Womens Mystery Fiction

When Sheriff Bree Taggert discovers the body of a young woman floating near the bank of the Scarlet River, a note in her abandoned car suggests suicide. The autopsy reveals a different story. Holly Thorpe was dead long before she dropped off the bridge and hit the water. As Bree and her investigator Matt Flynn delve into the case, secrets in Holly’s personal life complicate their efforts to solve the murder.

A twister, a kidnapping, and a murder - oh my! Scumble River may never be the same. For school psychologist Skye Denison, there's certainly no place like home. When a violent tornado devastates her small hometown of Scumble River, she can't see how the community will ever recover - especially since town councilman Zeke Lyons appears to have perished in the twister. But things get even worse for Skye when her police chief husband, Wally, disappears in the midst of investigating Zeke's death, and evidence arises pointing to foul play.

King George IV is petitioning Parliament for a divorce from his queen on the grounds of her adultery. But rumor has it that the king secretly married Maria Fitzherbert—long before he married the queen. Now Mrs. Fitzherbert has been robbed—and she's frantically calling on Rosalind for help. Because what those thieves took is proof that she and King George did really marry. That single piece of paper could destroy Mrs. Fitzherbert and her family—or it could prove the king guilty of bigamy.

In the first months of 2020 there was a spate of murders of Black sex workers in northern cities. One of them was Ella Bailey, last seen talking to a punter in an alley in Sheffield city centre, and although no trace of her was ever found, the punter, Michael Godley, soon confessed to all three murders. Five years later, as another sex worker is murdered in the same district, the bag Ella had been carrying with her reappears, hanging on the door handles of a café, and a local vagrant claims to have seen Ella sitting on a bench in a churchyard near the site of the murder.

Summoned to an abandoned theme park to retrieve a body, Dr. Kay Scarpetta is devastated to learn that the victim is a man she once had an intense love affair with. The murder scene is bizarre, with a crop circle of petals around the body, and Giordano’s skin is strangely red. Scarpetta’s niece Lucy believes he was dropped from an unidentified flying craft. Scarpetta knows an autopsy can reveal the dead’s secrets, but she is shocked to find her friend seems to have deliberately left her a clue.

Lex Gracie doesn't want to think about her family. She doesn't want to think about growing up in her parents' House of Horrors. And she doesn't want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. It's been easy enough to avoid her parents - her father never made it out of the House of Horrors he created, and her mother spent the rest of her life behind bars. But when her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can't run from her past any longer.

Brecken Hill in upstate New York is an expensive place to live. You have to be rich to have a house there, and Fred and Sheila Merton certainly are rich. But even all their money can't protect them when a killer comes to call. The Mertons are brutally murdered after a fraught Easter dinner with their three adult kids. Who, of course, are devastated.

Anna Fox lives alone - a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times...and spying on her neighbors. Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, mother, their teenaged son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn't, her world begins to crumble. And its shocking secrets are laid bare.

It's wedding season on Nantucket. The beautiful island is overrun with summer people - an annual source of aggravation for year-round residents. When one lavish wedding ends in disaster before it can even begin - with the bride-to-be discovered dead in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony - everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash digs into the best man, the maid of honor, the groom's famous mystery novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, the chief discovers that every wedding is a minefield - and no couple is perfect.

On the day she returns to active duty with the Serial Crimes Unit, Detective Inspector Anjelica Henley is called to a crime scene. Dismembered body parts from two victims have been found by the river. The modus operandi bears a striking resemblance to Peter Olivier, the notorious Jigsaw Killer, who has spent the past two years behind bars. When he learns that someone is co-opting his grisly signature - the arrangement of victims’ limbs in puzzle-piece shapes - he decides to take matters into his own hands.

For 12-year-old Cora Landry and her friends Violet and Jordyn, it was supposed to be an ordinary sleepover - movies and Ouija and talking about boys. But when they decide to sneak out to go to the abandoned rail yard on the outskirts of town, little do they know that their innocent games will have dangerous consequences. Later that night, Cora Landry is discovered on the tracks, bloody and clinging to life, her friends nowhere to be found. Soon, their small rural town is thrust into a maelstrom. Who would want to hurt a young girl like Cora - and why?

Dennis Mira just had two unpleasant surprises. First he learned that his cousin Edward was secretly meeting with a real estate agent about their late grandfather's magnificent West Village brownstone, despite the promise they both made to keep it in the family. Then, when he went to the house to confront Edward about it, he got a blunt object to the back of the head.

Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless following her parents' deaths, is curious about the secrets of her father's mysterious past. One clue in particular hints that Edward Hyde, her father's former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, and there is a reward for information leading to his capture...a reward that would solve all of her immediate financial woes. But her hunt leads her to Hyde's daughter, Diana, a feral child left to be raised by nuns.

Port Marie’s Veteran’s Day celebration and parade reunites Reverend Margot Quade with her old army buddy Derek Nesbit. He’s finally at peace with the death of his uncle, and both believe they’ve put their past overseas behind them. But fate has other plans....

Delia Spark has faced her fair share of drama both on and off the stage. But just as she's getting used to being a powerful fire crone, life throws her a twist that would challenge any mother's heart. Contending with revelations about her family's magical legacy, and her impending divorce from her cult-leader ex, Delia must navigate treacherous magical politics, confront long-buried secrets, and race to find the fire dragon before its ancient power falls into the wrong hands.

It’s 1998, and female students are going missing at Southern State University in North Carolina, but freshman Jessica Fadley, once a bright and responsible student, is going through her own struggles. Just as her life seems to be careening dangerously out of control, she suddenly disappears. Twenty-four years later, Jessica’s sister Lindsey is desperately searching for answers and uses the momentum of a new chart-topping true crime podcast that focuses on cold cases to guide her own investigation.

Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn's happy small-town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father - Pikeville's notorious defense attorney - devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night. Twenty-eight years later, Charlie has followed in her father's footsteps to become a lawyer herself - the ideal good daughter. But when violence comes to Pikeville again, Charlie is plunged into a nightmare.

Luke Richardson has returned home after burying Natalie, his beloved wife of sixteen years, ready to face the hard job of raising their three children alone. But there's something he's not prepared for - a blue envelope with his name scrawled across the front in Natalie's handwriting, waiting for him on the floor of their suburban Michigan home.

After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises. The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles.

Eight months since losing her mother in the Spanish flu outbreak of 1919, 21-year-old Lillian Carter's life has completely fallen apart. For the past six years, under the moniker Angelica, Lillian was one of the most sought-after artists' models in New York City, with statues based on her figure gracing landmarks from the Plaza Hotel to the Brooklyn Bridge