Celebrated Crimes Books in Order

Dumas condenses the dramatic life of Mary, Queen of Scots, from glittering French courts to Scottish rebellions and English imprisonment. Marriages, plots, and diplomatic betrayals lead inexorably toward her execution at Fotheringhay.

The musketeers confront their final, most dangerous secret: a mysterious prisoner who may be the king’s twin. Plots to replace Louis XIV, prison breaks, and last stands test their bond and ask what sacrifices loyalty truly demands.

In tsarist Russia, proud noblewoman Vaninka falls in love with a guards officer beneath her station. Their secret affair, mixed with hints of conspiracy, ends in betrayal and harsh punishment from a state that trusts no passion it cannot control.

A fuller version of the Brinvilliers story, this work follows the marchioness from her education in poisons to the long series of quiet murders in her family. Court gossip and police investigation finally bring her to grim justice.

Retelling a notorious Italian case, this narrative follows Beatrice Cenci and her family under the cruel rule of her father. Abuse, a desperate plot to kill him, and a harsh papal justice system drive the story toward the scaffold.

Set around the island of Nisida near Naples, this dark tale unfolds as a confession of crime and misplaced love. Storms, prisons, and an ill‑fated relationship show how passion and revenge can entangle generations.

Drawing on the famous case of the missing peasant, this story follows a man who returns to his village after years away—or so it seems. Dumas plays out the doubts of wife and neighbours as identity itself goes on trial.

This piece centres on Catherine Deshayes, known as La Voisin or La Constantin, implicated in fortune‑telling, abortions, and poisonings under Louis XIV. Dumas shows how superstition, fear, and high‑born clients fed a thriving underground trade.

Retelling the Brinvilliers case, this Italian edition follows a Parisian marchioness who learns to use subtle poisons against her own family. Dumas charts her descent from reckless pleasure to guilt and a sensational public execution.

Queen Joanna I of Naples rules a turbulent kingdom where lovers, cousins, and political rivals all have claims. Accusations of murder and scandal swirl as Dumas explores how a woman on a medieval throne navigates power and peril.

Dumas portrays Derues as a pious‑seeming shopkeeper whose greed leads him to forgery, fraud, and murder. Slowly tightening chapters follow his lies, the suspicions of neighbours, and the evidence that finally unmasks him.

Set in the Balkans, this narrative traces the rise of Ali Pacha of Ioannina from provincial warlord to near‑independent ruler. Ruthless tactics, shifting alliances, and a bloody fall show how local power can defy, then succumb to, empires.

A more focused version of the Loudun case, this piece follows priest Urbain Grandier from local quarrels to accusations of sorcery. Exorcisms, forged evidence, and public spectacle reveal how easily justice bends to power.

A beautiful young marquise finds herself trapped in a household ruled by her husband’s sinister brothers. Flattery turns to threats, then poison plots, as Dumas traces how family greed can twist devotion into lethal hatred.

Based on a seventeenth‑century cause célèbre, this story tells of a noble couple whose long‑awaited heir vanishes in infancy. Years later, a mysterious young man appears, and questions of identity, inheritance, and long‑hidden crime erupt.

Dumas’s portrait of the Borgia family follows Rodrigo, Cesare, and Lucrezia through ruthless manoeuvres in Renaissance Italy. Poison, arranged marriages, and shifting alliances show how spiritual authority and raw ambition fed one another.

Dumas sketches the life of Joachim Murat, dashing cavalry commander and king of Naples. Bold charges, risky politics, and his final, doomed attempt to reclaim a throne make for a tragic study in charisma and overreach.

This volume examines anti‑Protestant violence in southern France, tracing how propaganda, fear, and revenge produced waves of slaughter. Dumas balances scenes of mob fury with portraits of individuals caught between faith and survival.

Here Dumas recounts the story of student Karl‑Ludwig Sand, who assassinated writer August von Kotzebue and was executed. The narrative explores youthful idealism, political repression, and how martyrdom can be manufactured from a crime.