Historical Suspense Women Sleuths

With his dying breath, Bobby Lowell begs Ellison Russell, "Tell her I love her." Unable to refuse, Ellison struggles to find the girl the murdered boy loved. Too bad an epically bad blind date, a vindictive graffiti artist, and multiple trips to the emergency room keep getting in the way. Worse, a killer has Ellison in his sights, her newly rebellious daughter is missing, and there's yet another body in her hostas. Mother won't be pleased.

As the city prepares to celebrate Queen Victoria's golden jubilee, Veronica Speedwell is marking a milestone of her own. After burying her spinster aunt, the orphaned Veronica is free to resume her world travels in pursuit of scientific inquiry - and the occasional romantic dalliance. As familiar with hunting butterflies as she is fending off admirers, Veronica wields her butterfly net and a hatpin with equal aplomb, and with her last connection to England gone, she intends to embark upon the journey of a lifetime.

Isobel Kingston is dead. Or so everyone believes. When a mysterious woman writes her last words in sand, Isobel steps out of the shadows to uncover the truth. As she plunges into a storm of betrayal, the winds are determined to throw Atticus Riot on her course, and the two detectives collide in a sea of madness and murder.

Like most women, Elizabeth Miles assumes many roles; unlike most, hers have made her a woman on the run. Living on the edge of society, Elizabeth uses her guile to relieve so-called respectable men of their ill-gotten gains. But brutal and greedy entrepreneur Oscar Thornton is out for blood. He's lost a great deal of money and is not going to forgive a woman for outwitting him. With his thugs hot on her trail, Elizabeth seizes the moment to blend in with a group of women who have an agenda of their own.

Lady Emily Hardcastle is an eccentric widow with a secret past. Florence Armstrong, her maid and confidante, is an expert in martial arts. The year is 1908 and they've just moved from London to the country, hoping for a quiet life. But it is not long before Lady Hardcastle is forced out of her self-imposed retirement. There's a dead body in the woods, and the police are on the wrong scent. Lady Hardcastle makes some enquiries of her own, and it seems she knows a surprising amount about crime investigation...

After feigning her own death in Cornwall to escape from Moriarty’s perilous attention, Charlotte Holmes goes into hiding. But then she receives a tempting offer: Find a dossier the crown is desperately seeking, and she might be able to go back to a normal life. Her search leads her aboard the RMS Provence. But on the night Charlotte makes her move to retrieve the dossier, in the midst of a terrifying storm in the Bay of Biscay, a brutal murder takes place on the ship.

Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, soon became her patron, taking the remarkably bright youngster under her wing. Lady Rowan’s friend, Maurice Blanche, often retained as an investigator by the European elite, recognized Maisie’s intuitive gifts. The outbreak of war changed everything. Ten years after the Armistice, in the spring of 1929, Maisie sets out on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful, and truth elusive.

Agatha Award-winning author Rhys Bowen’s charming combination of intrigue and romance blended with a touch of humor shines when performed by Audible Hall of Fame narrator Katherine Kellgren, whose deft range and impeccable accent work make it hard to believe this isn’t a multicast performance.

Jane Marple is an elderly lady from St Mary Mead who possesses an uncanny knack for solving even the most perplexing puzzles. Now, for the first time in 45 years, Agatha Christie’s beloved character returns to the page for a globe-trotting tour of crime and detection. Join Marple as she travels through her sleepy English village and around the world. In St Mary Mead, a Christmas dinner is interrupted by unexpected guests; the Broadway stage in New York City is set for a dangerous improvisation.

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.

London, 1945: Four adolescent orphans with a dark wartime history are squatting in a vacant Belgravia mansion—the owners having fled London under heavy Luftwaffe bombing. Psychologist and Investigator Maisie Dobbs visits the mansion on behalf of the owners and discovers that a demobilized soldier, gravely ill and reeling from his experiences overseas, has taken shelter with the group.

The Lusitania has just been sunk, and headlines about a shooting at J. P. Morgan's mansion and the Great War are splashed across the front page of every newspaper. Capability "Kitty" Weeks would love nothing more than to report on the news of the day, but she's stuck writing about fashion and society gossip over on the Ladies' Page - until a man is murdered at a high society picnic on her beat. Determined to prove her worth as a journalist, Kitty finds herself plunged into the midst of a wartime conspiracy that threatens to derail the United States's attempt to remain neutral.

With the hunt for a diabolical traitor finally over, Lady Arianna is looking for some peace and quiet in which to resolve lingering tensions with her husband over her daredevil exploits during the final chase. But an unexpected late night visit from The Dragon - Saybrook's feisty and independent great aunt - puts her in the middle of a very difficult dilemma....Constantina confesses that some very private personal letters, along with some sensitive diplomatic documents, have been stolen from her French paramour.

December 1899. After the death of her beloved grandmother, Cleopatra Fox moves into the luxury hotel owned by her estranged uncle in the hopes of putting hardship and loneliness behind her. But the poisoning of a guest throws her new life, and the hotel, into chaos. Cleo quickly realizes no one can be trusted, not Scotland Yard and especially not the hotel’s charming assistant manager. With the New Year’s Eve ball approaching fast and the hotel’s reputation hanging by a thread, Cleo must find the killer before the ball, and the hotel itself, are ruined.

It is 1921 and Mary Russell—Sherlock Holmes's brilliant apprentice, now an Oxford graduate with a degree in theology—is on the verge of acquiring a sizable inheritance. Independent at last, with a passion for divinity and detective work, her most baffling mystery may now involve Holmes and the burgeoning of a deeper affection between herself and the retired detective.

Miss Marple encounters a compelling murder mystery in the sleepy little village of St. Mary Mead, where under the seemingly peaceful exterior of an English country village lurks intrigue, guilt, deception and death. Colonel Protheroe, local magistrate and overbearing land-owner is the most detested man in the village. Everyone—even in the vicar—wishes he were dead. And very soon he is—shot in the head in the vicar's own study. Faced with a surfeit of suspects, only the inscrutable Miss Marple can unravel the tangled web of clues that will lead to the unmasking of the killer.

1924. Lady Eleanor Swift and her butler Clifford are touring the great, ancient sights of Egypt on a much-anticipated extended vacation. But when the pair arrive at the docks in Cairo expecting to board the luxurious paddle steamer advertised in their brochure, they are baffled by the crumbling old cruiser waiting for them. And things only go from bad to worse as death stalks the decks of the SS Cleopatra.

Two people have been targeted. Shots have been fired. Who stands to inherit? Who has the most to lose? Evangeline "Evie" Parker, Countess of Woodridge, thinks it's nothing but an accident, but then an attempt is made on her host's life. Suddenly, all the guests attending the Duke of Hetherington's house party think they are being targeted. Who will be next? Evie and her new chauffeur form an unlikely alliance to discover as much as they can before the killer can get it right.

She was admired by women and desired by men, until jealousy and past secrets took center stage. Help Cleo and her friends solve the murder of one of London’s leading actresses. When a hotel guest’s mistress is found dead in the stalls of the Piccadilly Playhouse, a verdict of suicide is given. Convinced his lover didn’t kill herself, Lord Rumford wants the truth uncovered. Against his better judgement, he hires Cleo Fox to find the murderer. Cleo needs to solve this case if she wants to make a living from being a private detective.

Emmy Award winner Rita Mae Brown and her felicitous feline Sneaky Pie craft the 17th entry in the mega-selling Mrs. Murphy mystery series. When murder befouls the idyllic winter wonderland of Crozet, Virginia, amateur sleuth Harry Haristeen takes up the investigation. Also on the scent are Harry's intrepid, four-legged friends - who never met a mystery they couldn't solve.