub, and then again after she is the wife of his wealthy patron and World War II is about to begin. Beryl Matthews, Battles Lost and Won (2011), about two young people whose eager anticipation of their fathers' homecoming at the end of World War I are disappointed when his father returns broken in mind and hers meets with a tragic accident. Beryl Matthews, Two Strangers (2014), about a London girl who tries to track down the two strangers who helped her when her violent father threw her out of the home in the slums to starve in the 1920s. Eduardo Mendoza, An Englishman in Madrid (2013), a thriller about an English art historian invited to Madrid in 1936 to value a collection of paintings, and becomes a target for Russian assassins. Connie Monk, A Promise Fulfilled (2010), historical romance about a sixteen-year-old orphan in 1926 who yearns to be an artist and to marry her sweetheart. Connie Monk, Beyond the Shore Meg Mitchell Moore, So Far Away (2012), about a thirteen-year-old girl and a library archivist of the present-day who become absorbed in the diary in which an Irish servant girl writes about her life in the 1920s. Kate Morton, The House at Riverton (also titled The Shifting Fog Kate Mosse, The Winter Ghosts (2009), about a young Englishman, still mourning his brother killed in World War I, who travels to a small town in the French Pyrenees in 1928 and discovers a mysterious girl and a cave connected with the persecution of the Cathars in the Middle Ages. Annie Murray, A Hopscotch Summer (2009), a literary novel about an unraveling family in 1930s Birmingham told from the perspective of the couple's young daughter. Annie Murray, The Women of Lilac Street (2013), about three women living in Birmingham in the late 1920s who rely on their friendship to face their troubles. Marina Neary, Never Be at Peace Christopher Nicholson, Winter (2014), about the aging Thomas Hardy, who falls in love with Gertrude Bugler when she plays Tess in an amateur production of a play based on his novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Review at The Guardian (1924) Juliet Nicolson, Abdication (2012), about a chauffeur in love with an Oxford undergraduate in 1936, the year Edward VIII abdicates to marry Wallis Simpson. Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (2014), about a man born in 1919 who is reborn repeatedly at the same time and place with the ability to remember his past lives each time. Pamela Oldfield, The Longest Road (2009), about a young widow whose feelings for an encouraging editor cause trouble as she struggles with a novel she has been asked to write. Pamela Oldfield, The Fairfax Legacy (2009), about a troubled woman who sets out to find the truth of her past after her father cuts her out of his will in 1921. Pamela Oldfield, Truth Will Out Geraldine O’Neill, A Liverpool Secret (2018), about a girl with secrets in her past who takes the opportunity to leave the convent orphanage in 1925 when a woman arrives claiming to be her aunt. Patricia O'Reilly, Time and Destiny Adele Parks, Spare Brides (2014), about four women in the aftermath of World War I. Michelle Paver, Dark Matter (2010), about a London man who joins an Arctic expedition in 1937 which encounters a mysterious and deadly horror as the Arctic winter closes in. Michelle Paver, Thin Air (2016), a ghost story about five Englishmen who in 1935 set out to conquer Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the Himalayas. Alex Preston, In Love and War John Preston, The Dig (2007), about the landowner and archaeologists involved in the 1939 Sutton Hoo excavation. Review Mohamed al-Mansi Qandil, A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore (2016), a novel which imagines archaeologist Howard Carter, who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen in the 1920s, meeting an Egyptian woman who resembles Nefertiti. Deanna Raybourn, A Spear of Summer Grass (2013), about an American divorcée whose scandalous life in 1923 Paris results in her being sent to Kenya, where she meets a man who changes her life. Brenda Reid, The House of Dust and Dreams Tanis Rideout, Above All Things (2013), about George Mallory’s wife, Ruth, who remains behind in Cambridge, England, when he attempts to scale Mount Everest in 1924. Carol Rivers, In the Bleak Midwinter (2011), about a young woman in London's East End after the Armistice whose brother has been sent to prison as a deserter. Jennifer Robson, Moonlight Over Paris (2016), about a young Englishwoman who travels to Paris in 1924, where she becomes drawn into a circle of American expatriates. Erika Robuck, Fallen Beauty (2014), about the friendship that develops between an unwed mother working as a seamstress and poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. Neil Spring, The Ghost Hunters Wesley Stace, Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer (2011), about a young composer who, on the eve of his new opera's premiere in 1923, murders his wife and her lover and commits suicide, a scenario that echoes the opera's story. Jessica Stirling, The Paradise Waltz
Simone St. James, An Inquiry into Love and Death (2013), a ghost story set in the 1920s, about an Oxford student investigating strange occurrences after the death of her uncle, whom she learns was a self-styled ghost hunter. Simone St. James, Silence for the Dead (2014), about a woman working in a British hospital for shell-shocked World War I veterans who begins to suspect the hospital is haunted. Simone St. James, The Other Side of Midnight (2015), about a London medium who reluctantly agrees to help investigate the murder of another medium, with the assistance of a man dedicated to debunking psychics. Simone St. James, Lost Among the Living (2016), about a young widow who in 1921 goes to work as a paid companion on a haunted estate.
Patrick Taylor, An Irish Country Girl (2010), a coming-of-age story about a girl, a ghost, and a fisherman in County Cork, Ireland, in the 1920s. Review Louisa Treger, The Lodger (2014), about Dorothy Richardson, a modernist writer in 1920s London, and her love affair with H.G. Wells. Norah Vincent, Adeline (2015), about the novelist Virginia Woolf from 1925 to her death by suicide in 1941. Catriona Ward, Rawblood (2015), about a Dartmoor family in 1910 which suffers from a generations-old curse that causes all of the family members to die young. Sarah Waters, The Paying Guests (2014), about a London spinster and her widowed mother who take an unhappily married couple into their house as boarders in the 1920s, and the disruptions that follow. Pam Weaver, Blue Moon (2015), about a young woman in Worthing, Sussex, whose brother joins the Fascist Black Shirts in 1931 after their father dies. Katherine Webb, A Half-Forgotten Song (2012), about a lonely girl on the Dorset coast who falls in love with an artist who moves there with his mistress in 1937. Fay Weldon, Before The War (2016), about a tall, intelligent spinster who in 1922 contrives to marry a gentleman publisher after she finds out she is pregnant. Aliya Whiteley, The Arrival of Missives (2018), speculative fiction about a young woman in rural England who is in love with a schoolteacher disfigured during WWI, and finds she must make a choice on May Day that will change her life. Lauren Willig, The Other Daughter (2015), about a young woman who returns home to England in the 1920s after her mother's death to discover the father she believed dead is alive, and that she is illegitimate. Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925), a stream-of-consciousness novel about a day in the life of a London woman who will host a party that evening; a contemporary novel at the time it was written. Review
Britain and Ireland: Mysteries and Thrillers
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Rennie Airth, The Blood-Dimmed Tide (2003), about a former Scotland Yard detective, now a farmer, who discovers the body of a young girl in 1932 and feels the need to conduct his own investigation; #3 in the Inspector Madden series. Rennie Airth, The Dead of Winter (2009), about a former Scotland Yard detective, now a farmer, who feels responsible for the safety of a young Polish woman who worked on his farm when she is murdered during a London blackout in 1944; #3 in the Inspector Madden series. Rennie Airth, The Reckoning (2014), about a former Scotland Yard detective, now a farmer, who is asked to help investigate the murder of a retired bank manager; #4 in the Inspector Madden series.
Simon Brett, Blotto, Twinks and the Dead Dowager Duchess (2012), a humorous mystery, styled after P.G. Wodehouse, about a dim-witted English aristocrat and his sister investigating the murder of a duchess; #2 in the Blotto and Twinks mystery series. Simon Brett, Blotto, Twinks and the Rodents of the Riviera (2012), a humorous mystery, styled after P.G. Wodehouse, about a dim-witted English aristocrat and his sister investigating an art theft and a kidnapping; #3 in the Blotto and Twinks mystery series. Simon Brett, Blotto, Twinks and the Bootlegger’s Moll (2012), a humorous mystery, styled after P.G. Wodehouse, about an English aristocrat whose mother sends him to Chicago with his sister to marry an heiress; #4 in the Blotto and Twinks mystery series.
Frances Brody, A Medal for Murder (2013), about a Yorkshire woman who discovers a dead body when she goes for a night at the theatre in 1922; #2 in the Kate Shackleton mystery series. Frances Brody, Murder in the Afternoon (2014), about a Yorkshire woman who investigates the murder of a stone mason; #3 in the Kate Shackleton mystery series. Frances Brody, A Woman Unknown (2015), about a woman detective hired to investigate the robbery of a pawn shop in Harrogate during the 1920s; #4 in the Kate Shackleton mystery series. Frances Brody, A Death in the Dales (2015), about a woman detective who, while on vacation in Yorkshire, looks into the secrets left behind by the only witness to the murder of a tavern landlord; #5 in the Kate Shackleton mystery series. Frances Brody, Murder on a Summer’s Day (2016), about a young woman in 1920s England whose cousin in the India Office asks her to help find a maharajah who has gone missing from a Yorkshire estate where a grouse-shooting party is about to be held; #6 in the Kate Shackleton mystery series.
Rhys Bowen, A Royal Pain, a humorous murder mystery about a young woman distantly in line to the throne who is asked to entertain a Bavarian princess while she also tries to find out why there is a dead body in a bookshop; #2 in the Royal Spyness mystery series. Rhys Bowen, Royal Flush (2009), a humorous murder mystery about a young woman distantly in line to the throne who misunderstands the meaning of "Escort Service" and is sent home to Scotland in disgrace where she finds that someone may intend to shoot the Prince of Wales during a grouse hunt; #3 in the Royal Spyness mystery series. Rhys Bowen, Royal Blood (2010), a humorous murder mystery about a young woman distantly in line to the throne who goes to a royal wedding in Romania, where the head of the Romanian army has been poisoned during a banquet; #4 in the Royal Spyness mystery series. Review Rhys Bowen, Naughty in Nice (2011), about an impoverished distant relative of the queen sent to Nice in 1933 to recover a stolen snuff box, where she models for Coco Chanel and stumbles upon a case of murder; #5 in the Royal Spyness mystery series. Rhys Bowen, The Twelve Clues of Christmas (2012), about an impoverished distant relative of the queen hired to serve as hostess for a holiday party in a village where a series of fatal "accidents" have been plaguing residents; #6 in the Royal Spyness mystery series. Rhys Bowen, Heirs and Graces (2013), about a young woman distantly in line to the throne who, on a mission to help an Australian relative learn upper-class British manners, must also clear him of murder charges when a duke is killed; #7 in the Royal Spyness mystery series. Rhys Bowen, Queen of Hearts (2014), about about a young woman distantly in line to the English throne who travels to America with her mother, an actress in need of a quick divorce, and becomes involved in the search for a jewel thief aboard ship; #8 in the Royal Spyness mystery series.
Joanna Challis, Peril at Somner House (2010), a mystery which imagines young writer Daphne du Maurier as an amateur sleuth visiting the estate of an aristocrat and his philandering wife on an island off the Cornish coast; #2 in the Daphne du Maurier mystery series. Joanna Challis, The Villa of Death (2011), amateur sleuth Daphne du Maurier goes to a country manor for a wedding in 1927, but must clear the bride of the charge of murdering her fiancé; #3 in the Daphne du Maurier mystery series.
Barbara Cleverly, Bright Hair About the Bone (2008), about a woman archaeologist whose excavation of an ancient church in Burgundy is overshadowed by the violent death of her godfather; #2 in the Laetitia Talbot mystery series. Barbara Cleverly, A Darker God (2010), about a woman archaeologist in Athens in 1928 who assists a Scotland Yard detective in investigating the murder of a classics scholar during a rehearsal of an English production of Agamemnon; #3 in the Laetitia Talbot mystery series.
Carola Dunn, The Winter Garden Mystery (1995), about an aristocratic young woman in 1920s England who discovers the body of a missing parlour maid; #2 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Requiem for a Mezzo (1996), about an aristocratic young woman in 1920s England who helps a Scotland Yard inspector investigate the murder of a soprano; #3 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Murder on the Flying Scotsman (1997), about an aristocratic young woman in 1920s England who becomes involved in a murder investigation when a man is found dead in the train she is traveling on; #4 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Damsel in Distress (1997), about an aristocratic young woman in 1920s England who helps a man find his kidnapped fiancée, the daughter of an American millionaire; #5 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Dead in the Water (1998), about an aristocratic young woman in 1920s England who investigates a murder during a boat race; #6 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Styx and Stones (1999), about an aristocratic young woman in 1920s England who investigates an outbreak of poison-pen letters in a village that escalates to murder; #7 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Rattle His Bones (2000), about an aristocratic young woman in 1920s England who investigates the death of a museum curator amid a pile of dinosaur bones; #8 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, To Davy Jones Below (2001), about an aristocratic young woman embarked upon a honeymoon voyage with her Scotland Yard inspector husband when a series of unusual deaths leads them to suspect a murderer is aboard their ship; #9 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, The Case of the Murdered Muckraker (2002), about an aristocratic young woman whose honeymoon is interrupted by the murder of a muckraking journalist; #10 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Mistletoe and Murder (2002), about an aristocratic young woman in 1920s England whose Christmas visit to her family's old Cornish estate is complicated by ghost stories and murder; #11 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Die Laughing (2003), about an aristocratic young woman in 1920s England who discovers her dentist's dead body when she goes for an appointment; #12 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, A Mourning Wedding (2004), about an aristocratic young woman in 1920s England who encounters a series of suspicious deaths when she attends a family wedding; #13 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Fall of a Philanderer (2005), about an aristocratic young woman in 1920s England whose seaside holiday is disrupted by the death of the local Don Juan; #14 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Gunpowder Plot (2006), about an aristocratic young woman in 1920s England who investigates a murder during a Guy Fawkes Day celebration; #15 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, The Bloody Tower (2007), about an aristocratic new mother of twins in 1920s England who discovers a murdered warder after a tour of the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London; #16 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Black Ship (2008), about the young wife of a Scotland Yard detective and mother of twins who investigates the appearance of a dead body in their new house; #17 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Sheer Folly (2009), about a Scotland Yard detective's wife who, collaborating with a photographer friend on a book about follies, goes to a house party at a country manor where a murder occurs in the grotto they want to include in their book; #18 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Review or Author Interview Carola Dunn, Anthem for Doomed Youth (2011), about the sleuthing wife of a Scotland Yard detective who becomes involved in the investigation of a series of murders related to the Great War; #19 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Gone West (2012), about a Scotland Yard detective's sleuthing wife who agrees to help a friend who, having temporarily taken over writing pot-boiler Westerns for her employer, now fears someone is poisoning him; #20 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, Heirs of the Body (2013), about a Scotland Yard detective's sleuthing wife who travels with her husband to her cousin's country estate to help decide which of his four potential heirs has the strongest claim; #21 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Review at the Seattle Times Carola Dunn, Superfluous Women (2015), about a Scotland Yard detective's sleuthing wife who lunches with a group of single friends and discovers a corpse in the locked wine cellar; #22 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. Carola Dunn, The Corpse at the Crystal Palace (2018), about a Scotland Yard detective's sleuthing wife who takes an outing to the Crystal Palace with her young cousins and their nanny, at which she discovers the body of a woman dressed in a nanny's uniform; #23 in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series.
Kate Ellis, A High Mortality of Doves (2016), about a London detective who comes to Derbyshire in 1919 to investigate the murder of a young woman who was a volunteer nurse during the war. Jessica Fellowes, The Mitford Murders (2018), about a young woman who becomes a nursemaid and companion to the Mitford sisters in 1920, and becomes involved in trying to find out who murdered a nurse on a train; based on a real, unsolved murder; #1 in the Mitford Murders mystery series. Jessica Fellowes, Bright Young Dead (2018), about the Mitford sisters in the 1920s trying to solve a mystery after a man is pushed to his death from a nearby bell tower during a birthday party for one of the sisters; #2 in the Mitford Murders mystery series.
Robert Goddard, The Corners of the Globe Robert Goddard, The Ends of the Earth
Dolores Gordon-Smith, Mad about the Boy? (2008), about a former Royal Flying Corps pilot who is investigating what appears to be a suicide when some Russian revolutionaries become involved; #2 in the Jack Haldean mystery series. Dolores Gordon-Smith, As If By Magic (2009), about a former Royal Flying Corps pilot who concludes a destitute, ill man was having a nightmare when he thought he witnessed a murder, a conclusion that proves dangerously wrong; #3 in the Jack Haldean mystery series.
Anna Lee Huber, This Side of Murder (2017), about a young war widow who in 1919 receives a letter suggesting her husband may have committed treason before his death, and when she meets his fellow officers at a party learns a murder was committed to conceal certain secrets; #1 in the Verity Kent mystery series. Anna Lee Huber, Treacherous Is the Night (2018), about a young woman who, at the urging of a friend, attends a seance at which the medium invokes the spirit of a former coworker in the Secret Service whom she believed still alive, shortly after which the medium is murdered. Robert Hudson, The Dazzle (2013), about a rakish aristocrat who sponsors a tuna-fishing outing, the latest craze in 1934, an event covered by journalist Martha Gellhorn and attended by American Western novelist Zane Grey, as a murder is about to be committed. M.R.C. Kasasian, Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire (2018), about a female police officer sent from London in 1939 to fill a post in the small Suffolk town where she grew up, where she must investigate the case of a dead man with puncture wounds in his throat; #1 in the Betty Church mystery series. Laurie R. King, Touchstone (2007), a stand-alone thriller set in 1926 about an agent with the new American Bureau of Investigation (soon to become the FBI) who is hunting an anarchist bomber. Alyssa Maxwell, Murder Most Malicious (2016), about a lady’s maid and her eighteen-year-old mistress who team up to investigate a murder on the day after Christmas. Katharine McMahon, The Crimson Rooms (2009), about a woman who defies convention by training to become a solicitor and the two cases she takes on, helping a woman whose children have been taken from her because of her poverty and defending a man accused of murder. Katharine McMahon, The Woman in the Picture (2014), about a woman solicitor in 1926 London and the two cases she takes on in the days before the General Strike, one a young maid accused of stealing a letter, the other an upper-class woman whose husband accuses her of adultery; sequel to The Crimson Rooms.
Catriona McPherson, The Burry Man's Day (2006), about a Scottish housewife in 1923 who is giving out prizes at the annual fair when the "Burry Man" decked in pagan greenery drops dead; #2 in the Dandy Gilver mystery series. Catriona McPherson, Bury Her Deep (2007), about a Scottish housewife in the 1920s who investigates tales of a stranger said to have been pouncing on ladies in a minister's rural parish by night; #3 in the Dandy Gilver mystery series. Catriona McPherson, The Winter Ground Catriona McPherson, Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains (2009), about a Scottish woman who takes an undercover job as a maid to a woman who fears her husband is about to murder her; #5 in the Dandy Gilver series. Catriona McPherson, Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder Catriona McPherson, Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses (2013), about a Scottish woman who investigates the disappearance of a childhood friend from the girls' school where she taught in a seaside town; #7 in the Dandy Gilver mystery series. Catriona McPherson, Dandy Gilver and the Reek of Red Herrings (2014), about a Scottish woman who spends Christmas on the wet and windy Banffshire coast, where she becomes caught up in a murder investigation; #8 in the Dandy Gilver mystery series. Catriona McPherson, A Deadly Measure of Brimstone (2014), about a Scottish woman who travels to a health spa with her family and investigates the disappearance of a recent guest; #9 in the Dandy Gilver mystery series. Catriona McPherson, Dandy Gilver and the Unpleasantness in the Ballroom (2015), about a Scottish woman who investigates threats to a debutante in 1932 Glasgow, a city in the grip of dance fever; #10 in the Dandy Gilver mystery series.
Caroline Petit, The Fat Man's Daughter (2005), a thriller about a nineteen-year-old British woman in Hong Kong who, upon being suddenly orphaned and left destitute in 1937, accepts a commission to smuggle imperial treasures out of China. Caroline Petit, Deep Night (2008), a thriller about a British spy who escapes from Japanese-occupied Hong Kong to Macao in 1937; sequel to The Fat Man's Daughter. Carol Rivers, Eve of the Isle (2009), romantic suspense about a young Cockney widow befriended by a constable after she has to move in with a lecherous man and his wife because a 1928 flood has destroyed her flower business. Elizabeth Speller, The Return of Captain John Emmett (2011), about a young World War I veteran who has lost his wife and infant son and accepts the request of an old friend's sister to investigate whether her brother's death was really suicide. D.J. Taylor, At the Chime of a City Clock (2010), a comic mystery about two men down on their luck in 1931 London whose paths cross that of a jewel thief after they both become attracted to his secretary. Review at the Times Online
Nicola Upson, Angel with Two Faces (2009), a mystery featuring British mystery author Josephine Tey as the sleuth, in which Tey goes to visit a policeman friend on his Cornish estate in 1935 and encounters a host of gloomy characters and suspicious deaths; #2 in the Josephine Tey mystery series. Nicola Upson, Two for Sorrow (2010), a mystery which imagines that in 1930 novelist Josephine Tey researches the cases of two London women hanged in 1903 for killing babies and finds they are the key to solving a series of vicious killings in her own present day; #3 in the Josephine Tey mystery series. Nicola Upson, Fear in the Sunlight (2013), a mystery in which author Josephine Tey must find out who murdered a Hollywood actress when Alfred Hitchcock comes to Wales in 1936 to film one of Tey's novels; #4 in the Josephine Tey mystery series. Nicola Upson, The Death of Lucy Kyte (2014), a mystery in which novelist Josephine Tey inherits a Suffolk cottage where a woman was murdered in the nineteenth century; #5 in the Josephine Tey mystery series. Nicola Upson, London Rain (2016), a mystery in which novelist Josephine Tey investigates a murder that happens on the day of King George's coronation in 1937; #6 in the Josephine Tey mystery series.
Ashley Weaver, Death Wears a Mask (2015), about a London socialite who assists the police in investigating jewel theft and murder at a masked ball; #2 in the Amory Ames mystery series. Ashley Weaver, A Most Novel Revenge (2016), about an English couple who attend a country house party in 1933 at which a novelist announces her next book will reveal the truth behind a scandalous murder; #3 in the Amory Ames mystery series. Ashley Weaver, The Essence of Malice (2018), about an English couple who travel to Paris to investigate the death of a famous parfumier, whose family the husband's childhood nanny now works for; #4 in the Amory Ames mystery series. Ashley Weaver, An Act of Villainy (2018), about an English couple asked to investigate the threatening letters his mistress, a stage actress, has been receiving in her dressing room; #5 in the Amory Ames mystery series.
Laura Wilson, An Empty Death (2011), about a London police detective who must find out who is killing doctors and nurses who work at a hospital in Middlesex; #2 in the Ted Stratton mystery series. Review at Material Witness
Spain and the Spanish Civil War
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Kate Lord Brown, The Perfume Garden (2015), about a woman of the present who travels to Valencia to restore the house her mother purchased shortly before her death, which is linked to her grandmother's experiences as a nurse during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Manuel de Lope, The Wrong Blood (2000 in the original Spanish; first English edition 2010), about death and rape in a Basque village at the time of the Spanish Civil War. Juan Eslava Galan, The Mule (2003 in the original Spanish, 2007 in English), about a muleteer caught in the brutality of the Spanish Civil War and his persistent efforts to protect his mule. Bea Gonzalez, The Bitter Taste of Time (1998), about the women of a family in northern Spain from the 1920s to the present. Tricia Goyer, A Valley of Betrayal, about a woman who finds herself alone in the Spanish countryside during the Spanish Civil War and takes refuge with a group of international volunteer workers; Christian message; #1 in the Chronicles of the Spanish Civil War series. Tricia Goyer, A Shadow of Treason, about a woman drawn into international espionage schemes during the Spanish Civil War; Christian message; #2 in the Chronicles of the Spanish Civil War series. Tricia Goyer, A Whisper of Freedom, about a woman in a group of volunteers in Spain during the Spanish Civil War who realize they must escape across the Spanish border; Christian message; #3 in the Chronicles of the Spanish Civil War series. Almudena Grandes, The Frozen Heart (2009), about a man and a woman brought together by family secrets stemming from the time of the Spanish Civil War; not readily available except in the Spanish edition, El Corazon Helado Victoria Hislop, The Return (2009), about a modern woman whose vacation trip to Spain leads her to a discovery about her mother and the horrifying past of Granada during the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Rivas, Books Burn Badly (2010), about life during the Spanish Civil War and Franco's dictatorship. Joan Sales, Uncertain Glory Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind (2001), about a boy in Barcelonia during the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War who becomes fascinated by an obscure novel and learns someone is seeking out and destroying copies of all the author's novels. Review
Spain and the Spanish Civil War: Mysteries
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Rebecca Pawel, Death of a Nationalist (2003), about a Spanish police officer in 1939 Madrid who finds the body of his murdered best friend and sets out to find the killer; #1 in the Carlos Tejada mystery series. Rebecca Pawel, Law of Return (2004), about a Spanish police officer who while on a mission in Salamanca comes across an old flame who is trying to help a Jewish friend of her father's avoid being deported to Germany; #2 in the Carlos Tejada mystery series. Rebecca Pawel, The Watcher in the Pine (2005), about a Spanish official promoted to command in a mountain village in 1940 where he encounters hostility and suspects a renewed outbreak of the Civil War is brewing; #3 in the Carlos Tejada mystery series. Rebecca Pawel, The Summer Snow (2006), about a Spanish official who is transferred to Granada in 1945 to investigate the death of his elderly aunt, who has been exasperating the local police and may have been murdered by his father; #4 in the Carlos Tejada mystery series.
C.J. Sansom, Winter in Madrid (2006), about a reluctant British spy scarred by his World War I experiences, who is sent to Madrid during the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Review and Author Interview
Germany during the Weimar Republic
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Aris Fioretos, The Truth about Sascha Knisch, a comic, erotic literary novel about prostitution and murder in the 1928 Berlin film industry. Julia Franck, The Blind Side of the Heart (2009), about a woman who abandons her seven-year-old son at a railway station at the end of World War II and the roots of her emotional inadequacy in her parents' despair at the end of the First World War. Pam Jenoff, The Ambassador’s Daughter (2013), about a young Jewish woman from Germany who, having lived in Oxford with her father throughout World War I, falls in love with a German naval officer when she accompanies her father to Paris for the 1919 peace conference. Juan Gómez-Jurado, The Traitor’s Emblem (2011), a thriller about a young German man in love with a Jewish girl in the decades after WWI, who discovers his father did not die in WWI as he was told. Christian Kracht, The Dead (2018), about a film director in Berlin in the early 1930s who is assigned to travel to Japan to make a film promoting Hitler and secretly conspires to make a film warning the world against the Nazis. Jason Lutes, Berlin: City of Stones (2000), a graphic novel set in the last years of Germany's Weimar Republic, from September 1928 to May Day, 1929; #1 in the Berlin trilogy. Jason Lutes, Berlin: City of Smoke (2008), a graphic novel set in the last years of Germany's Weimar Republic, beginning with the aftermath of the 1929 May Day demonstration; #2 in the Berlin trilogy.
Germany during the Weimar Republic: Mysteries
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Damien Seaman, The Killing Of Emma Gross The European Continent, Elsewhere
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(2013), about a Liverpool family in the days after the end of World War I and the people the two girls and their brother fall in love with.
(2014), about a Liverpool girl whose fiancé dies, leaving her pregnant during the Depression, and her struggle to raise her child.
(2014), about an eleven-year-old girl sent to Egypt to recover from an illness, where she becomes friends with an American archaeologist's daughter and joins her in spying on the secretive excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the 1920s.
(2015), historical fantasy about a girl who accompanies her family to a mysterious Norfolk manor house in 1935 after her father suffers a breakdown.
(2010), about an eighteen-year-old Irish boy in 1932 whose mother sends him to fetch back his father, who has run off to join a traveling theater troupe.
(2004), about a poor family in late nineteenth-century Ireland; #1 in the Hamilton saga.
(2005), about a family in Ballydown, Ireland, in 1912 as strife grows between Catholics and Protestants and Europe heads for a world war; #2 in the Hamilton saga.
(2008), about a young woman who goes to visit Kerry with her grandparents in 1924 in the aftermath of the Irish civil war; #3 in the Hamilton saga.
(2010), about a young London woman who served as a "land girl" during WWI and returns to the country, where she reconnects with an old flame and discovers she has an enemy.
(2010), about a young Jewish woman from London's East End who takes a job editing the WWI battle memoirs of a famous French artist despite her family's and husband's objections. 
, about a woman in 1920s England who falls in love with a troubled veteran of World War I.
(2013), about a wealthy British family adapting to change in the 1950s; #5 in the Cazalet Chronicle. 
(2012), about an English woman who embarks on a bicycle trip on the Silk Road in 1923 and a present-day London woman who meets a man from Yemen.
(2010), about an Irishwoman who wants to continue working as a ladies maid in New York, although her husband remains in rural Ireland fighting for Irish independence; #1 in the Ellis Island trilogy.
(2013), about an Irish woman who decides to return to New York, where she once worked, after her husband dies in the 1930s; #2 in the Ellis Island trilogy.
(2014), about an eighteen-year-old girl who runs away to an old house in 1965 and begins untangling the secrets behind a tragic event that took place there in 1924.
(2013), about a Belfast woman's daughter in the 1920s who must look after her alcoholic father and younger brother and sister when the mother leaves them to be with her lover.
(2010), historical romance about a young woman who accepts a marriage proposal for economic reasons, and then falls in love with another man on the eve of World War II.
(2014), about a Dublin orphan informally adopted by Maud Gonne, who helps her begin a career in theater, and her romantic and political experiences amid the Easter Rising.
(2010), about a bride whose husband suddenly disappears while they are on holiday in 1921.
(2004), about an Irish-born designer who tells her story of working in Paris in the 1920s to a reporter decades later when she is in her nineties.
(2014), about a young Englishman in Florence, Italy, who joins the resistance movement when World War II begins.
(2010), about the wife of a British diplomat who moves to Crete with her husband when he is assigned to work there in 1936, and loves it so much that she stays on after he is sent elsewhere.
(2013), about a woman who takes a job in 1926 as assistant to a ghost hunter noted for exposing frauds and assists him in investigating the phenomena at Borley Rectory.
(2010), about a country schoolteacher in the 1930s who finds herself unexpectedly falling in love.
(2013), about the son of a British diplomat who dies in a fall from the roof of his mistress's apartment building shortly before the negotiations at the close of World War I, who refuses to accept the official explanation for his father's death and sets out to find the truth; #1 in the James Maxted series.
(2014), about a British spy working as a double agent in the Orkneys and searching for a document held on a German ship; #2 in the James Maxted series.
(2015), about a British agent whose team, believing him dead, follows his trail to Japan, where they encounter a sinister German spy; #3 in the Wide World trilogy.
(2008), about a Scottish housewife in 1925 who investigates the murder of a performer in a traveling circus; #4 in the Dandy Gilver mystery series.
(2010), about a Scottish woman who takes a job as a maid to search for a missing heiress, only to encounter murder and get sacked from her job; #6 in the Dandy Gilver mystery series.
(1956 in the original Spanish; first English translation 2002), about the Spanish Civil War in Catalonia.
(2011), about a German police detective investigating the murder of a prostitute in 1929 that may or may not be the work of a serial killer terrorizing the city of Düsseldorf; available in ebook form only.
(2014), about an Italian harbormaster in an Eritrean port who falls in love with his new housekeeper during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.
(2009 in the original Ukrainian; English edition 2013), about two Cossack chiefs who from 1921 until 1926 lead a continuing guerilla war against the Soviet forces in a struggle for Ukrainian independence.
(2011), about a physician called to attend a patient in a Vienna apartment building in 1939, where he finds a network of mysteries that may be connected to the brutal killing of a pet dog. 
(2013), about a Finnish detective summoned by Stalin to investigate the discovery of a painting in a downed German scout plane as the Nazis invade Russia; #3 in the Inspector Pekkala mystery series.