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, 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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Anne Baker, Through Rose-Coloured Glasses (2009), about a young woman who impulsively marries a man she meets at the horse races and discovers, too late, that betting on horses is not his only risky activity. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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. 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 Philippa Gregory, Fallen Skies Julia Gregson, East of the Sun (2009), about three young British women who travel to India together in the 1920s. 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. Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day, a literary novel about an English butler during the years between the world wars. Kate Kerrigan, Ellis Island (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. 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. Elizabeth Lord, Julia's Way (2011), about a young London woman whose financé jilts her in 1921 after her father dies. 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. 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 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. 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 Patricia O'Reilly, Time and Destiny 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. Brenda Reid, The House of Dust and Dreams 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. 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 Mari Strachan, Blow on a Dead Man’s Embers (2011), about a woman whose husband suffers from irrational fears after returning from the Great War. 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 Britain and Ireland: Mysteries
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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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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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Juan Eslava Galan, The Mule, 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. Jonathan Rabb, The Second Son (2011), a mystery about a German police inspector who loses his job when he is discovered to be half Jewish and travels to Barcelona just as the Spanish Civil War breaks out. Manuel Rivas, Books Burn Badly (2010), about life during the Spanish Civil War and Franco's dictatorship. Spain and the Spanish Civil War: Mysteries
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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.
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. Review from the London Evening Standard 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. 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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(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 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.
(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.
(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.
(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.
(2010), about a country schoolteacher in the 1930s who finds herself unexpectedly falling in love.
(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.
(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.
(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.