Historical mysteries let the reader be picked up and be transported to different times and places. A good story is a painless way to get into the period, and, if it features a unsolved crime or two, gives a look at history’s darker underside.

As if by magic by Dolores Gordon-Smith

Everybody kills somebody sometime by Robert J. Randisi

The reeve's tale by Margaret Frazer

Blood alone by James R. Benn

India Black by Carol K. Carr