Women Sleuths Mystery Suspense

Back home in the Kootenays after her Arizona honeymoon, Lane offers her assistance when neither the outgoing teacher, Rose, nor her replacement, Wendy, show up at the local schoolhouse one blizzardy Monday in December. But when she finds the teachers’ cottage ransacked with Rose unconscious and bleeding, and Wendy missing, Lane delivers Rose to the hospital in Nelson and turns the case over to her exasperated husband, Inspector Darling, and his capable colleagues, Sergeant Ames and Constable Terrell.

It's Dr. Kay Scarpetta's birthday, and she's about to head to Miami for a vacation with Benton Wesley, her FBI profiler husband, when she notices seven pennies on a wall behind their Cambridge house. Is this a kids' game? If so, why are all of the coins dated 1981 and so shiny they could be newly minted? Her cellphone rings, and Detective Pete Marino tells her there's been a homicide five minutes away. A high school music teacher has been shot with uncanny precision as he unloaded groceries from his car.

Emily “vacations” at an opulent Swiss resort in the hope of locating nine pounds of hijacked plutonium intended for an atom bomb.

Grace Makutsi's husband, Phuti, is in a bind. An international firm is attempting to undercut his prices in the office furniture market. Phuti has always been concerned with quality and comfort, but this new firm seems interested only in profits. To make matters worse, they have a slick new advertising campaign that seems hard to beat. Nonetheless, with Mma Ramotswe's help, Phtui comes up with a campaign that may just do the trick.

Mrs. Virgil (Emily) Pollifax of New Brunswick, New Jersey, was a widow with grown children. She was tired of attending her Garden Club meetings. She wanted to do something good for her country. This first in the series sends Emily on her first case after she successfully persuades a skeptical CIA recruitment officer that she is the best person for the job.

When a magic mechanic takes The Big Nap in a comfy chair at the library, suspicion turns to the local librarian witch. What has Zara Riddle done now? Poisoned the guy for talking too loud? She shrugs off the accusations, as usual, and tries to help with the investigation, also as usual. But this time around, the local vampire detective isn't swinging by Zara's house to take her along for the ride. He may be Zara's boyfriend after hours, but when it comes to solving crimes, he has a new partner.

Zara partners again with Detective Bentley to investigate a call about a missing person. The caller, a sweet little old lady named Temperance Krinkle, claims to have psychic abilities. Zara and Bentley have to laugh when it turns out the missing "person" is a tiny figurine from a dollhouse. But then a local resident disappears for real, and the so-called psychic with the attic full of creepy dollhouses doesn't seem so funny anymore. Now Zara and Bentley, witch librarian and vampire detective, must use their skills to unravel a mystifying crime.

Season Two, Volume One. Four cryptic cases involving murder, mayhem, and mysterious disappearances. Is one mastermind behind them all?

The year is 1920: Flying in the face of convention, legendary American adventuress Beryl Helliwell never fails to surprise and shock. The last thing her adoring public would expect is that she craves some peace and quiet. The humdrum hamlet of Walmsley Parva in the English countryside seems just the ticket. And, honestly, until America comes to its senses and repeals Prohibition, Beryl has no intention of returning stateside and subjecting herself to bathtub gin.

Rachel Hatch has taken the thriller world by storm. Get swept up in the first three explosive books in this pulse-pounding series from Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author L. T. Ryan and former detective Brian Shea.

I was so excited when Darcy announced out of the blue that we were flying to Kenya for our extended honeymoon. Now that we are here, I suspect he has actually been sent to fulfill another secret mission. I am trying very hard not to pick a fight about it, because after all, we are in paradise! Darcy finally confides that there have been robberies in London and Paris. It seems the thief was a member of the aristocracy and may have fled to Kenya. Since we are staying in the Happy Valley, we are well positioned to hunt for clues and ferret out possible suspects.

More malefaction, malevolence, and misdeeds rise to the surface as Holmes investigates. A complicated string of clues leads him to a ring of corrupt cops with a deadly agenda.

Georgie, or Lady Georgiana Rannoch, is busy planning her upcoming nuptials to Darcy O'Mara. Unfortunately, what has started as a simple wedding has become quite a royal headache and grand affair, thanks to a guest list that includes the queen and the appointment of princesses as Georgie's bridesmaids. “If only Darcy and I had eloped!” she thinks, as she attempts to organize her wedding and find a place for her and her husband-to-be to live. Just as she despairs of ever finding a home, her godfather offers his fully staffed country estate. But something sinister is afoot....

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.

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice.

When the local doctor disappears from the small town of Millers Kill, New York, it doesn't take long for the gossip-mongers to start insinuating foul play. Amid escalating suspicions that he was "disposed of" due to his ongoing fight to prevent authorities from cutting his clinic's funding, Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and police chief Russ van Alstyne are enlisted to investigate. Neither could have bargained for what they discover, however, as they pursue an investigation that takes them deep into the past.

A serial killer is stalking Virginia’s young lovers, taking their lives and taunting police with a single clue: a jack of hearts. For two years, the meaning of this card has eluded FBI investigators. But as Scarpetta begins searching the victims’ remains for microscopic clues, she begins to suspect that someone in the FBI knows more about the murderer.

Venus Thibodeaux had a reputation for being trouble. Some said she started at birth. When she finally left Sinful shortly after turning 18, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. When she blew back into town four years later, no one was happy about her return. She immediately launched into her same old scams, picking off Sinful residents with ease before disappearing again as quickly as she’d appeared.

After graduating from culinary school, Juliet Capshaw returns to her quaint hometown of Ashland, Oregon, to heal a broken heart and help her mom at the family bakery. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is bringing in lots of tourists looking for some crumpets to go with their heroic couplets. But when one of Torte's customers turns up dead, there's much ado about murder.

In the quaint town of Hart's Ridge, Deputy Taylor Gray is a force to be reckoned with. From clawing her way out of poverty and foster care to achieving her dream of being in law enforcement, Taylor is determined to make a difference in her community. When a five-year-old girl named Molly walks into a gas station alone and barely speaking, Taylor's determination is put to the test. As she delves deeper into the investigation, Taylor discovers that even the most idyllic towns have their secrets. But this time, the stakes are higher than ever before.