Cozy Suspense Women Sleuths

Pamela Paterson and Bettina Fraser call their crafting group Knit and Nibble, in honor of its two main activities. But on a stormy Halloween night, their peaceful chat over spiced cider and cookies is interrupted by homicide . . . With the houses of Arborville, New Jersey, decked out in festively frightening decorations, it's easy to mistake a real dead body for a fake. But Pamela and Bettina are alerted by the screams of teenage trick-or-treaters to the corpse next door. Their neighbor Adrienne's sister, visiting from New York City, is slumped on the porch, fatally stabbed.

Frances and her husband, George, have two points of interest in Paris. One is an impromptu holiday to visit the Paris Exposition. The other is personal. George’s Aunt Julia has requested her nephew’s help in looking into the suspicious death of renowned artist Paul Ducasse. Though Julia is not entirely forthcoming about her reasons, she is clearly a woman mourning a lost love. At the exposition, swarming with tourists, tragedy casts a pall on the festivities. A footbridge collapses. Julia is among the casualties. However, she was not just another fateful victim.

Even though working a wake isn’t Goldy Bear’s idea of fun, the Colorado caterer throws herself into preparing a savory feast featuring Poached Salmon and Strawberry Shortcake Buffet designed to soothe forty mourners. Her culinary efforts seem to be exactly what the doctor ordered … until her former father-in-law, gynecologist Fritz Korman, is struck down—and Goldy is accused of adding poison to the menu.

Zara Riddle is trying to find work-life-magic balance, but there's one big secret this witch needs to crack. Chet Moore, the moody shifter who lives next door, has been running hot and cold like a broken faucet ever since they met. Zara finally resorts to magic to get the truth out of him. It turns out her instincts were right. Chet has been hiding something, and it's a doozy. Now Chet wants Zara's help with an intensely personal mission. He wants her to track down a lost soul and solve a cold case - a strange and violent case that powerful entities would rather keep buried.

When an American tourist is murdered with a scone in Gemma Rose's quaint English tearoom, she suddenly finds herself apron-deep in a mystery involving long-buried secrets from Oxford's past. Armed with her insider knowledge of the university and with the help of four nosy old ladies from her local Cotswolds village (not to mention a cheeky little tabby cat named Muesli), Gemma sets out to solve the mystery - all while dealing with her matchmaking mother and the return of her old college love, Devlin O'Connor, now a dashing CID detective.

Lady Georgiana Rannoch, 35th in line for the British throne, knows how to play the part of an almost royal - but now she's off to Hollywood, where she must reprise her role as sleuth or risk starring in an all-too-convincing death scene...

Domestic diva Sophie Winston is getting into the Halloween spirit; her decorations for a community haunted house are so good, it's scary. Not to be outdone, rival domestic diva Natasha is throwing a spooktacular Halloween party at her house. But when Sophie arrives, she discovers one of Natasha's guests dead in a Halloween display and a pale, fanged partygoer fleeing the scene.

Meet Whitney Whitaker. A hopeless romantic when it comes to real estate, she knows what it takes to find - and flip - the home of one’s dreams. A fixer-upper is like catnip to Whitney: She can’t resist the challenge of turning an eyesore into a priceless work of art. So when one of her clients decides to liquidate a crumbling property, Whitney seizes the opportunity to purchase it for a song. But soon a curious incident of the cat in the night-time leads to a change in tune.

It’s almost Halloween, and the small island of Charm, North Carolina, is decked out for the festivities. When Everly Swan agrees to close her iced tea shop early to help her aunts host their annual haunted historic walking tour, she expects some good-natured spooks. But the night turns grave when one of the ghostly actors is found dead. To complicate matters, the victim scratched Everly’s name into the ground before she died, making her a key suspect.

Val Fremden is a lot of things. Quirky. Jaded. Disaster-prone—to name a few. But more than anything, she’s afraid of commitment. So it's no wonder that when boyfriend Tom tells her he loves her, Val plays it cool. But when he accidently hauls her mom’s ashes to a junkyard, Val loses it like Chernobyl 2.0. On the warpath with Tom, Val turns to her wacko, low-rent friends to help track down her mom’s cremains. But three botched stakeouts and two disasters later, she still hasn't got peanuts.

Molly Murphy Sullivan's husband, Daniel, a police captain in turn-of-the-century New York City, is in a precarious position. The new police commissioner wants him off the force altogether. So when Daniel's offered an assignment from John Wilkie, head of the Secret Service, he's eager to accept. Molly can't draw any details of the assignment out of him, even where he'll be working.

Jessica is on the Hawaiian island of Maui, giving a lecture at Maui College on community involvement in police investigations - a subject she knows well. Her co-lecturer is legendary retired detective Mike Kane, a behemoth of a man who shares his love of Hawaiian lore, legends, and culture with Jessica.

Few can compete with the Natasha Smith when it comes to entertaining, but her childhood rival, Sophie Winston, certainly tries. While Natasha is known for her intricate centerpieces and painstakingly prepared gourmet meals, Sophie likes to keep things simple...real simple.

After the West London Museum suffers extensive fire damage, the shop owners on Baker Street come together to hold an afternoon auction tea to raise funds to rebuild it. Cape Cod's cognoscenti file into Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room, but the auction never happens. Before the gavel can fall, museum-board chair Kathy Lamb is found dead in the back room. Wrapped tightly around her neck is a long rope of decorative knotted tea cups. Gemma's boyfriend in blue, Ryan Ashburton, arrives on the scene with Detective Louise Estrada. But the suspect list is long, and the case is far from elementary.

Agatha Raisin, retired PR supremo, has been spurned at the alter by the man of her dreams - her attractive neighbor James Lacey. So temporarily deserting the sleepy Cotswold village of Carsely, she pursues her fleeing fiancé to north Cyprus where, instead of enjoying a romantic honeymoon, they witness the killing of an obnoxious tourist in a disco. Can the duo forget their differences and resume their strangely successful sleuthing partnership?

Spring is livening up Briar Creek after a long, cold winter, and newlyweds Lindsey and Sully could not be happier. Even though the upcoming mayoral election is getting heated, everything else in town is coming up daffodils...until a body is found. Ms. Cole, a librarian and current candidate for town mayor, is shocked when she opens her trunk to discover a murder victim who just so happens to be a guy she dated 40 years ago and the founder of the baking empire Nana's Cookies.

Tally Holt has poured her heart, soul, and bank account into Tally's Olde Tyme Sweets, specializing in her grandmother's delicious recipes. Tally's homemade Mallomars, Twinkies, fudges, and taffy are a hit with visiting tourists-and with Yolanda Bella, the flamboyant owner of Bella's Baskets next door. But both shops encounter a sour surprise when local handyman Gene Faust is found dead in Tally's kitchen, stabbed with Yolanda's scissors.

November, 1923. An invitation to a house party at the estate of Parkview Hall is a welcome respite for Olive Belgrave, a newly minted working girl who’s become the solver of high society’s trickiest problems. But when the sumptuous black-tie event turns deadly, Olive’s cousin Peter becomes the main suspect. Olive must unmask a sophisticated killer before an innocent man takes the blame . . . because murder doesn’t RSVP.

Agatha Raisin has never been one for forced holiday cheer, but her friendly little village of Carsely has always prided itself on its traditional Christmas festivities. But this year the bells will not be ringing out, as Mr. John Sunday, an officer with the Cotswold Health and Safety Board, has chosen Christmas as the time to crack down on safety hazards. But Mr. Sunday is soon found face down in the petunias, very much dead.

Claire Barclay is enthusiastic about her British Mystery Book Tour business. She enjoys taking her guests, usually from America, to the settings of mystery novels where bodies are long dead. Her neighbor's plea for help to deal with a recently murdered well-known author unsettles her. She leaves the body to the police and takes her guests to Cornwall, including a British tourist who far is too interested in the dead author.