"In skillfully intertwined storylines from the dawn of the twentieth century and the heyday of the Roman Empire, Tasha Alexander's bestselling series brings Lady Emily and her husband to Pompeii, where they uncover a recent crime in the ancient city. Some corpses lie undisturbed longer than others. But when Emily discovers a body hidden in plain sight amongst the ruins of Pompeii, she sets in motion a deadly chain of events that ties her future to the fate of a woman whose story had been lost for nearly two thousand years. Emily and her husband, Colin Hargreaves, have accompanied her dear friend Ivy Brandon on a trip to Pompeii. When they uncover a corpse and the police dismiss the murder as the work of local gangsters, Emily launches an investigation of her own. She seems to be aided by the archaeologists excavating the ruins, including a moody painter, the enigmatic site director, and a free-thinking American capable of sparring with even the Duke of Bainbridge. But each of them has secrets hiding among the ruins. The sudden appearance of a beautiful young woman who claims a shocking relationship to the Hargreaves family throws Emily's investigation off-course. And as she struggles to face an unsettling truth about Colin's past, it becomes clear that someone else wants her off the case-for good. Emily's resolve to unearth the facts is unshakable. But how far below the surface can she dig before she risks burying herself along with the truth?"--

Tending her veterinarian father's Hertfordshire racing pigeons while waiting for her best friend to return from World War II, Olive is recruited into the Baker Street covert branch of British Intelligence before investigating the murder of a local busybody.

"In the next Lady Emily Mystery The Dark Heart of Florence, critically acclaimed author Tasha Alexander transports readers to the legendary city of Florence, where Lady Emily and Colin must solve a murder with clues leading back to the time of the Medici. In 1903, tensions between Britain and Germany are starting to loom over Europe, something that has not gone unnoticed by Lady Emily and her husband, Colin Hargreaves. An agent of the Crown, Colin carries the weight of the Empire, but his focus is drawn to Italy by a series of burglaries at his daughter's palazzo in Florence-burglaries that might have international ramifications. He and Emily travel to Tuscany where, soon after their arrival, a stranger is thrown to his death from the roof onto the marble palazzo floor. Colin's trusted colleague and fellow agent, Darius Benton-Stone, arrives to assist Colin, who insists their mission must remain top secret. Finding herself excluded from the investigation, Emily secretly launches her own clandestine inquiry into the murder, aided by her spirited and witty friend, Cécile. They soon discover that the palazzo may contain a hidden treasure dating back to the days of the Medici and the violent reign of the fanatic monk, Savonarola-days that resonate in the troubled early twentieth century, an uneasy time full of intrigue, duplicity, and warring ideologies. Emily and Cécile race to untangle the cryptic clues leading them through the Renaissance city, but an unimagined danger follows closely behind. And when another violent death puts Emily directly in the path of a killer, there's much more than treasure at stake..."--