Mystery Women Sleuths

It was just another after-work happy-hour bar downtown, where business professionals unwound with a few drinks, complained about the boss, maybe hooked up with someone for the night. Until something went terribly wrong. At first it was just a friction in the air. The noise intensified. The crowd seemed oppressive. Some sharp words were exchanged, some pushing and shoving. Then the madness descended. And after 12 minutes of chaos and violence, 80 people lay dead.

For Rona Shively, even the good news is bad news. She's just returned from an extended stay in her hometown of Clarkston, Ohio, and she's all geared up for a change. The only problem is that when the notion of starting over begins to sink in, she's compelled to rethink her enthusiasm. For a distraction, she starts working on a case for a 15-year-old girl that throws her into a mess of problems she can't even begin to deal with. In true Rona Shively fashion, she digs in deep and soon finds that this girl's problems run much deeper than a gumshoe of mediocre talents can handle.

Rona Shively has been thinking a lot lately. Her mind is going in about a million different directions and for good reason. What starts out as a meeting with a potential client ends up being the title sequence for a whole series of messes that make absolutely no sense. She's trying to keep herself calm, but given the circumstances she'll be doing good just to keep herself out of jail and...out of the morgue.

When Flora Steele sets off for a peaceful vacation with crime writer Jack Carrington, the last thing she expects to find is a body at their pretty rental cottage! More baffling, they discover Roger Gifford was a man with plenty of friends, and the villagers seem devastated by his sudden death.... So why was he murdered? Who has blood on their hands? His estranged wife, Beatrice, his wayward younger brother, Lionel, or the suspicious newcomer, Mercy Dearlove? Inquisitive, Flora joins forces with handsome Jack to find out how the poor man came to such an untimely end.

Agatha Award-winning author Rhys Bowen’s charming combination of intrigue and romance blended with a touch of humor shines when performed by Audible Hall of Fame narrator Katherine Kellgren, whose deft range and impeccable accent work make it hard to believe this isn’t a multicast performance.

It’s 1998, and female students are going missing at Southern State University in North Carolina, but freshman Jessica Fadley, once a bright and responsible student, is going through her own struggles. Just as her life seems to be careening dangerously out of control, she suddenly disappears. Twenty-four years later, Jessica’s sister Lindsey is desperately searching for answers and uses the momentum of a new chart-topping true crime podcast that focuses on cold cases to guide her own investigation.

Chloe Carter is helping her chef boyfriend with his new restaurant on Boston’s posh Newbury Street, when a crabby waitress is found dead in a fish truck. Was this a prank gone awry? Or did somebody want her to sleep with the fishes?

Part-time student Chloe Carter is planning her best friend’s wedding, working for her parents - and glued to her chef boyfriend, Josh, as he competes to star in a new TV series. The premise: Josh hijacks unsuspecting grocery shoppers and prepares them gourmet dinners. Everything’s going great - until one shopper drops dead. Was it one of Josh’s competitors? Or the deceased’s husband? Or someone on the crew? Sifting through suspects, Chloe deals with wedding chaos and Josh’s erratic behavior.

In a secluded farm house in the Pacific Northwest, a family has been slaughtered - and a teenage son has disappeared. Single mother and cop Emily Kenyon spearheads a dark hunt for a killer. But Emily's teenage daughter, Jenna, is one step ahead of her. Then another family is butchered, and another. As Emily fits the puzzle pieces together, she makes a chilling discovery: The killer is coming after her and her daughter....

It’s early spring 1948 and Lane arrives in New Denver to find that her friend, Peter Barisoff, is not at home. Instead, in a nearby meadow, she encounters Tom, an Indigenous man in search of his ancestral lands. Lane is intrigued. Unfortunately, once Peter returns home, the day takes a gloomy turn when the trio uncovers human remains next to Peter’s garden, and Lane must tell her husband, Inspector Darling, that she’s inadvertently stumbled into his professional domain—again.

Chicago surgeon Emily Hartford has never quite shaken off the dust of her hometown in Michigan. She may be a professional success and have a princely boyfriend in the Windy City, but she can’t seem to let go of being “the coroner’s daughter” from Freeport. Once again, she finds herself pulled back to her hometown when Jeremiah—the eleven-year-old son of her best friend, Jo—goes missing on the frigid shores of Lake Michigan.

Cassie didn't ask to be a medium. But she shouldered the daunting task of easing the suffering of the tormented souls who came to her. For over a decade the FBI, police departments across the country, and dozens of private investigators sought her out for her special abilities. Then one day, the spirit world disconnected.

When an orb is discovered in the ruins of an ancient Mexican city, archaeologists around the world start to speculate. The orb’s strange markings point to a civilization even older than the city itself – could this be the lost city of ATLANTIS? Before the orb can be analyzed, it and the team of archaeologists responsible for its discovery vanish without a trace. Enter EDEN BLACK. Determined to uncover the truth and rescue her colleagues, Eden and her team embark on a dangerous mission to unravel the mysteries of the orb.

Mercy Gale has spent her life in the shadow of a legend. Her father, E. Thomas Gale, was once America’s most celebrated defense attorney—a legal icon whose high-profile trials captivated the nation. Now, dementia is claiming his brilliant mind, and he’s retreated to a remote island on Lake Michigan to live in seclusion. But a convicted killer from her father’s past contacts Mercy with a threat to expose Thomas’s long-hidden secrets.

Cold case reporter Sloane Grayson has come to a small mountain town in Virginia to solve a mystery. Thirty years ago, her mother was one of four women who vanished during a music festival. The event’s promoter was eventually convicted of their murders, and Sheriff CJ Taggart closed the case. But for Sloane, it’s still open. Because the bodies were never found. With Taggart now long dead, Sloane must make do with questioning the victims’ families and the few remaining witnesses once again. If they’re still willing to dredge up memories of a crime that made their town notorious.

Georgia Fenchurch is a demure Victorian spinster and part of the secretive investigative group the Archivist Society. She is both a quiet antiquarian bookseller and adventurous hunter of killers and thieves. The enigmatic Duke of Blackford returns to Georgia's life asking for her help and that of the Archivist Society in retrieving stolen blueprints. The plans are for an advanced battleship that will preserve Britain's mastery of the seas. Spies from various countries are descending on London in the hunt for the blueprints, ready to enter into a bidding war.

This mesmerizing novel tells the story of a brutal murder in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works the night shift making boxed lunches strangles her abusive husband and then seeks the help of her coworkers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime. The coolly intelligent Masako emerges as the plot's ringleader but quickly discovers that this killing is merely the beginning, as it leads to a terrifying foray into the violent underbelly of Japanese society.

In England in the late 1920s, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, on a convalescent trip to the countryside, goes to visit three old school friends in the area. Daisy and her husband Alec - Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher, of Scotland Yard - go for a Sunday lunch with Daisy’s friends, where one of the women mentions a wine cellar below their house, which remains curiously locked, no key to be found. Alec offers to pick the lock, but when he opens the door, what greets them is not a cache of wine but the stench of a long-dead body.

When children in LA are abducted with few clues and no ransom, FBI agent Blake Wilder and her team are asked to fly in to investigate. Upon arrival, Blake coordinates with the LAPD Juvenile Division. Five children, ages three to five, have gone missing over recent months, and LAPD has gotten nowhere. The fear is that the children are being trafficked. The team begin reviewing footage of the areas where the kids were taken and notice a few individuals who appear more than once. But with scant leads and only dead ends, only frustration mounts.

Mma Ramotswe can sense the rain long before it comes. It’s been a long, dry summer, but the first downpour of the season tends to bring with it new growth. In this case, it also brings a new client, who suspects his wife of having an affair. Mma Ramotswe is on the case, and she decides to bring Charlie along. But as they look further into the matter, they begin to suspect their client may not have been entirely truthful in explaining his predicament.