Historical Suspense Women Sleuths

Danger, excitement and love - this is how the glamorous Phryne Fisher is determined to live her life in her second enticing adventure. Walking the wings of a Tiger Moth plane in full flight ought to be enough excitement for most people, but not Phryne Fisher, amateur detective, woman of mystery, as delectable as the finest chocolate and as sharp as razor blades.

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.

Fall 1942. When her Hollywood private detective daddy is called back to uniform, Fancy Anders is issued orders of her own - answer the phone, make referrals, and keep the place dusted. But the 24-year-old Barnard grad - whose hobbies include shooting, flying, and jujitsu - isn’t having any. At Amalgamated Aircraft, a young female worker chosen to pose for patriotic photos and posters has met with a suspicious “accidental death”. Fancy takes the victim’s place on the swing shift, fitting in well with coworkers very much not from high society circles.

London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France.

Lady Georgiana Rannoch, 35th in line for the British throne, knows how to play the part of an almost royal - but now she's off to Hollywood, where she must reprise her role as sleuth or risk starring in an all-too-convincing death scene...

The year is 1933. Maisie Dobbs is contacted by an Indian gentleman who has come to England in the hopes of finding out who killed his sister two months ago. Scotland Yard failed to make any arrest in the case, and there is reason to believe they failed to conduct a thorough investigation. The case becomes even more challenging when another Indian woman is murdered just hours before a scheduled interview. Meanwhile, unfinished business from a previous case becomes a distraction, as does a new development in Maisie's personal life.

She keeps house for Inspector Witherspoon...and keeps him on his toes. Everyone's awed by his Scotland Yard successes - but they don't know about his secret weapon. No matter how messy the murder or how dirty the deed, Mrs. Jeffries's polished detection skills are up to the task...proving that behind every great man there's a woman - and that a crime-solver's work is never done.

After two decades of covering riots, assassinations, and urban decay, Kate Osborn comes to Venice, Illinois, to profile Steve Higgins, an old-school Chicago-style politician. Although Higgins hews to tradition, the problems in Venice are thoroughly modern. Student unrest roils beneath the quiet surface of the university, kept in check only by the well-armed campus police, and in town, the white merchants and black coal miners are preparing to go to war.

London, 1923. Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh is the first woman to hold the position at University College of London. When she attends a dinner party for the school, she expects to engage in conversations about the university's large expedition to the Amazon. What she doesn’t expect is for Mrs. Henry, one of the professors’ wives, to drop to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin. Dr. Maxwell, Saffron’s mentor, is the main suspect, and evidence quickly mounts.

1937. War with Germany is dawning, and a civil war already raging in Spain. Split across political lines, the six Mitford sisters are more divided than ever. Meanwhile their former maid Louisa Cannon is now a private detective, working with her policeman husband Guy Sullivan.

While my beau, Darcy, is off on a mysterious mission, I am once again caught between my high birth and empty purse. I am therefore relieved to receive a new assignment from the queen - especially one that includes lodging. The king's youngest son, George, is to wed Princess Marina of Greece, and I shall be her companion at the supposedly haunted Kensington Palace. My duties are simple: help Marina acclimate to English life, show her the best of London, and, above all, dispel any rumors about George's libertine history.

When an executed original of a secret treaty between England and France, known as the French Treaty, is stolen from the country estate of Lord Halifax, Scotland Yard asks Joanna, Dr. John Watson, Jr., and Dr. John Watson, Sr., to use their detective skills to participate in the hunt for the missing treaty. As the government becomes more restless to find the missing document and traditional investigative means fail to turn up the culprit, Joanna is forced to devise a clever plan to trap the thief and recover the missing treaty.

The Christmas season brings strange guests to the medieval nunnery of St. Frideswide's. They bear with them the badly mangled body of a villager, swearing they found the drunken fool lying in a ditch. But Meg, the victim's wife and a scullery maid of the cloister, thinks there are far fouler deeds afoot. As the players rehearse for the nativity, ancient scandals lick at their heels and dark desperation haunts Meg's steps as she finds cruel feudal laws threatening to strip away the lands that would support both her and her sons in the wake of her husband's death.

Lady Georgiana Rannoch has once again been called into service by Her Majesty the Queen. This time she's sent to Nice on a secret assignment that's nothing to sneeze at: recover the Queen's stolen snuff box. As much of an honor as it is to be trusted by Her Majesty, an even greater honor awaits Georgie in Nice - as Coco Chanel herself asks Georgie to model her latest fashion. But when a necklace belonging to the Queen is stolen on the catwalk, Georgie has to find two priceless items-and solve a murder. How's a girl to find any time to go to the casino?

A woman private eye in a man's world, Molly Murphy is having a hard time succeeding as a New York shamus. That's why she agrees to go undercover for the NYPD to expose a pair of spiritualist sisters as con-artists even though the offer comes from police captain Daniel Sullivan. Sullivan had once won Molly's heart - until she discovered he already had a socialite fiancée and an upcoming wedding. Now Molly's masquerading as a cousin from Ireland at the Hudson River mansion of Senator Barney Flynn. Flynn's invalid wife hopes the psychic sisters can contact her dead son, kidnaped and lost in a sensational crime.

Lady Eleanor Swift and her loyal butler Clifford are busy lending a hand with preparations for the big day. The grand dining room at Henley Hall is overflowing with home-sewn flags, paint, and royal rosettes. Even Gladstone the bulldog and his new friend Tomkins the ginger cat are invited! But just days before the event, Mr. Prestwick-Peterson, the chairman of the celebrations committee, is found dead in the village hall: strangled with handmade red, white, and royal blue bunting.

With the epic victory at Waterloo behind them, Arianna and Saybrook are looking forward to a quiet summer of scholarship, far from the turmoil of war and politics. But little do they know that an even more dangerous battle is about to test their mettle. The shocking news that Lord Grentham, the steely minister of state security, has been accused of treason and is on the run from arrest takes them and their close circle of friends by surprise. Arianna and Saybrook don't want to believe it. Despite their fraught past with the minister, they've developed a grudging friendship.

In 1914, a bold young American named Mary Russell meets a retired beekeeper in the English countryside. His name is Sherlock Holmes. And although many years have passed since he astonished Watson by solving Scotland Yard’s most baffling crimes, the Great Detective is no fool. He instantly spots a fellow intellect in Mary. When his greatest enemy returns with a fiendishly resourceful plan for revenge, Holmes knows he faces the case of his lifetime—and that he needs Mary’s help to solve it.

Flavia de Luce - "part Harriet the Spy, part Violet Baudelaire from Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" ( The New York Times Book Review) - takes her remarkable sleuthing prowess to the unexpectedly unsavory world of Canadian boarding schools in the captivating new mystery from New York Times best-selling author Alan Bradley.

A lost journal of Amelia Peabody has been miraculously recovered: a chronicle from one of the "missing years", 1907-1908, shedding light on an already exceptional career...and an unexpected terror.