Women Sleuths Detective

After a scandal forces DI Kelly Porter out of the Met, she returns home to the Lake District. Crimes in the Cumbrian constabulary tend to be minor, but Kelly begins work on a cold case that shocked the local community - the abduction and brutal murder of a 10-year-old girl.

To the costermongers of Covent Garden Eddie Pettit was a gentle soul with a gift for working with horses. When Eddie is killed in a violent accident, the grieving costers are skeptical about the cause of his death. Who would want to kill Eddie - and why? Maisie Dobbs' father, Frankie, had been a costermonger, so she had known the men since childhood. She remembers Eddie fondly and is determined to offer her help. But it soon becomes clear that powerful political and financial forces are equally determined to prevent her from learning the truth behind Eddie's death.

Agatha Raisin thinks she’s in for a treat when her ex-husband, James Lacey, invites her on a holiday. But to her horror, his idea of an exotic destination is a small, rundown resort of Snoth-on-Sea. Needless to say, the break doesn’t go as planned. When a fellow guest in their hotel is found murdered, Agatha herself becomes a suspect - and it looks as if she will be solving this particular case from the confines of a prison cell....

Rumor has it that a collection of priceless ancient relics representing the Seven Deadly Sins have made their way to Boston’s North Shore. Partnered with pastry chef Lizzie Tucker, Diesel bullies and charms his way through historic Salem to track them down - and his mastermind cousin Gerewulf Grimorie. The black-haired, black-hearted Wulf is on the hunt for the relic representing gluttony. Now in a race against time, the pair soon finds out that more isn’t always better, as they battle Wulf and the first of the deadly sins.

Alexander McCall Smith’s internationally best-selling and award-winning series starring Botswana’s leading lady detective continues with this 11th charming tale. Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi travel to the Okavango Delta to visit a safari lodge beset by unexplained events. There they are awestruck by the breathtaking scenery, but also troubled by the region’s many difficulties—not the least of which is the occasional grumpy hippopotamus.

When two young sisters disappear from a strip mall parking lot in a small Pennsylvania town, their devastated mother hires an enigmatic bounty hunter, Alice Vega, to help find the girls. Immediately shut out by a local police department already stretched thin by budget cuts and the growing OxyContin and meth epidemic, Vega enlists the help of a disgraced former cop, Max Caplan. Cap is a man trying to put the scandal of his past behind him and move on, but Vega needs his help to find the girls, and she will not be denied.

From a small town outside Edinburgh comes the news that a young boy has been recounting vivid recollections of a past life: a perfect description of an island off the coast of Scotland that he couldn't possibly know and a house there where he claims to have spent his former life. When the boy's mother asks Isabel to investigate his claims, she feels she must - of course! - help them learn the truth, and she and her husband, Jamie, set off for the island.

Suffering from bald patches thanks to a hair conditioner spiked with depilatory cream - supplied by the murderess in her last investigation - Agatha escapes to the coastal resort of Wyckhadden to allow her crowning glory to recover in privacy. A local witch provides her with hair tonic and Agatha’s lost locks begin to grow - but then the witch is found bludgeoned to death. The elderly residents at Agatha’s faded hotel seem innocuous enough, if a little odd. But, as she enquires into the murder she turns up an alarming number of secrets....

When Mma Potokwane suggests to Mma Ramotswe that she run for a seat on the city council, Mma Ramotswe is at first unsure. But when she learns about the proposed construction of the flashy Big Fun Hotel next to a graveyard, she allows herself to be persuaded. Her opponent is none other than Violet Sephotho, who is in the pocket of the hotel developers.

Amateur sleuth Agatha Raisin is going through a man-hating phase and is unmoved by news of a captivating new curate. But when she meets the golden-haired, blue-eyed Tristan Delon, she is swept off her feet...along with every other female in the village. She is positively ecstatic when he invites her to dine with him, but the next day Agatha is left with a hangover from hell and Tristan is worse off: he's dead.

Gloria French was a jolly widow with dyed blonde hair, a raucous laugh, and rosy cheeks. When she first moved from London to the charming Cotswold hills, she was heartily welcomed. She seemed a do-gooder par-excellence, raising funds for the church and caring for the elderly. But she had a nasty habit of borrowing things and not giving them back. They're just small things - a teapot here, a set of silverware there - so it's quite the shock when she is found dead, murdered with a poisoned bottle of elderberry wine.

A young American au pair, Charlotte Clancy, vanishes without a trace in Mexico City. The case is left cold, but its legacy will be devastating. A decade later, Los Angeles is shaken by a spate of violent murders. Psychologist Nikki Roberts is the common link between the victims, her patients at the heart of this treacherous web. When someone makes an attempt on Nikki’s life, it’s clear she is a marked woman. Nikki makes a living out of reading people, drawing out their secrets, but the key to this shocking pattern eludes her.

DCI Matilda Darke has returned to work after a nine-month absence. A shadow of her former self, she is tasked with reopening a cold case: the terrifyingly brutal murders of Miranda and Stefan Harkness. The only witness was their 11-year-old son, Jonathan, who was too deeply traumatised to speak a word. Then a dead body is discovered, and the investigation leads back to Matilda's case. Suddenly the past and present converge, and it seems a killer may have come back for more....

Once again, Kinsey Millhone, America's favorite female P.I., embroils herself in a complex and entertaining Alphabet Murder Mystery. When Wendell Jaffe, mastermind of a real-estate scam, disappeared at sea, no body was found. Now, five years later, he's declared legally dead, and California Fidelity has to pay up on his life insurance policy to the tune of half-a-million dollars. Soon after, the tune slides off-key when Jaffe is spotted in Mexico and Fidelity hires Kinsey Millhone to sort things out.

When 12-year-old Holly Mitchell’s fragile little body is found on the steps of a mountainside church in the small town of Denton, a doll made from pine cones clasped tightly to her chest, Detective Josie Quinn rushes to attend the scene. She knows this little girl’s angelic face; her mother had offered Josie help when she’d needed it most. Searching the girl’s house, Josie is devastated to find that Holly’s mother is dead, too, and her little sister is missing.

Ted Bundy. One of America's most notorious serial killers. For two women, he is the ultimate obsession. One is a cop whose sister may have been one of Bundy's victims. The other is a deranged groupie who corresponded with Bundy in prison - and raised her son to finish what Bundy started. To charm and seduce innocent girls. To kidnap and brutalize more women than any serial killer in history. And to lure one obsessed cop into a trap as sick and demented as Bundy himself....

It was Beth Katz’s serial killer father who made her like she is: a successful FBI agent and an unstoppable vigilante dedicated to hunting down murderers who have evaded capture. Beth will push herself to the limits to deliver justice. Even if it means killing those who deserve to die.

Lady Molly of Scotland Yard is a collection of short stories about Molly Robertson-Kirk, an early fictional female detective. First published in 1910, Orczy's female detective was the precursor of the lay sleuth who relies on brains rather than brawn. As well as being one of the first novels to feature a female detective as the main character, Orczy's outstandingly successful and brilliant police officer preceded her real-life female counterparts by a decade.

Joanna and the Watsons receive an unexpected visitor to 221B Baker Street during a nocturnal storm. A rain-drenched Dr. Alexander Verner has just returned from an unsettling trip to see a patient who he believes is being held against his will. Joanna quickly realizes Verner's patient is a high-ranking Englishman who the Germans have taken captive to pry vital information about England’s military strategies for the Great War. The police are frantic to find him before the Germans can use him to decode all of England’s undeciphered messages.

On a winding mountain road into the town of Denton, Pennsylvania, Detective Josie Quinn finds the body of a local teenage girl, Dina Hale. The sight of plum-colored bruises gathering around the girl’s neck pierces Josie’s heart, but the discovery of a second girl’s empty purse in the dirt nearby gives her a flicker of hope that one person, at least, made a lucky escape. Dina’s parents are grief-stricken as the town rallies together in a desperate search for the second girl, who waitressed with Dina. The two best friends were on their way to a shift when they were attacked.