British Women Sleuths

There's nothing Ruth Galloway hates more than amateur archaeologists, but when a group of them stumble upon Bronze Age artifacts alongside a dead body, she finds herself thrust into their midst - and into the crosshairs of a string of murders circling ever closer.

1940. It's been a month since rector's daughter Billie Harkness left her rural village to make a fresh start in the northern city of Hull. Now she has a new home and an exciting new job as one of only two female police constables in the whole city. But Hull still feels like a foreign country, and some people are less than impressed by the idea of a woman doing a "man's job". But determined to do her bit for the war effort, Billie throws herself into her work. The chance to prove her worth comes during a search for a missing air raid shelter inspector, when Billie makes a shocking discovery.

Claire Barclay, owner of a mystery book tour company, collects three women at the Manchester airport who have flown in from Tucson, Arizona, then starts on a tour of Yorkshire and the sites of mystery novels. She meets the rest of the tour in York: two British couples and Phillip, a single man.

As a favor to her rock journalist boyfriend, Thai-boxing, rock-and-roll private detective Kate Brannigan agrees to track down a missing song-writer Moira Pollock, a search that takes her into some of the seediest parts of Leeds and Bradford. But little does she realize that finding Moira is only a prelude to murder. Juggling her other cases, including a search to uncover the source of counterfeit luxury goods, Brannigan finds herself for the first time on the trail of a killer.

Queen Elizabeth II is looking forward to a traditional Christmas gathering with her family in Sandringham when a shocking discovery interrupts holiday plans. A severed hand has been found—but even more unsettling, she recognizes the signet ring still attached to a finger. It belongs to a scion of the St Cyr family, her old friends from nearby Ladybridge Hall. Despite the personal connection, the Queen wants to leave the investigation to the police—that is, until newspapers drag her name into the matter.

World War II has finally come home to Britain, but it takes more than nightly air raids to rattle intrepid spy and expert code breaker Maggie Hope. After serving as a secret agent to protect Princess Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, Maggie is now an elite member of the Special Operations Executive–a black ops organization designed to aid the British effort abroad–and her first assignment sends her straight into Nazi-controlled Berlin, the very heart of the German war machine. Relying on her quick wit and keen instincts, Maggie infiltrates the highest level of Berlin society, gathering information to pass on to London headquarters. But the secrets she unveils will expose a darker, more dangerous side of the war–and of her own past.

Book 1 in the thrilling new crime series, by David J. Gatward, author of the DCI Harry Grimm crime series, and set in the hauntingly beautiful Somerset countryside.

Meredith Mitchell's old friend Sally Caswell and her scientist husband have moved from London to the quiet of Oxfordshire, but find nothing but trouble. Quarrels between the moody scientist and an eccentric neighbour; goats in the backyard, and a letter bomb in the mail all add to malice, mystery, and murder—and another case for Meredith and her police inspector friend Alan Markby to solve.

Inspector Witherspoon always triumphs...but how does he do it? Even the inspector himself doesn't know - because his secret weapon is as ladylike as she is clever. She's Mrs. Jeffries: the determined, delightful detective who is also Inspector Witherspoon's housekeeper.

For years, the Duchess of Fournier has buried a shameful secret connected to her remarkable, if bizarre, ability. While Audrey's gift has helped her solve cases alongside the captivating Bow Street officer Hugh Marsden, she longs to forget her previous committal to an insane asylum. But now, a blackmailer with a taste for violence is threatening former patients of Shadewell Sanatorium, and it appears the ghosts of Audrey's past have finally found her.

Saxford St Peter is Eve Mallow’s beloved home, but she can’t resist the chance to spend a weekend in the nearby Abbey Hotel, famed for its glamorous owner, Debra Moran, and an array of celebrity guests. For a confirmed people-watcher like Eve, it’s perfect: She can observe the rich and famous while sipping tea in the gardens, her faithful dachshund, Gus, by her side. But her relaxing break takes a shocking turn when Debra is found lying dead in the shadowy woods around the hotel.

Feisty, passionate Beatrice Steele has never fit the definition of a true lady, according to the strict code of conduct that reigns in Swampshire, her small English township—she is terrible at needlework, has absolutely no musical ability, and her artwork is so bad it frightens people. Nevertheless, she lives a perfectly agreeable life with her marriage-scheming mother, prankster father, and two younger sisters— beautiful Louisa and forgettable Mary. But she harbors a dark secret: She is obsessed with the true crime cases she reads about in the newspaper.

The year is 1928, and after the death of a maid at a glamorous society party, fortune heir Bryan Guinness seizes life and proposes to 18-year-old Diana, the most beautiful of the six Mitford sisters. The maid's death is ruled an accident, and the newlyweds put it behind them to begin a whirlwind life. Accompanying Diana as her lady's maid is Louisa Cannon, as well as a coterie of friends, family and hangers on, from Nancy Mitford to Evelyn Waugh. When a second victim is found in Paris in 1931, Louisa begins to see links with the death of the maid two years previously.

A series of baffling murders among a group of imprisoned agents threatens the outcome of World War II in this chilling mystery from the New York Times best-selling author of Mr. Churchill’s Secretary. World War II is raging, and former spy Maggie Hope knows too much. She knows what the British government is willing to do to keep its secrets. She knows the real location of the planned invasion of France. She knows who’s lying. She knows who the double-crossers are. She knows exactly who is sending agents to their deaths.

P. D. James meets E. L. James in Under a Silent Moon, this first novel in an exciting British crime series-a blend of literary suspense and captivating thriller that introduces formidable Detective Chief Inspector Louisa Smith - from suspense talent Elizabeth Haynes, author of the best-selling Into the Darkest Corner. In the crisp, early hours of an autumn morning, the police are called to investigate two deaths. The first is a suspected murder at a farm on the outskirts of a small village. A beautiful young woman has been found dead, her cottage drenched with blood.

World War II rages on across Europe, but Maggie Hope has finally found a moment of rest on the pastoral coast of western Scotland. Home from an undercover mission in Berlin, she settles down to teach at her old spy training camp, and to heal from scars on both her body and heart. Yet instead of enjoying the quieter pace of life, Maggie is quickly drawn into another web of danger and intrigue.

Two bodies have been found in a park in the fashionable London neighborhood of Callander Square. While Inspector Thomas Pitt is fighting to get the square’s aristocratic residents to speak with him, his pretty, well-born wife, Charlotte, decides to do some detective work of her own. Soon she is unearthing secrets in every house on the square, while Thomas tries to discover what would drive a person to murder.

Normally dead bodies in a graveyard are buried - but not this one. When a woman is found strangled in a North London cemetery with an old newspaper clipping clutched in her hand, Inspector Witherspoon is surprised to find that he and the victim have crossed paths before. Alice Robinson was a respectable widow who ran a quiet Islington lodging house. None of her lodgers have any apparent motive to murder their landlady.

Harriet Andover had no intention of dying young like her silly siblings had. She intended to outlive them and outdo them as she always had. But Harriet discovers that the best intentions can lead to murder when she is strangled inside her mansion with a house full of holiday guests. As much as Inspector Witherspoon enjoys his job delivering justice, the last thing he wanted was a complicated murder case just a week before Christmas. He soon discovers that Harriet's own husband and grown stepchildren are not overcome with grief and neither are most of her friends.

Louisa's salvation is a position within the Mitford household at Asthall Manor, in the Oxfordshire countryside. There she will become nursemaid, chaperone, and confidante to the Mitford sisters, especially 16-year-old Nancy, an acerbic, bright young woman in love with stories. But then a nurse - Florence Nightingale Shore, goddaughter of her famous namesake - is killed on a train in broad daylight, and Louisa and Nancy find themselves entangled in the crimes of a murderer who will do anything to hide their secret....