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M.J. Trow's Latest Book

Newest Release

  • Bibliography:
    74 Books (8 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1985
  • Latest Book:
    February 2024
  • Author Rating:
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Full Series List in Order

Calidus

1 - The Year of the Snake (Feb-2020)

Christopher Marlowe

1 - Dark Entry (Apr-2012)
2 - Silent Court (Apr-2012)
3 - Witch Hammer (Oct-2012)
4 - Scorpion's Nest (Apr-2013)
5 - Crimson Rose (Nov-2013)
6 - Traitor's Storm (Aug-2014)
7 - Secret World (Sep-2015)
7.5 - All Hallows' Eve (Nov-2015)
8 - Eleventh Hour (Jul-2017)
9 - Queen's Progress (Jul-2018)
10 - Black Death (Jul-2019)
11 - The Reckoning (Jul-2020)

Fyre & Stone

1 - The Spectre Games (Aug-2021)

A Geoffrey Chaucer Mystery

1 - The Knight's Tale (Aug-2021)
2 - The Yeoman's Tale (Jul-2022)

A Grand & Batchelor Victorian Mystery

1 - The Blue and the Grey (Apr-2015)
2 - The Circle (Jun-2016)
3 - The Angel (Nov-2016)
4 - The Island (Jan-2018)
5 - The Ring (Jan-2019)
6 - The Black Hills (Jan-2020)
7 - Last Nocturne (Mar-2021)

A Margaret Murray Mystery

1 - Four Thousand Days (Jan-2022)
2 - Breaking the Circle (Jan-2023)

Peter Maxwell

1 - Maxwell's House (Jul-1995)
2 - Maxwell's Flame (1995)
3 - Maxwell's Movie (Feb-1998)
4 - Maxwell's War (Feb-1999)
5 - Maxwell's Curse (Jan-2000)
6 - Maxwell's Ride (Jan-2000)
7 - Maxwell's Reunion (Jan-2001)
8 - Maxwell's Match (Jul-2003)
9 - Maxwell's Inspection (Oct-2003)
10 - Maxwell's Grave (Apr-2005)
11 - Maxwell's Mask (Apr-2007)
12 - Maxwell's Point (Jul-2007)
13 - Maxwell's Chain (Apr-2008)
14 - Maxwell's Revenge (Feb-2009)
15 - Maxwell's Retirement (Mar-2010)
16 - Maxwell's Island (May-2011)
17 - Maxwell's Crossing (Apr-2012)
18 - Maxwell's Return (Apr-2014)
19 - Maxwell's Academy (Sep-2015)
20 - Maxwell's Summer (Sep-2020)

Sholto Lestrade

1 - The Supreme Adventure of Inspector Lestrade (1985)
2 - Brigade: The Further Adventures of Lestrade (1986)
3 - Lestrade and the Hallowed House (1987)
4 - Lestrade and the Leviathan (1987)
5 - Lestrade and the Brother of Death (1988)
6 - Lestrade and the Ripper (1988)
7 - Lestrade and the Guardian Angel (1990)
8 - Lestrade and the Deadly Game (1990)
9 - Lestrade and The Gift of The Prince (1991)
10 - Lestrade and The Magpie (1991)
11 - Lestrade and the Dead Man's Hand (1992)
12 - Lestrade and the Sign of Nine (1992)
13 - Lestrade and the Sawdust Ring (1993)
14 - Lestrade and the Mirror of Murder (1993)
15 - Lestrade and the Kiss of Horus (1995)
16 - Lestrade and the Devil's Own (1996)
The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade (Dec-1998)
Lestrade and the Giant Rat of Sumatra (Apr-2014)
The World of Inspector Lestrade (Feb-2019)
Lestrade and the Brigade (Mar-2021)

Book List in Order: 74 titles




    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    There is a new boss at Scotland Yard: Nimrod Frost. His first "little job" for Lestrade is to investigate the reported appearance of a lion in Cornwall, supposed savager of sheep and frightener of men....



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Inspector Sholto Lestrade is on the trail of a politically motivated murderer responsible for the brutal slaying of a prominent member of Parliment, an investigation that is complicated by the kidnapping of Queen Victoria's heir on the eve of his cor...



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Lestrade's detectives at Scotland Yard have promised him that 1910 is going to be a peaceful year. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out that way. His daughter, Emma, brings him news of a tragic boating accident and he is soon up to his neck in a series...



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Recovering from a broken leg after his ignominious fall from the Titanic, Lestrade should have had a peaceful time convalescing. But an attempt on the life of his future father-in-law makes him realise that a policeman is never really off duty. What ...



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Go back in time to 1888. London is horrified by a series of brutal killings. Dead prostitutes are turning up all over Whitechapel. But these aren't the only murders to perplex the brains of Scotland Yard. In Brighton, another body is discovered. It f...



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    The papers call it suicide. The deceased''s father doesn''t. And when Superintendent Lestrade investigates the death by duelling pistol of Anstruther Fitzgibbon, his suspicions of foul play are immediately aroused. One of Britain''s leading athletes,...



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Knee deep in murder, in his forty-third year. Sholto Lestrade wouldn''t have it any other way.

    The first victim in a series of bizarre killings is a Captain of the Life Guards, who is found in the Thames at Shadwell Stair, with a war medal wed...



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Murder is afoot among the footmen of Britain's Royal Household: a servant girl, Amy Macpherson, has been brutally slaughtered. And so Sholto Lestrade of Scotland Yard is once again on the trail of mystery. The intrepid investigator contends with the ...






    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    England in 1920 is a land fit for heroes. So why is one of those heroes found dead in a dingy London hotel? And why does his war record show that he has been missing, presumed killed in action, for three years?The deceased is none other than the fian...



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    The London Underground railway in 1895 is described as ''dark and deadly and halfway to Hell''. Only too true, for as the last train rattles into Liverpool Street, the one remaining passenger does not get off. How could she, when her eyes stare sight...



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    It was a puzzle that had faced Scotland Yard from its very beginning - whose was the limbless body found among the foundations? And in the murderous world of Sholto Lestrade, one question is invariably followed by another - what do a lecherous rector...



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Superintendent Lestrade and his team at the Yard are facing a series of murders, at first apparently unconnected. An ex-Merchant Navy man and his three nieces are killed when the harness of their trap breaks on a downhill gradient. An accident, surel...



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Walk Up! Walk Up! This way for the greatest show on earth. It is 1879. Disraeli is at Number Ten. The Zulu are being perfectly beastly to Lord Chelmsford.

    What has all this to do with the young Detective Sergeant Sholto Lestrade? Absolutely n...



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    'And death shall come on soft wings to him that touches the tomb of the Pharaoh.' The wings that retired Superintendent Lestrade comes on are those of a de Haviland Hercules. The archaeologist Howard Carter has made the discovery of the century in t...



  • Peter Maxwell may be a dinosaur to his colleagues and a crazy enigma to his students â€" although most of them think an enigma is one of those mad Australian hedgehogs that lay eggs. But even he was young once and he is thrilled and slightly disturbe...



  • Two men had the job of tracing seventeen-year-old Jenny Hyde's killer. One was Chief Inspector Henry Hall, an elitist cop of the old school, who was driving in one direction only - to the top. It was his job. His territory. The other was Peter Maxwel...



    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Lestrade had never been arrested before, although he had often had his collar felt by unsuspecting constables. But now a woman has died in his arms in a London pea-souper and he is not only arrested, but facing the drop.

    Millicent Millichip, ...



  • Ask any teacher what they dread most and they will say, to a man â€" or woman: â€school trips’. Unusually, Peter Maxwell is looking forward to this one, and with good reason â€" it is to his spiritual home, the Museum of the Moving Image. Sadly, t...






  • It is 1891 and London is still reeling from the horror of the unsolved Jack the Ripper murders when Inspector Sholto Lestrade is sent to the Isle of Wight to investigate a strange corpse found walled up in Shanklin Cline. Lestrade whirls from ballroo...



  • Peter Maxwell is delighted when an old college friend asks him to be the historical adviser on a film being made on the coast near Leighford. Dreams of becoming the next Spielberg soon founder when he discovers that the world of film is pretty muc...



  • Maxwell’s Millennium is not quite like other people’s â€" for a start, it is a year later. After much quibbling with the maths department, everyone calls it an honourable draw and he celebrates as only he can: with his cat, his model soldiers, an...



  • It's a busman's holiday for Peter 'Mad Max' Maxwell, saddled with two precocious nieces who insist he takes them to a theme park. While riding, white-knuckled, the Wild Water, a passenger is killed in the float ahead, and Maxwell and the girls become...



  • Unbelievable as it seems to all the Old Boys, Maxwell’s school is about to be turned into a conference centre â€" Halliards is to be no more. Some of his schoolfellows can’t let the moment pass and so they gather together, the Year of Mind Your O...



  • On a two-week staff exchange, Peter â€Mad Max’ Maxwell leaves behind his familiar local comprehensive school for the altogether more sophisticated charms of Grimonds, a private academy steeped in tradition and money. But something is amiss here - ...



  • There comes a time in every teacher’s life when he must face his Nemesis -- the four-yearly Ofsted Inspection. The immediate bĂŞte noire of Head of Sixth Form, Peter Maxwell, is the attractive and vivacious Sally Meninger. Out on the town one night...



  • When Peter 'Mad Max' Maxwell took his kids from Leighford High on an archaeological dig, all should have been learning and fun. The professionals were very excited - was the grave they had found that of Alfred the Great? No, because the corpse was no...



  • One of Leighford High School's 'characters', Deena Harrison had a habit of causing trouble. But when she returns to her school years later to help out in the drama department, the cast suddenly starts to drop dead. Are the seemingly tragic coincidenc...



  • With girlfriend DS Jacquie Carpenter back at work and little baby Nolan rapidly growing into a feisty toddler, Peter â€Mad Max’ Maxwell, Head of Sixth Form at Leighford High, decides to hire an au pair. The exotic Juanita Reyes hails from the sun-...






  • Peter 'Mad Max' Maxwell is a very busy man; as Head of Sixth Form at Leighford High he does his best to resist Ofsted imperatives and mark GCSE coursework, whilst trying to cram as much History as possible into the reluctant heads of Nine Eff Gee and...



  • With the beginning of a new school year under way, Peter 'Mad Max' Maxwell prepares to get stuck into his curricular routine and is looking forward to his forthcoming wedding to fiancĂ©e DS Jacquie Carpenter. The immediate task in hand for senior sta...




  • Leighford High’s Head of Sixth Form, Peter Maxwell, has a complete aversion to technology. Computers and mobile phones, texts and emails; these are not things that â€dinosaur’ Mad Max wants to know about. However, it soon becomes of vital import...



  • Having had his retirement snatched from him by malfunctioning technology, Peter 'Mad Max' Maxwell finds himself facing yet another new year at Leighford High School. After having her hopes of a dedicated house-husband dashed, his wife, Jacquie, is fu...



  • Cambridge, 1583. About to graduate from Corpus Christi, the young Christopher Marlowe spends his days studying and his nights carousing with old friends. But when one of them is discovered lying dead in his King's College room, mouth open in a silent...



  • (A 132-page True Crime Short with 21 photographs) The mysteries surrounding Britain’s 7th earl of Lucan have endured for almost four decades. In 1974, after his carefully crafted plan to murder his wife went awry, he killed his nanny by mistake, an...



  • Second in the thrilling new Kit Marlowe historical mystery series - November, 1583. Desperate not to let the Netherlands fall into the hands of Catholic Spain, the Queen’s spymaster orders Cambridge scholar and novice spy Christopher Marlowe to go ...



  • At Leighford High, Peter 'Mad Max' Maxwell is acting Head of History whilst Peter Moss partakes in an American exchange. His counterpart is Hector Gold, accompanied to Leighford by his eccentric family. In particular, Hector's father-in-law, Jeff O'M...



  • Christopher Marlowe investigates a possible act of witchcraft in the third of this intriguing historical mystery series. July, 1585. Desperate to pursue his chosen career as a professional playwright, the young Christopher Marlowe abandons his C...







  • Christopher Marlowe investigates a school for exiled Catholic priests in the fourth of this intriguing historical mystery series. October, 1586. Sir Francis Walsingham has despatched Kit Marlowe to the English College in Rheims where he suspects the ...



  • In September 1939, much military slang still dated to the trenches of 1914-18 - for instance words such as 'Berthas' (meaning big breasts), taken from the German Big Bertha gun . But World War II soon gave birth to a new wave of armed forces slang su...



  • March, 1587. Christopher Marlowe’s play Tamburlaine, with the incomparable Ned Alleyn in the title role, has opened at the Rose Theatre, and a new era on the London stage is born. Yet the play is almost shut down on its opening night. For a memb...



  • Everybody, they say, has a book in them. Retired Chief Inspector Walter Dew certainly did. And it took him back to the good old days, when coppers lived in station houses, that nice Mr Campbell-Bannerman was at Number Ten, and Britain had the biggest...



  • “I loved the book. Funny and a very relaxing read.”
    Archana Aggarwal - Educator

    MAXWELL’S BACK, AS MURDER COMES TO SLEEPY LEIGHFORD.

    Are the two things connected? Well, yes and no. Teenage girls are being picked up on the ...



  • Christopher Marlowe faces the might of the Spanish Armada in the sixth of this intriguing historical mystery series May, 1588. With Elizabeth I’s court rocked by stories of an imminent invasion and one of his key undercover agents missing, Sir F...



  • 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 cap...



  • “What a great book… I highly recommend it.”
    Netgalley

    The end of civilization, as Peter Maxwell knows it, is just around the corner. It comes in the form of Fiona Braymarr, the new superhead of Leighford Academy. She is a new broom...



  • Christopher Marlowe tackles his most baffling case yet. June, 1589. Now a feted poet and playwright, Kit Marlowe is visiting his family in Canterbury. But it’s not the happy homecoming he had hoped for. A long-standing family friend has been fou...






  • â€Tell me a story, Kit…’It’s All Hallows’ Eve and Kit Marlowe’s evening is disrupted by the call of an ethereal voice, requesting a tale for the haunted night. From the depths of his creative mind comes the tale of ghostly horrors and unea...



  • Intrepid 19th-century private investigators American Matthew Grand and Englishman James Batchelor return in their second mystery. July, 1868. On receiving a commission from Matthew’s cousin Luther to look into the suspicious death of Lafayette B...



  • The Wigwam Murder - as the case against August Sangret came to be known - was one of the most brilliant pieces of detection and forensic science then on record. Drs Keith Simpson, Eric Gardner and Gerald Roche Lynch worked together to present a compr...



  • Nineteenth century private investigators American Matthew Grand and Englishman James Batchelor investigate the murder of Charles Dickens. June, 1870. The world-famous author Charles Dickens has been found dead in his summerhouse where he had been...



  • Christopher Marlowe must discover who murdered the queen’s spymaster in this absorbing historical mystery. April, 1590. The queen’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, is dead, leaving a dangerous power vacuum. His former right hand man, Nichol...



  • The wedding of Matthew Grand's sister is marred by cold-blooded murder in the intriguing new Grand & Batchelor Victorian mystery. March, 1873. Private investigators Matthew Grand and James Batchelor have arrived at Matthew's substantial family hom...



  • As advance guard for the Queen’s Progress, Christopher Marlowe tackles murder and intrigue within some of England’s grandest stately homes. May, 1591. When Queen Elizabeth decides to embark on a Royal Progress, visiting some of the grandest ho...



  • A grisly discovery fished out of the River Thames marks the start of an intriguing new case for private detectives Grand & Batchelor. September, 1873. Private enquiry agents Matthew Grand and James Batchelor have been hired by timber merchant Sel...



  • Many readers of the Lestrade books wonder what is fact and what is fiction â€" and the author is delighted that they can’t always tell! So, for all the readers out there who have ever asked that question, here is the World of Inspector Lestrade. In...



  • As plague stalks the streets of 16th century London, Christopher Marlowe is drawn into a baffling murder investigation where nothing is as it first appears. September, 1592. “Kit, I know we have never been friends, but you are the only man in Lo...



  • Private detectives Grand & Batchelor embark for the Wild West - and headlong into a baffling murder investigation in this gripping Victorian mystery. March, 1875. Although he has never had much time for George Custer, hero of the American Civil Wa...



  • Sometimes, a snake is just a snake. And sometimes... First-century Rome. Senator Gaius Lucius Nerva is taken ill at a dinner party and dies a few days later. His heartbroken wife, Flavia, is told it was a natural death. Calidus, Nerva's recently fr...



  • The inaugural performance of Christopher Marlowe's controversial new play is marred by sudden, violent death in this lively 16th century mystery. December, 1592. England is entering dangerous waters as thoughts turn to the question of the agei...



  • Peter Maxwell is looking forward to a nice quiet summer, with perhaps a little light gardening if necessary – as long as the plants don't grow over the door and trap them all inside, it won't be necessary. But, as so often in Maxwell's life, M...



  • 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 ...



  • Book five in the Inspector Lestrade series. There is a new broom at Scotland Yard; Nimrod Frost. His first 'little' job for Lestrade is to investigate the reported appearance of a lion in Cornwall, a supposed savager of sheep and frightener of m...




  • Introducing 14th century poet Geoffrey Chaucer as a memorable new amateur sleuth in the first of an ingeniously-conceived medieval mystery series. April, 1380. About to set off on his annual pilgrimage, Comptroller of the King’s Woollens and c...



  • Book one in the Fyre & Stone series.Two men from the same city, but very different worlds.Sebastian Fyre is a wealthy young Lord with an unshakable belief that he can communicate with the dead. John Stone is a tough policeman who grew up in the Victo...



  • Introducing turn-of-the-century archaeologist-sleuth Margaret Murray in the first of a brilliant new historical mystery series. October, 1900. University College, London. When the spreadeagled body of one of her students is discovered in her rente...



  • Poet-sleuth Geoffrey Chaucer is caught up in the chaos of the Peasants' Revolt as he attempts to track down a brutal killer.June, 1381. Embarking on his annual pilgrimage to Canterbury, Geoffrey Chaucer and his fellow travellers are forced to turn b...



  • In this humorous medieval mystery, Geoffrey Chaucer discovers a very un-poetic side to Oxford while tracking down a killer.The Clerk's Tale is the latest instalment in M.J. Trow's popular Geoffrey Chaucer series. As historically accurate and utterly ...



  • Turn-of-the-century archaeologist-sleuth Margaret Murray returns for the second in her captivating historical mystery series.'Famous Sensitive Found Dead. Police Baffled.'May, 1905. When one medium turns up dead, the police assume it is a robbery gon...



  • Book twelve in the Kit Marlowe series.May 1593. The rumour spreading around London like wildfire is that Kit Marlowe, playwright, poet and government agent, is dead; killed, men say, in a tavern brawl. But can it be true? And is it that simple? A Pur...



    • / Cozy Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Book twenty-one in the Mad Max series.When asked about when it all began, Peter Maxwell would always say that it was at breakfast one day, when his son said, 'It says in the news that bats are giving people colds.' At that point, that was all anyone ...


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

M.J. Trow has published 74 books.

M.J. Trow does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Moon Rising, was published in February 2024.

The first book by M.J. Trow, The Supreme Adventure of Inspector Lestrade, was published in January 1985.

Yes. M.J. Trow has 8 series.