Historical Mystery Women Sleuth

Newly installed superintendent of the Virginia State Police, Judy Hammer, and her right hand and confidant, Andy Brazil, are at their wits’ end trying to protect the public from the politicians – and vice versa. And amid the mayhem, an island off the coast of Virginia declares UDI –...

When cook Kat Holloway and the kitchen staff maintain the empty Mayfair house while the family resides in the country, Lord Clifford, Lady Cynthia’s confidence-trickster father arrives in London and asks Kat and Daniel McAdam for help. Lord Clifford might be accused of murder but won't go to the police because his involvement with the victim will implicate him in another crime.

Egypt, 1926. Fiercely independent American Jane Wunderly has made up her mind: she won't be swept off her feet on a trip abroad. Despite her Aunt Millie's best efforts at meddling with her love life, the young widow would rather gaze at the Great Pyramids of Giza than into the eyes of a dashing stranger. Yet Jane's plans to remain cool and indifferent become ancient history in the company of Mr. Redvers, a roguish banker she can't quite figure out.

London’s bright young things are partying, Soho’s nightlife is buzzing, and Augusta Peel is hiding in her basement. She has a reason to hide there: it’s home to her Bloomsbury workshop where she repairs old, neglected books. After a busy time during the war, all Augusta wants is peace and quiet. But events take a turn when Augusta agrees to chaperone nineteen-year-old Harriet Jones on a date. Failing to get her home on time, she ends up in a riotous nightclub. She can’t imagine the evening getting much worse when the police raid it. But then the murder happens.

In the summer of 1923, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple makes what should be an uneventful research trip to the Museum of Natural History quite an eventful day - with her nephew, Derek, and her soon-to-be stepdaughter, Belinda, in tow. But as she interviews the various curators for her article on the museums of London, she soon discovers that the Museum of Natural History is a hothouse of professional rivalry and jealousy.

Britain stands alone against the forces of Nazi Germany. Livvy Redmond is a young newspaperwoman determined to serve Britain’s spymaster in the face of danger. When she arrives in neutral Lisbon, she discovers a city full of spies, refugees, and the secret police. At an elegant party to meet a double agent, Livvy witnesses him fall to his death from a balcony and must now determine what secrets he wanted to pass her. Further complicating matters, she must guard the man’s young daughter from sinister people trying to kidnap the girl.

When a Quaker Kindertransport chaperone is murdered in the East End of London, Britain’s counterintelligence spymaster tasks Olivia Denis to join the group rescuing children from Nazi Germany. Olivia must find not only a killer, but a traitor relaying sensitive material to the enemy. Once they reach Berlin, Olivia discovers she must rescue the family of an imprisoned British spy before she leaves the next day.

Olivia Denis is hesitant to help an old family friend get ready for her wedding outside London. The so-called friend is a master at using people. As a young widow trying to find her way through a new romantic relationship, Olivia would rather avoid the large party. She definitely didn't plan to find the bride's grandfather stabbed to death. The cruel, enormously rich aristocrat had changed his will only the day before, angering all his children.

Istanbul, 1926: After her archeologist father makes a clandestine journey abroad, Jane and the dapper Mr. Redvers trace his footsteps while signs of danger loom back home in the United States. They're greeted at their destination by Aunt Millie and unsettling news: Professor Wunderly was on a mission to locate the lost heart of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent—a legendary relic from the Ottoman Empire said to possess potent mystical powers—then vanished completely, leaving behind his unpacked luggage, a perplexing riddle, and an eerie mystery Jane must solve to keep her loved ones safe.

When an explosion kills wealthy industrialist Gregory Van Dyke, police commissioner Teddy Roosevelt presumes that anarchists are responsible and personally asks detective sergeant Frank Malloy to track them down. Malloy is up to the task, but he faces a different kind of challenge when he encounters Sarah Brandt paying a condolence call on the Van Dykes.

New York City, 1962. Vera Kelly is struggling to make rent and blend into the underground gay scene in Greenwich Village. She's working night shifts at a radio station when her quick wits, sharp tongue, and technical skills get her noticed by a recruiter for the CIA. Next thing she knows she's in Argentina, tasked with wiretapping a congressman and infiltrating a group of student activists in Buenos Aires. When a betrayal leaves her stranded in the wake of a coup, Vera learns the Cold War makes for strange and unexpected bedfellows.

Inside the walls of Arlington Hall, a former women's college in Virginia that has been taken over by the United States Army, hundreds of men and women sit, bent over stacks of paper. Pencils in hand, they labor to decode countless pieces of communication coming from the Axis powers. Justine works among them, handling the most sensitive secrets of World War II. But she isn't there to decipher German codes. She's there to find a traitor.

Evie, the countess of Woodridge, has come under fire from a newcomer to the small village of Halton, but she has no time to dwell on the woman's petty-minded criticisms. She is hosting three scriptwriters. Unfortunately, they are determined to set their murder mystery at Halton House. Evie's life is thrown into turmoil when reality begins to imitate fiction, and Henrietta, the dowager countess of Woodridge becomes the prime suspect in a villager's death.

Posie Parker, Private Detective, has been called to her most baffling case yet. Amyas Lyle, London’s top young lawyer, has been found with his head in a box of poisoned saltwater. It’s the perfect murder. Who hated him enough to do such a thing? But Amyas Lyle, youngest ever King’s Counsel and soon-to-be Judge, turns out to have been more complicated than Posie could ever have imagined.

Works by best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert have been nominated for the Agatha and Anthony awards. In The Tale of Oat Cake Crag, Miss Beatrix Potter is frustrated by distractions near her home. As the noisy test flights of a hydroplane disrupt her concentration, Beatrix investigates a string of bizarre letters threatening a friend’s reputation. Then life becomes even more complicated when the body of the hydroplane project funder is found at the foot of Oat Cake Crag.

One morning in April 1924, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher finds herself in a most unenviable position. Despite her best attempts to elude the inevitable, she must face her darkest fears and with all the strength and courage she can muster, must confront the one person she has tried hardest to avoid - the dentist. But upon arriving for her appointment, she finds the waiting room deserted and adjoining examination room locked, with no hint of either Dr. Talmadge or his nurse.

Many others in the village have said that they would like to see the colonel dead, but a number of people have a more specific interest in his death: the colonel’s young wife, Anne; her lover, the artist Lawrence Redding; Archer, a local man given a harsh sentence by the colonel for poaching. Even the colonel’s daughter, Lettice, desperate for money, says, “If only father would be decent and die, I’d be all right.” These complexities lead to any number of dead ends for investigators. The only one able to see through the blinds and obscurities is Miss Marple, an elderly but sharp-eyed spinster.

Poppy Denby is intrigued when she is invited to attend the auction for the death mask of Nefertiti. Held on the country estate of Sir James Maddox, a famous explorer, the auction promises to be a controversial and newsworthy affair. Representatives from the world's leading museums are gathering to bid on the mask, which was discovered in Egypt. Poppy quickly sniffs out that the mask was not the only thing found that night: the underground chamber also contained a dead body.

As Britain prepares for an imminent invasion, the murder of a celebrated Arctic explorer leads to the discovery of a web of Nazi spies on the south coast. July, 1939. Newlywed Olivia Denis Redmond plans to spend a peaceful honeymoon in the country before war rips her soldier husband away. But when she finds a dead body in the midst of a blackout, Olivia is drawn into the investigation.

Fall 1889: Lady Rotherton has arrived from London intent on chaperoning her niece Prudence through a New York social season to find a suitable husband. It's certainly not her niece's devilishly handsome partner in Hunter and MacKenzie Investigative Law. Aunt Gillian's eye for eligible suitors is surpassed only by her ability to discern genuine gems from nearly flawless fakes. At the Assembly Ball at Delmonico's, she effortlessly determines that the stones in the spectacular diamond waterfall necklace adorning the neck of the wife of banker William De Vries are fake.