Historical Women Detectives

1920 - Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales: Tessa Wiggins's "madness" is provoked by the adopted spirit of a 2,000-year-old Druid priestess mentoring her to be the servant of The Earth Mother. When Tessa defies treatment, her lover asks a childhood friend, Sherlock Holmes, to intervene. But despite everyone's best intentions, Tessa finds herself in Hellingford Asylum, where she is driven toward her final breaking point on All-Halloween.

Shopping meets suspense in this enticing new cocktail of sassy-smart sleuthing featuring a spunky decorator who can hunt down furniture—and murder. As a tireless mom of three, the doting spouse of a surgeon, and a talented interior designer to the stars, Lacy Fields can always find the perfect...

Bestselling author JoAnn Ross turns up the heat in a novel of heart-stopping suspense and white-hot passion that takes readers from the sultry South Carolina Lowcountry to the rugged Northern California coast, and ultimately into the darkest reaches of the human heart… Fire cop Tess Gannon is...

Julia Stuart returns in her follow-up to the bestselling The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise with this clever murder mystery set in Victorian England, brimming with her signature charm and fabulous characters. When Indian Princess Alexandrina is left penniless by the sudden death of her father...

Posie Parker, now London’s premier female Private Detective, is getting married, and with her wedding dress carefully packed, she’s bubbling over with excitement to arrive in Venice, the most romantic city on earth! But very quickly Posie finds she is walking into an utter nightmare: her lodgings on the Grand Canal have been consumed by fire; the fascist police are in control of the city; her famous fiancé, Alaric Boynton-Dale is moody and preoccupied, and most bizarrely of all, her hostess, the Countess Romagnoli, confesses she has a stalker and fears for her life.

Using a premise pulled from the headlines - the very real vulnerability of students and teachers - the best-selling author of the Mary Russell mysteries delivers a contemporary novel of psychological suspense. The various presenters at a local school career day prepare for a day in class, not knowing that someone with a thirst for revenge is in their midst.

On his death bed, Lord Pembroke took great care to try to ensure the future of his beautiful, unconventional niece, Lady Jane. Her debutante ball featured the most eligible bachelors of London society. But when the night of the dance arrives, things do not go as planned.

On a dark, damp Sunday evening, a man taking a shortcut home sees a hand reaching out in supplication from a bundle of sacks. In an instant he knows something terrifying has happened.

In the Highlands in the late 1950s, much of the local newspaper’s success was due to Mrs. Smart, the no-nonsense office manager who kept everything and everyone in line. Her murder leaves her colleagues in shock and the Highland Gazette office in chaos.

An extraordinary woman living in extraordinary times, Lady Frances Ffolkes is an Edwardian era suffragette who has an uncanny ability to attract danger and romance. When Major Colcombe, a family friend and war veteran, dies under mysterious circumstances, the good Lady discovers that he was working on a manuscript, about South Africa's bloody Boer War, that reportedly revealed a scandalous mistake that cost many innocent lives.

It is May 1560. As sinister storm clouds gather overhead, 26-year-old Queen Elizabeth dispatches William Cecil, her most trusted adviser, to Scotland for crucial negotiations. Handsome, ambitious Lord Robert Dudley is at her side. But their leisurely midsummer idyll is cut short when the courts master lutenist plunges to his death from a parapet beneath the queen's window. The loyal retainers of Elizabeth's privy council do not accept the official verdict of accidental death. Their fears are borne out when another tragedy rocks the realm, and points the way to a conspiracy to bring down Elizabeth and seize the throne.

Stoke Newington, 1863: Little Margaret Lovejoy is found brutally murdered in the outhouse at her family’s estate. A few days later, a man is cut down in a similar manner on the doorstep of courtesan and professional detective Heloise Chancey’s prestigious address. At the same time, Heloise’s maid, Amah Li Leen, must confront events from her past that appear to have erupted into the present day. Once again Heloise is caught up in a maelstrom of murder and deceit that threatens to reach into the very heart of her existence.

This mystery is part of the famous "Had-I-But-Known School" of mysteries founded by Mary Roberts Rinehart with the 1908 publication of her first work, The Circular Staircase. The story deals with civic corruption, a popular theme of early American mysteries. Stories like this anticipate the hard-boiled school to come. So does Rinehart's realistic style, which does not gloss over life's problems.

Young Harriet and her brother Austin have always been scared of the quarry where their stonemason father works. So when they find him dead on the cold ground, they scarper quick smart and look for help. When help arrives, the quarry is deserted and there is no sign of the body. Were the children mistaken? Is their father not dead? Did he simply get up and run away? It seems like another unusual case requiring the expertise of Kate Shackleton. But for Kate this is one case where surprising family ties makes it her most dangerous and delicate yet.

It's early 1957, and Rosa Reed and her new beau Detective Miguel Belmonte fly from California to London to follow up on a cold case: the murder of Rosa's good friend Lady Vivien Everleigh. The investigation is complicated, if not awkward, as the deceased is the sister of Rosa's former fiancé. Thankfully, Rosa's parents, Ginger (aka Ginger Gold of Lady Gold Investigations) and Basil Reed are there to help. Rosa stumbles onto a dangerous truth. Can she find her friend's killer and save her own life too?

The notes are signed Admirer. At first respectful, they become increasingly bizarre and are accompanied by roses, then other, more macabre offerings. Chris Calloway, a rising young Hollywood actress, finds the letters irritating, then frightening, but when a freak accident takes away her sight...

A fast-paced historical romance adventure, set on the mighty Murray River in the 1890s with a flawed but loveable heroine. 1890s, River Murray, Northern Victoria Georgina Calthorpe is unhappy living with her indifferent foster family the MacHenry's in their crumbling house on the banks of the...

With her husband, Emrys, still missing in action, Ann Morgan faces the prospect of spending her first wedding anniversary, and Christmas, alone. However, a phone call from Alistair Blythe, a young man she briefly walked out with before her marriage to Emrys, sets Ann on a trail that leads to murder, encounters with black market spivs, and threats to her life. With assistance from spymaster Charles Montagu and Detective Inspector Max Deveraux, Ann uncovers a major secret of the war. And, with the snow falling at Christmas, she receives a present she will never forget.

A dark, smog-filled London doesn’t seem very Christmassy, or exciting, but then Posie Parker, London’s premier female Private Detective, receives an urgent call from one of her oldest friends; Rufus, Earl of Cardigeon. Summoned to ‘The Mermaid’, a reputedly haunted hotel in Rye, on the Sussex Coast, in the heart of smuggling country, Posie, together with her husband, Richard, finds her old friend in a real state.

Cantankerous and vinegar-tongued Grandmama, from Anne Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series, is the leading character in this Christmas novel, which unfolds in the chilly, windswept Romney Marshes off the English Channel. Grandmama arrives on a holiday visit to the home of Charlotte's parents, where a fellow guest--an outcast from her own family--is subsequently murdered. Like the heroes before her in Anne Perry's Christmas novels, Grandmama is called upon to play the role of amateur detective.