Mystery Women Sleuths

This trial should be a slam-dunk. A faceless powerbroker has other ideas.... Small-town prosecutor Mara Brent must be tough as nails to succeed in her male-dominated profession. But she harbors a soft spot for the victims who rely on her courtroom skill, especially the wheelchair-bound rape survivor she’s known since her first day on the job. So when her friend’s unsolved case reopens with a DNA match and an arrest, she’s determined to finally bring a monster to justice.

New York Times best-selling author Joanne Fluke’s cozy mysteries grow in popularity with each new series entry. One summer in Lake Eden, Minnesota, Hannah Swensen attends the grand opening of a newly refurbished hotel, where her famous red velvet cupcakes will be served in the new Red Velvet lounge. But when a party guest falls from the hotel roof, festivities come to a screeching halt - and Hannah becomes the surprising target of a murder investigation

Chester Henry and his adult granddaughter Clare lovingly repair old typewriters and restore old books. Who ever thought their quaint store would hold the key to some modern-day trouble? When a stranger to town demands they turn over an antique Underwood typewriter they're repairing for a customer, Clare fears she may need to be rescued. A call to the police scares the man off, but later Clare finds his dead body in the back alley. What about a dusty old typewriter could possibly be worth killing for?

For Colorado caterer Goldy Schulz, business isn’t just booming—it’s skyrocketing. Her friend Marla is constantly warning her, “Success can kill you.” But Goldy doesn’t take the warning literally until her next booking: a cocktail party for the Westside Mall’s Elite Shoppers Club. While setting up, Goldy is nearly run down by a truck with no intention of stopping. Then she finds an old friend in a pile of sale shoes—stabbed with one of Goldy’s new knives. Goldy must catch the real killer between whipping up Sweethearts’ Swedish Meatballs, Quiche Me Quick, and Diamond Lovers’ Hot Crab Dip.

As Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes embark on their 11th adventure together, they find themselves immersed in the world of silent filmmaking. Here, the pirates are real—and unlike the shooting done with a camera, this sort can be deadly.

A body is found by an early morning dog walker on the common outside Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who never showed up to work. DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate. Her only clue is the disappearance of fourteen-year-old resident Chloe. Vera can’t bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can’t dismiss the possibility.

It's June in Montreal, and Dr. Temperance Brennan, who has left a shaky marriage back home in North Carolina to take on the challenging assignment of Director of Forensic Anthropology for the province of Quebec, looks forward to a relaxing weekend in beautiful Quebec City. First, though, she must stop at a newly uncovered burial site in the heart of the city. The remains are probably old and only of archeological interest, but Tempe must make sure they're not a case for the police. One look at the decomposed and decapitated corpse, stored neatly in plastic bags, tells her she'll spend the weekend in the crime lab.

When the firefighters of Ladder Company 189 pull Clare's friends out of a blazing cafe, she happily comes to their rescue. As a favor to the men, she visits their firehouse kitchen to teach them the finer points of operating their newly donated espresso machine. But more than their coffee turns out to be hot. Somebody's torching cafes around the city, and firefighters are beginning to die in suspicious ways....

To get a fresh start away from a bad relationship, Kylie Strange moves across the country to open a shop in a seemingly quiet town in rural Maine. During renovations on Strange Herbs & Teas, she discovers a peculiar and ancient codex, The Booke of the Hidden, bricked into the wall. Every small town has its legends and unusual histories, and this artifact sends Kylie right into the center of Moody Bog's biggest secret.

Portland is famous for its rain, hipsters, craft beers...and coffee. Sage Caplin has high hopes for her coffee cart, Ground Rules, which she runs with her business partner, Harley - a genius at roasting beans and devising new blends. That's essential in a city where locals have intensely strong opinions about cappuccino versus macchiato - especially in the case of one of Sage's very first customers. Sage finds the man's body in front of her cart, a fatal slash across his neck.

As if a run-in with an old flame and a failed marriage proposal weren't enough to horrify Krissy for one night, a woman is found strangled to death in a room filled with ominous jack-o'-lanterns. All signs suggest a crime of passion - but when the hostess's jewelry disappears, malevolent intentions seem way more likely.

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.

On a long-delayed errand to remote Wycliffe Manor, ex-Lieutenant Jack de Sackville stumbles across the murdered body of London dandy, Basil Culpepper, in the hedgerow, a long way from his usual haunts. To Jack's dismay, he discovers the earl's daughter Culpepper hiding in Wycliffe's kitchen. Disguised as a lowly cook, Lady Elspeth Villiers may have liked to shoot Culpepper for ruining her life, but she dropped out of sight for more immediate reasons than an old scandal-her wealth has become the focus of greedy men.

Near the creek that runs behind her Pennsylvania house, Willow Bellamy has converted an old barn into an art school. When some local merchants gather in the studio for a painting party, they focus their attention on a still life with flowers and an assortment of garden tools, including antique pruning shears that disappear - at the same time despised restaurant owner Evangeline Fletcher is murdered. Willow must use all her gifts to find the killer.

Delaney Nichols, originally of Kansas but settling happily into her new life as a bookseller in Edinburgh, works at The Cracked Spine in the heart of town. She's recently befriended a few medical school students after they came into the shop to sell some antique medical tomes. But when one of the students' friends is found murdered outside in the alley, Delaney takes it upon herself to help bring the murderer to justice.

With the arrival of six senior reading group members at the Merry Ghost Inn, the long-awaited grand opening week has finally begun for Melanie West and her grandmother Liza. All is well with the Oregon coast-side B&B until Melanie's dog, Max, finds the dead body of one of their guests.

Former English professor Cat Latimer is back in Colorado, hosting writers' retreats in the big blue Victorian she's inherited, much to her surprise, from none other than her carousing ex-husband. Now it's an authors' getaway, but Cat won't let anyone get away with murder. The bed-and-breakfast is open for business, and best-selling author Tom Cook is among its first guests. Cat doesn't know why he came all the way from New York, but she's glad to have him among the quirkier - and far less famous - attendees.

Frances Wynn, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, enjoys more freedom as a widow than she did as a wife. After an obligatory year spent mourning her philandering husband, Reggie, she puts aside her drab black gowns, leaving the countryside and her money-grubbing in-laws behind. With her young daughter in tow, Frances rents a home in Belgravia and prepares to welcome her sister, Lily, arriving from New York - for her first London season.

In the 1920s, in post - World War I England, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple, newly engaged to Detective Inspector Alec Fletcher, is asked by her brother-in-law to discreetly investigate a series of poisoned pen letters that many of the local villagers have been receiving. When the pompous and unbearable brother of the local vicar is killed by a very large rock, dropped on his head from a great height, it seems clear to all that this campaign of gossip has escalated to murder.

Making rounds to homes one wet spring morning, veterinarian Dr. Kate Turner rescues a family's hamster from a vacuum cleaner then visits an estate whose owners breed champion Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Instead of sharing traditional tea with the couple, she confronts a bloody scene of bodies and 27 blue-ribbon dogs running wild. Police initially suspect a murder-suicide, but when Dr. Kate proves the famous best-in-show champion is missing, a darker reality intrudes.