Women Sleuths Mystery Suspense

When your fiancé breaks up with you on your 49th birthday, what do you do? If you’re April May, you buy a huge Victorian home on a whim and open a tearoom featuring lace tablecloths, exotic teas, and dainty sandwiches.

Harlow Torrent, part-time journalist and full-time slip witch, definitely knows there is something deeply wrong with the world...and it isn’t the mimes infesting Harlot Bay. She keeps waking in strange places with new bruises and has no idea how she got there. When a magically twisted skeleton is discovered on Truer Island and a dark witch attacks, the Torrent Witches must prepare for the battle of their lives.

For Colorado caterer Goldy Schulz, business isn’t just booming—it’s skyrocketing. Her friend Marla is constantly warning her, “Success can kill you.” But Goldy doesn’t take the warning literally until her next booking: a cocktail party for the Westside Mall’s Elite Shoppers Club. While setting up, Goldy is nearly run down by a truck with no intention of stopping. Then she finds an old friend in a pile of sale shoes—stabbed with one of Goldy’s new knives. Goldy must catch the real killer between whipping up Sweethearts’ Swedish Meatballs, Quiche Me Quick, and Diamond Lovers’ Hot Crab Dip.

Christmas is just weeks away, but what Jacobia Jake Tiptree discovers at Faye Anne Carmody's house is far from festive: a dazed Faye Anne covered with blood. Her no-good husband, Merle--Eastport's butcher and least-liked citizen--is nowhere in sight. Nowhere, that is, until Jake finds his body--wrapped in his own butcher paper. It looks like an open-and-shut case, but Jake isn't convinced. Then another resident turns up dead, and Jake knows the trail doesn't begin--or end--with Merle.

Opening night at New York's New Globe Theater turns from stage scene to crime scene when the leading man is stabbed to death center stage. Now Eve Dallas has a high profile, celebrity homicide on her hands. Not only is she lead detective, she's also a witness - and when the press discovers that her husband owns the theater, there's more media spotlight than either can handle.

No one would ever accuse famous opera star Dame Serena Levante of lacking a flare for the dramatic. Unfortunately, it's curtains down on the dysfunctional diva when she's found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her elegant home. Solving an opera singer's murder may not be the typical hairdresser's aria of expertise. But Dame Serena was the mother of Daisy's best friend Floria, so Daisy must do-or-dye her best to get to the roots of the case.

Personal trainer Trey Ziegler was in peak physical condition. If you didn't count the kitchen knife in his well-toned chest. Lieutenant Eve Dallas soon discovers a lineup of women who'd been loved and left by the narcissistic gym rat. While Dallas sorts through the list of Ziegler's enemies, she's also dealing with her Christmas shopping list - plus the guest list for her and her billionaire husband's upcoming holiday bash.

At a summons from Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, midwife Sarah Brandt arrives at the elegant home of famed magnetic healer Edmund Blackwell to find his wife in labor - and the good doctor dead from an apparent suicide. Only Malloy sees what no one else wants to: that Blackwell was murdered in his own home. After a successful delivery, the Blackwell baby falls mysteriously ill.

In an uptown strip joint, a cop is found bludgeoned to death. The weapon's a baseball bat. The motive's a mystery. It's a case of serious overkill that pushes Eve Dallas straight into overdrive. Her investigation uncovers a private club that's more than a hot spot.

The secret town of Rockton has seen some tough times lately; understandable considering its mix of criminals and victims fleeing society for refuge within its Yukon borders. Casey Duncan, the town's only detective on a police force of three, has already faced murder, arson, and falling in love in the several months she's lived there. When a US marshal shows up demanding the release of one of the residents - but won't say who - Casey and her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, are skeptical. Then, hours later, the marshal is shot dead.

All that bestselling author Eleanor Dash wants is to get through her book tour in Italy and kill off her main character, Connor Smith, in the next in her Vacation Mysteries series—is that too much to ask? Clearly, because when an attempt is made on the real Connor’s life—the handsome but infuriating con man she got mixed up with ten years ago and now can't get out of her life—Eleanor’s enlisted to help solve the case.

New York Police Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her partner Peabody enter the hallowed halls of the Wilfred B. Icove Center for Reconstructive and Cosmetic Surgery on a case. A hugely popular vid star has been beaten to a bloody pulp - and has killed her attacker in the process. After a post-op interview, Dallas and Peabody confirm for themselves that it's a clear-cut case of self-defense.

The infamous Dodd murders are hardly among Eastport's proudest legacies. So when bestselling true-crime author Carolyn Rathbone arrives to research the case for a new book, the locals in the seaside town let her know that she's about as welcome as a spoiled clam. But surely no one would harm a crime writer out of a sense of civic pride--or would they?

At an ancient British manor, tragedy strikes the Adair lineage, leaving Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James to sift through the aftermath. With the heir apparent in the crosshairs of suspicion, the stakes are as personal as they are perplexing. As the mystery unfurls like fog over London, Holmes, Lucy, Becky, and Flynn find themselves amid a labyrinth of hidden motives and whispered scandals. In a house where every portrait could hide a clue, can our Baker Street ensemble stitch together the truth from the tapestry of lies?

Fifteen months ago Detective Lindsay Boxer's life was perfect - she had a beautiful child and a doting husband, Joe, who helped her catch a criminal who'd brazenly detonated a bomb in downtown San Francisco, killing 25 people. But Joe wasn't everything that Lindsay thought he was, and she's still reeling from his betrayal as a wave of mysterious and possibly unnatural heart attacks claims seemingly unrelated victims across San Francisco.

It's springtime on Cranberry Island - and love is in the air. It seems like every woman has the hots for buff trainer Dirk De Leon. He and his equally gorgeous business partner, Vanessa Black, are leading a weight-loss retreat at the Gray Whale Inn - forcing innkeeper Natalie Barnes to lighten up her butter-laden breakfast menu. The mood on the island darkens when two grisly discoveries are made. The first is a skeleton walled up at the island's lighthouse. The second is a corpse of the fresh variety - the handsome Dirk!

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?

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.

A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname—Buffalo Bill—is stalking women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it, for the bodies are discovered in different states. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the FBI Academy, is surprised to be summoned by Jack Crawford, chief of the Bureau's Behavioral Science section. Her assignment: to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter—Hannibal the Cannibal—who is kept under close watch in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Would you drop everything and move to a town with a peculiar name, because an odd little man made you a strange offer? Millie Thorn did, and she could never have guessed what mysteries and revelations were awaiting her in the magical town of Spellbinder Bay. After witnessing a murder on her first day in the bay, Millie is cast into a world she never knew existed - a world of magic and the paranormal, and a world where it's seemingly normal to have a conversation with a cockatiel named Reuben.