Women Sleuths Detective

Siobhán O'Sullivan's hopes for a quiet Irish Christmas are dashed when the local Santa turns up dead in a carnival dunk tank of hot cocoa. Now instead of hunting down holiday gifts, she's pursuing a heartless killer. Seems the dead Santa was no angel either, stealing neighborhood dogs to guide his sleigh. But was it his holiday antics - or worse - that led to his death by chocolate?

When Detective Amanda Steele’s niece, Ava, begs her to look for a missing schoolfriend, she immediately agrees to take on the case. Eighteen-year-old Reese left home three nights ago after fighting with her mother and hasn’t been seen since. But when the teenager’s body is discovered brutally murdered, poised dramatically at the prom venue, Amanda is devastated she didn’t save the girl in time.

Emily Hildebrandt is not having a good week. First off, she’s tasked with looking for, of all things, a missing dog. And not just any missing dog, but one owned by the aunt of Nick Stewart’s girlfriend, Trisha. Like she wants anything to do with Nick. Ever. She’s dating someone new and ready to take her life back. Except…that missing dog case takes a strange turn when the owner tells her she never had a dog. Why would Trisha lie about a missing dog? Or is Trisha’s aunt the one who is lying? As Emily digs deeper into the case, she uncovers far more than she bargained for.

In this “hardboiled mystery” (Maureen Corrigan) from an Edgar Award winning author, a fearless black-bag publicist exposes the belly of the L.A. beast. Welcome to Mae Pruett’s Los Angeles, where “Nobody talks. But everybody whispers.” As a “black-bag” publicist tasked not with...

New York jewelry designer Genie Darling has returned to her childhood home in quaint Cobblewood Cove for one reason only: to sort through generations of old family heirlooms and hand anything of historical interest over to the local museum. But after a failed mugging attempt, and the appearance of a beautiful but ghostly young stranger in a vintage evening dress, Genie realizes there's something suspicious—and spooky—going on. The glamorous and friendly specter turns out to be Genie's own great-great-aunt Adriana, who died in 1929 in mysterious circumstances.

Inspector Witherspoon always triumphs...but how does he do it? Even the inspector himself doesn't know - because his secret weapon is as ladylike as she is clever. She's Mrs. Jeffries: the determined, delightful detective who is also Inspector Witherspoon's housekeeper.

Fans have been fed short rations when it comes to Kinsey Millhone's past. We know of the aunt who raised her, the second husband who left her, the long-lost family up the California coast. But husband number one, vice-cop Mickey Macgruder, remained a mystery, until now. The call came from a...

Daphne Marriott strolls into Clover Ridge and informs librarian Carrie Singleton that she's a psychic. But if she had foreseen what fate awaited her, Daphne would have steered clear of the quaint Connecticut town. Evelyn, the library ghost, tells Carrie that there's more to Daphne than she lets on. The mysterious woman grew up in Clover Ridge with her no-good dad, who apparently met his end at the hands of Daphne's brother, Billy. Still, Daphne proves a welcome distraction when Carrie's overbearing mother hits town. Mom's much younger husband, Tom, is in a movie that's lensing locally.

England, 1917. Reeling from the death of her fiancé, Stella Marcham welcomes the opportunity to stay with her pregnant sister, Madeleine, at her imposing country mansion, Greyswick - but she arrives to discover a house of unease and her sister gripped by fear and suspicion. Before long, strange incidents begin to trouble Stella - sobbing in the night, little footsteps on the stairs - and as events escalate, she finds herself drawn to the tragic history of the house.

Shortly after Inspector Anita Sundström's mother's death, Anita is called to an apartment where an 80-year-old man with dementia has tried to kill his wife. The case sparks off a renewed interest in the death of her father, who was lost in the 1994 MS Estonia ferry disaster. It's not long before she discovers that she's stumbled into a tangled web of conspiracy theories surrounding the tragedy and the unstable and violent dawn of a newly independent Estonia.

New York Times best-selling authors Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown continue their beloved Mrs. Murphy series in Whisker of Evil. Mystery fans cannot get enough of these cozy whodunits featuring the case-cracking duo of intrepid postmistress Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen and her brilliant, sleuthing cat, Mrs. Murphy.

Bobby Callahan was only 20 when an accident left him disfigured for life. The doctors patched up his body but they couldn't fix his mind. Huge chunks of his memory were lost but he knew someone had tried to kill him and that the "accident" was deliberate. He knew he had the key to something that...

When the World's Greatest Detective reunites with her college friends, she discovers that time doesn't heal all wounds. It's been four decades since the women of Sigma Delta Tau were last together. The years have been kind to some but not to others. Still this is supposed to be a pleasant...

As a kid, Charlotte Illes’ uncanny sleuthing abilities made her a minor celebrity. But in high school, she hung up her detective’s hat and stashed away the signature blue landline in her “office”—aka garage—convinced that finding her adult purpose would be as easy as tracking down missing pudding cups or locating stolen diamonds.

Getting in his car was a mistake. But as the frigid air whipped through her thin coat, she felt too cold to say no. Now, snowflakes settle on her long dark lashes. Ice-cold and forever fifteen years old, she’ll never see her mother’s smile again… As the biggest snowstorm the Outer Banks has seen in decades ravages the coastline, Detective Casey White is called to an abandoned junk yard miles beyond the marshes. Teenager Jill Carter’s body is posed on her back, a look of terror frozen on her beautiful face.

Fans have been fed short rations when it comes to Kinsey Millhone's past. We know of the aunt who raised her, the second husband who left her, the long-lost family up the California coast. But husband number one, vice-cop Mickey Macgruder, remained a mystery, until now. The call came from a...

"One of Kinsey's most electrifying adventures to date...Another irresistible installment of Ms. Grafton's series." THE BALTIMORE SUN Fired by the insurance agency for whom she investigates, Kinsey is forced to take on a last-minute murder investigation in which the ex-husband of a murdered...

After many years working around the world for an international charity in the late 1960s, Eleanor Trewynn has retired to the relative quiet of a small town in Cornwall. But her quiet life is short-lived when, due to her experience, the Commonwealth Relations Office reaches out to her to assist in a secret conference that is to take place in a small hotel outside the historical village of Tintagel. Meanwhile, her niece, Detective Sergeant Megan Pencarrow, is investigating the disappearance of a local solicitor when she is assigned to help provide security.

Rachel Goldman writes mysteries in which Duffy Madison, consultant to the county prosecutor's office, helps find missing persons. Rachel is busy working on her next book when a man calls out of the blue asking for help in a missing person case. The caller's name? Duffy Madison. Is this real, or has she lost her mind? She doesn't have much time to find out, because a serial killer is on the loose, kidnapping and murdering mystery authors. And Rachel may just be the next target.

Sister Holiday, a chain-smoking, heavily tattooed, queer nun, puts her amateur sleuthing skills to the test in this “unique and confident” debut crime novel (Gillian Flynn). When Saint Sebastian's School becomes the target of a shocking arson spree, the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and their...