Women Sleuths Detective

How to Be a Badass Detective is the latest addition to the How to Be a Badass series collection.

Kennedy Farmer, an experienced athlete, never returns after leaving for her usual running route through the dusty mountain trails of New Mexico. While the search for Kennedy begins, Detective Alyssa Wyatt and her squad face a terrifying new case when the body of a young woman, Rheagan Pembroke, is discovered in the desert terrain surrounding Albuquerque. Her wounds horrify even the hardened squad of the Albuquerque P.D.—and the case takes an even darker turn when they discover a polaroid stuffed into the victim's mouth, showing the body of Gunner Galveston, a murder victim from years ago.

Ten years ago fifteen-year-old Abigail Mantel was murdered, her cold body discovered lying in a ditch. Her father’s girlfriend was found guilty of the crime. Now, evidence has emerged that proves her innocence and means that Abigail’s killer still roams free. Abigail’s best friend at the time of the murder has now returned to the East Yorkshire village of Elvet to raise her young family. Shocked by the new revelations, she begins to realize that she didn’t know her friend as well as she thought. Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope is tasked with uncovering the truth.

When their best friend is murdered, Angela begs Slater to take the case. Maggie, the little sister he barely remembers, offers to help. It turns out the feisty redhead is one hell of an investigator. As their feelings turn romantic, Maggie and Slater follow a trail of deception and murder, hoping to prove their dead friend innocent of what they fear most. No one is safe, and the men involved will stop at nothing to cover their tracks - tracks that will lead the pair into the bleak world of human trafficking and expose the darkest secrets of Point Road and the Jeffries family.

A body is found by an early morning dog walker on the common outside Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who never showed up to work. DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate. Her only clue is the disappearance of fourteen-year-old resident Chloe. Vera can’t bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can’t dismiss the possibility.

Shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library. Ruth Galloway receives a phone call that bears shocking news. A friend of hers from college, Dan Golding, has been killed in a fire at his Lancashire home. Her shock turns to alarm when she gets a letter from Dan. He has made a discovery that will change archaeology forever but he needs Ruth's advice. Even more alarming, he sounds vulnerable and frightened. DCI Harry Nelson is also rediscovering his past. Up north for a holiday, he meets his former colleague Sandy MacLeod, now at Blackpool CID.

DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her neighbours keep her well-supplied in homebrew and conversation. But when one of them goes missing, her path leads her to more than a missing friend...Vera tracks the young woman down to the Writer’s House, a country retreat for aspiring authors. Things get complicated when a body is discovered and Vera’s neighbour is found with a knife in her hand. Calling in the team, Vera knows that she should hand the case over. She’s too close to the main suspect. But the investigation is too tempting and she’s never been one to follow the rules.

Detective Megan Carpenter is no stranger to horrifying crime scenes, but when she arrives at the home of a woman whose body has been brutalized, Megan is shocked to discover that she knows the victim. Monique Delmont helped Megan when she was in danger years ago. And the killer has left a disturbing calling card...two laminated photographs of a 16-year-old high school girl - Megan.

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.

Several young women have recently drowned in Manchester's vast network of canals. A coincidence? Or something more sinister? When star detective DCI Jane Phillips begins to investigate, her finely tuned instinct tells her these are no accidents. And when she discovers that each of the drowned women has a mysterious circular bruise on the back of her neck, Phillips is sure of it—she's up against a very clever serial killer. But how are the victims being chosen? And who will be next?

Just as patients are about to be released with a clean bill of health, their conditions take a devastating turn for the worse. Accompanied by the newest member of the Women's Murder Club, Yuki Castellano, Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer probes deeper into the incidents. Could these cases just be appalling coincidences? Or is a maniac playing God with people's lives? When someone close to the Women's Murder Club begins to exhibit the same frightening symptoms, Lindsay fears no one is safe.

Out of bail skippers and rent money, Stephanie Plum throws caution to the wind and follows in the entrepreneurial bootsteps of Super Bounty Hunter, Ranger, engaging in morally corrupt and marginally legal enterprises. So, a scumbag blows himself to smithereens on her first day of policing a crack house and the sheik she was chauffeuring stole the limo. But hey, nobody’s perfect!

Zoe’s hard-won peaceful life is shattered when a devious thief targets her most prized possession—a vibrant portrait that’s her last connection to her long-dead brother. It’s a painting that also holds the secrets of a forgotten artist who created recipes for the most breathtaking colors ever seen. When the canvas disappears and murder follows, Zoe must unravel a palette of deadly puzzles. With her quick-witted sidekick Dorian and their eclectic group of friends, Zoe races to catch a killer, evade a secret society, and recover her beloved painting.

When Casey first arrived at the off-the-grid town, an isolated community built as a haven for people running from their pasts, she had no idea what to expect, with no cell phones, no internet, no mail, and no way of getting in or out without the town council's approval. She certainly didn't expect to be the homicide detective on two separate cases or to begin a romantic relationship with her boss. But the very last thing she expected was for the council to drop a dangerous criminal into their midst without a plan to keep him imprisoned, and to keep others safe.

When homeless man Bobby Stover insists his friend’s suicide was really murder, DI Sheridan Holler is sceptical—until she uncovers a series of deaths, all of them in Liverpool, all ruled as suicides, that suddenly look like anything but. The killings span years, each one chillingly staged, the truth buried beneath an illusion of despair. This murderer is following a mysterious pattern—and there seems to be no end in sight.

Winter has come to North Carolina and, with it, a drop in crime. For a while, temporarily idle forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan is content to dote on her daughter Katy, finally returned to civilian life from the army. But when mother and daughter meet at Tempe’s place one night for dinner, they find a box on the back porch. Inside: a very fresh human eyeball.

After feigning her own death in Cornwall to escape from Moriarty’s perilous attention, Charlotte Holmes goes into hiding. But then she receives a tempting offer: Find a dossier the crown is desperately seeking, and she might be able to go back to a normal life. Her search leads her aboard the RMS Provence. But on the night Charlotte makes her move to retrieve the dossier, in the midst of a terrifying storm in the Bay of Biscay, a brutal murder takes place on the ship.

Charlotte’s success on the RMS Provence has afforded her a certain measure of time and assurance. Taking advantage of that, she has been busy, plotting to prise the man her sister loves from Moriarty’s iron grip. Disruption, however, comes from an unexpected quarter. Lord Bancroft Ashburton, disgraced and imprisoned as a result of Charlotte’s prior investigations, nevertheless manages to press Charlotte into service: Underwood, his most loyal henchman, is missing and Lord Bancroft wants Charlotte to find Underwood, dead or alive.

Amongst the rows of charming, brightly painted cabins, an elderly man's beach hut is set on fire in the middle of the night—while he sleeps inside. By day, Fiona, Sue, and Daisy volunteer at the Dogs Need Nice Homes charity shop. By night, they investigate crimes. And they're determined to get to the bottom of this murder. Malcolm Crainey was an obsessive beach-comber who lovingly decorated his hut with the treasures he found by the sea. Who'd want to kill a harmless old man?

Like most women, Elizabeth Miles assumes many roles; unlike most, hers have made her a woman on the run. Living on the edge of society, Elizabeth uses her guile to relieve so-called respectable men of their ill-gotten gains. But brutal and greedy entrepreneur Oscar Thornton is out for blood. He's lost a great deal of money and is not going to forgive a woman for outwitting him. With his thugs hot on her trail, Elizabeth seizes the moment to blend in with a group of women who have an agenda of their own.