English Women Sleuths

Margaret Maron’s best-selling Deborah Knott mystery series won instant acclaim upon its debut in 1993. In this 16th entry in the series, the judge is faced with a horrifying holiday murder case. After a beautiful young cheerleader is found dead in a car wreck, Judge Knott’s husband Deputy Dwight Bryant discovers evidence that the death was anything but an accident.Now Knott and Bryant are on a desperate search for a killer before he or she trikes again.

In this seventh series installment, a ship that vanished (along with everyone on board) 25 years ago has reappeared. Hired to investigate, Seattle PI Harper Blaine soon uncovers evidence that a powerful being may be responsible. Meanwhile, local police detective Rey Solis attempts to solve the mystery of the death of a passenger’s wife.

2nd Chance reconvenes the Women's Murder Club, four friends (a detective, a reporter, an assistant district attorney, and a medical examiner) who used their networking skills, feminine intuition, and professional wiles to solve a baffling series of murders in 1st to Die. This time, the murders of two African Americans, a little girl and an old woman, bear all the signs of a serial killer for Lindsay Boxer, newly promoted to lieutenant of San Francisco's homicide squad.

Working for her bail bondsman cousin Vinnie, Stephanie is hot on the trail of revenge-seeking waitress Maxine Nowicki, whose crimes include bail jumping, theft, and extortion. Someone is terrifying Maxine’s friends, and those who have seen her are turning up dead. Also on the hunt for Maxine is Joyce Barnhardt, Stephanie’s archenemy and rival bounty hunter.

Olivia Denis is hesitant to help an old family friend get ready for her wedding outside London. The so-called friend is a master at using people. As a young widow trying to find her way through a new romantic relationship, Olivia would rather avoid the large party. She definitely didn't plan to find the bride's grandfather stabbed to death. The cruel, enormously rich aristocrat had changed his will only the day before, angering all his children.

Manhattan fashionista Kelly Quinn thought she'd left her upstate New York town far behind...until the Seventh Avenue expat returns home to revamp her grandmother's consignment shop into an upscale boutique - and unwittingly sets a trend for murder....After her rising career as a Manhattan buyer is derailed, Kelly has mixed feelings about relocating back to Lucky Cove, in spite of her big plans for the soon-to-be-renamed Curated by Kelly Resale Boutique. What's left of her luck starts running out when a customer puts on a black lace dress that triggers visions of someone being murdered.

Domestic diva Sophie Winston can whip up an elaborate event in her sleep, but as the hippest hostess, she rarely gets to enjoy the full guest treatment. Which is why her best friend Nina Reid Norwood loops her in to the latest culinary craze: a pop-up gourmet dinner party. The celebrity chef, the epicurean menu, and the high-profile attendees are all a surprise, turning the decadent dining experience into the hottest ticket in Old Town.

Hope's schedule is already jam packed with recipe testing and shameless plugs for her food blog as she rushes off to attend a spring garden tour in the charming town of Jefferson, Connecticut. Unfortunately, it isn't the perfectly arranged potted plants that grab her attention - it's the bloody body of reviled real estate agent Peaches McCoy.... One of the tour guests committed murder, and all eyes are on Hope's older sister, Claire Dixon - who, at best, saw Peaches as a professional rival. And suspicions really heat up when another murder occurs the following night.

When Cookie Chanel lands a dream assignment of providing vintage hats for a high-society Kentucky Derby party, she's brimming with excitement. Leaving her mother and best friend to mind the store at It's Vintage Y'all, Cookie packs up her psychic cat and races to Kentucky. But before she can hang her hat, her enthusiasm is dampened when the rider of the potential Derby-winning horse is put out to pasture. Now, she's saddled with the jockey's ghost, who insists she find his killer.

When Paul Casablancas, Claire DeWitt’s ex-boyfriend and a popular musician in the Bay Area scene, is found dead in his apartment, his cherished guitars missing, the police are convinced it’s a simple robbery. But Claire knows that nothing is ever simple. With the help of her new assistant, Claude, Claire follows the clues, finding hints to Paul’s fate in her other cases - especially a long-ago missing girl in New York’s gritty East Village and a modern-day miniature-horse theft in Marin.

Sarah Booth Delaney knows the perfect way to begin recovering from both the recent attack on Scott Hampton's blues club and her broken heart. She's going to host a Thanksgiving feast for all of her friends at her ancestral home in Zinnia, Mississippi. But one bitterly cold night, with the holiday just around the corner, Sarah Booth awakens to the insistent ring of her doorbell. She opens the door to find a newborn baby in a basket sitting on her front porch - and a pool of blood slowly seeping out from the basket.

Margaret Maron continues her best-selling Deborah Knott series with Sand Sharks - an "outstanding ... neat mystery that [is] highly recommended" ( Library Journal, starred review). Judge Deborah's hopes for relaxation at a seaside judicial conference are dashed when she stumbles upon the murdered body of a colleague. And when more judges turn up dead, Deborah fears she could be next.

Torie Bliss thought that being over 40 and having your husband dump you over your favorite meal would be rock bottom. Then she learned that the perfect life he had created for them was built on a foundation of lies. A very public fall from grace leaves her penniless and homeless. Thinking she had nothing else to lose, she decides to move in with her estranged mother in a picturesque town in the mountains of North Carolina. Only to discover that her mother is quite the witch. Literally.

Anyone growing up in Lobelia Falls is taught to learn the elegant, ancient, and occasionally deadly art of shooting with a bow and arrow. Practicing the craft, freelance secretary Dittany Henbit is strolling through the woods with her bow at her side when she meets a surveyor making surveys where he shouldn't. Dittany is giving him what-for when an arrow goes whizzing above her head. It is sharp enough to kill, and was not fired by accident, but Dittany wasn't the target.

Set in 1944 Chicago, Edgar Award-winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery, the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister's death, brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese-American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.

When Monica Albertson comes to Cranberry Cove - a charming town on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan - to help her half brother, Jeff, on his cranberry farm, the last thing she expects to harvest is a dead body. It seems that Sam Culbert, who ran the farm while Jeff was deployed overseas, had some juicy secrets that soon prove fatal, and Jeff is ripe for the picking as a prime suspect.

South Cove, California, is celebrating St. Patrick's Day - and there's going to be a parade of suspects... Jill Gardner's store, Coffee, Books, and More, is raking in the green as her little coastal town holds a big festival for St. Patrick's Day. But the locals aren't exactly feeling the luck of the Irish, thanks to the rowdy behavior of some of the tourists who are pouring in. Then a woman who just visited Jill's shop is found dead near the shore. The fireworks display on the beach may have already happened, but the real fireworks have just begun....

Tequila Key is just like any other small town, and I'm just like any other small town psychic. Scratch that. Tequila Key is a world onto itself and some people might think that I am one crayon short of the box. And, if we're being totally honest, Tequila Key is just like any other small town - if that town boasts a voodoo priestess and a few white witches for flavor. Turquoise blue water and the best margaritas this side of Mexico make it hard to leave.

Lindsay Boxer's beautiful baby is born! But after only a week at home with her new daughter, Lindsay is forced to return to work to face two of the biggest cases of her career. A rising star football player for the San Francisco 49ers is the prime suspect in a grisly murder. At the same time, Lindsay is confronted with the strangest story she's ever heard: An eccentric English professor has been having vivid nightmares about a violent murder and he's convinced is real.

Anne George’s novels offer a delightful mix of gentle comedy and compelling mystery. Murder Runs in the Family finds two feisty 60-something sisters doing a little amateur sleuthing into the death of a visiting genealogist. Mary Alice has spared no expense for her daughter’s wedding. Two days after the glittering affair, Mary Alice and Patricia Anne are spending a fascinating lunch listening to the groom’s cousin explain the ’dog-eat-dog" world of professional genealogy.