Historical Suspense Women Sleuths

In the tumultuous years of the Civil War, the streets of Chicago offer a woman mostly danger and ruin - unless that woman is Kate Warne, the first female Pinkerton detective and a desperate widow with a knack for manipulation. Descending into undercover operations, Kate is able to infiltrate the seedy side of the city in ways her fellow detectives can't. She's a seductress, an exotic foreign medium, a rich train passenger - all depending on the day and the robber, thief, or murderer she's been assigned to nab.

Iris Woodmore is a journalist with a hot new story. For the first time in history, two women compete in a by-election to become the third woman elected to Parliament. Iris accompanies one of the candidates to a debate in the House of Commons. But it's a place that holds painful memories. In 1914, Iris' mother died there when she fell into the River Thames during a daring suffragette protest. In the shadow of Big Ben, a waterman tells Iris her mother didn't fall - she jumped.

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...

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.

It is 1946, and war-weary young ex-intelligence officer Lane Winslow leaves London to look for a fresh start. When she finds herself happily settled into a sleepy hamlet in the interior of British Columbia surrounded by a suitably eclectic cast of small-town characters, she feels like she may finally be able to put her past to rest. But then a body is discovered, the victim of murder, and although she works alongside the town's Inspectors Darling and Ames to discover who might have possibly have motivation to kill, she unknowingly casts doubt on herself.

The sisters at a lonely Cornish convent share a chilling secret they cannot confess...Sister Sophia is dead. Another disappears. And a mysterious last letter from a dying nun is sent to the prioress. Sister Joan has faced her own demons. Now she is sent to the convent to investigate, as well as teach the local children. There are whispers of virgin sacrifice and suicide, and the mother prioress certainly wears pink nail varnish. And who is the young man hiding in the bracken?

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.

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.

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.

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.

In 1914 collisions between motor cars and horse-drawn carriages are an everyday occurrence on the streets of Paterson, New Jersey. But when an out-of-control driver smashes into a buggy driven by Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp, their lives change forever. Constance, the oldest, demands payment for the damages but quickly realizes that she is dealing with a madman.

The latest occurrence to disturb the peace in the quaint English village of Walmsley Parva hits rather too close to home - in fact, the prime suspect has taken up residence in Edwina's potting shed. Her elderly gardener Simpkins has been secretly sleeping there after a row with his disreputable brother-in-law and housemate, Hector Lomax. When Hector is found murdered, Constable Gibbs comes looking for Simpkins, last seen arguing with Hector the night before. Based on the sad state of her garden, Edwina has grave doubts that shiftless Simpkins could muster the effort to murder anyone.

With the social season just around the corner, the women in Cleo’s family are having new outfits made by the most sought-after designer in the city. Madame Poitiers is bold, self-absorbed, and not French, despite her claims. When Cleo stumbles on her dead body in the salon, she is in a unique position to gather clues and speak to witnesses. But she doesn’t expect to find Harry Armitage’s business card in Madame’s possession. What is the alluring private detective’s connection to the victim? And why is he avoiding Cleo?

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.

In England in the late 1920s, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, on a convalescent trip to the countryside, goes to visit three old school friends in the area. Daisy and her husband Alec - Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher, of Scotland Yard - go for a Sunday lunch with Daisy’s friends, where one of the women mentions a wine cellar below their house, which remains curiously locked, no key to be found. Alec offers to pick the lock, but when he opens the door, what greets them is not a cache of wine but the stench of a long-dead body.

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.

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 guests arrive at a séance to contact a man's lost sons, it becomes clear that everyone has dark secrets - secrets that result in the death of a guest.

A most unexpected client shows up at Charlotte Holmes' doorstep: Moriarty himself. Moriarty fears that tragedy has befallen his daughter and wants Charlotte to find out the truth. Charlotte and Mrs. Watson travel to a remote community of occult practitioners where Moriarty's daughter was last seen, a place full of lies and liars. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s sister, Livia, tries to make sense of a mysterious message from her beau, Mr. Marbleton. And Charlotte’s longtime friend and ally, Lord Ingram, at last turns his seductive prowess on Charlotte - or is it the other way around?