Mystery Women Sleuths

Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will - searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking. A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier.

Olivia Denis is a content young wife with a carefree life in late 1930s London. Then her world is shattered with the violent death of her husband, Reggie. The police want to call it a suicide and close the case, but Olivia knows Reggie couldn't possibly have fired the fatal shot. Further mysteries surface surrounding her husband's death. Did the trustworthy Foreign Office employee betray government secrets? Was his murder linked to the death of a German embassy clerk the same night? And who searched their flat?

Twenty million dollars' worth of missing gems bring Carrie Singleton's long-lost and larcenous dad back into her life, and it's up to Carrie to clear his name.

Rosalind is pleased when she's invited to Cassel House to help her friend Louisa prepare for her upcoming wedding. But that's not the only event on her agenda. The trip will also afford Rosalind the chance to see Devon Winterbourne, the newly minted duke of Casselmaine. Devon and Rosalind were on the verge of betrothal before the infamous Thorne family scandal derailed their courtship. Now Rosalind wonders if there's a chance their love might reignite.

With Charleston's council poised to take over Honeysuckle Hollow, the town and all of its people must band together to prove they don't need to be absorbed into the big city magical district. What better way to show off the small supernatural Southern town than to host a barbecue contest and some classic broom racing?

Jill Gardner has volunteered her Coffee, Books, and More to host a Christmas adopt-a-pet party. Among the potential forever friends is a male terrier named Baby, whose owner died of a heart attack. With few clues to go on, even finding the name of Baby's human is a daunting task. But there's no challenge too big for Jill this holiday season. Playing Santa's Little Helper, Jill is determined to find out what happened - and to fulfill a long-time coming Christmas wish.

Lady Violet Belmaine emerges from two years of mourning less than enthusiastic about resuming her place in Polite Society. She’s talked into attending a country house party by her French physician friend, Hugh St. Sevier, only to find that the house party guests are preyed upon by a mysterious thief.

Abby Endicott is chief of the district attorney's homicide unit in Boston, where she investigates and prosecutes the city's most dangerous killers. She attended the elite Winsor school, graduated from Harvard Law School, and has been known to change into an evening gown amid bodies in the morgue. She loves her job and is committed to it. But among Abby's many secrets is her longtime affair with fellow prosecutor Tim Mooney, a married father of one.

A routine trip to the vet begins a wild adventure when Suzy Maycomber and her cat, Snowball, take a shortcut through the cemetery and find themselves in the mystical land of Nightshade, where magic exists and cats talk. Only the librarian, Rachel, the most powerful witch in Nightshade, can help Suzy get home. One big problem: Rachel's just been murdered. Desperate to find her way home, Suzy reluctantly agrees to take Rachel's place as Nightshade's resident witch, where she'll have access to the spell books that might hold the answers she needs.

Newly divorced Alison Kerby wants a second chance for herself and her nine-year-old daughter. She's returned to her hometown on the Jersey Shore to transform a Victorian fixer-upper into a charming-and profitable guest house. One small problem: the house is haunted, and the two ghosts insist Alison must find out who killed them.

Pet sitter Daphne Templeton has a soft spot for every stray and misfit who wanders into the quaint, lakeside village of Sylvan Creek. But even Daphne doesn't like arrogant, womanizing Steve Beamus, the controversial owner of Blue Ribbon K-9 Academy. When Steve turns up dead during a dog agility trial, Daphne can think of a long list of people with motives for homicide, and so can the police. Unfortunately, at the top of the list is Daphne's sister, Piper - Steve's latest wronged girlfriend.

From the author of the classic mysteries starring the irrepressible CIA spy, Mrs. Pollifax, comes a delightfully different mystery with a most unholy twist. Filled with all the hilarious surprises and good old-fashioned suspense that her fans have come to love, A Nun in the Closet is the story of two high-spirited nuns who accidentally stumble into a dangerous plot involving ghosts, gangsters, and Protestants.

Zoe Chambers, paramedic and deputy coroner in rural Pennsylvania's tight-knit Vance Township, has been privy to a number of local secrets over the years, some of them her own. But secrets become explosive when a dead body is found in the Township Board president's abandoned car. As a January blizzard rages, Zoe and Police Chief Pete Adams launch a desperate search for the killer, even if it means uncovering secrets that could not only destroy Zoe and Pete but also those closest to them.

Deputy Mattie Cobb is in a dark place and has withdrawn from Cole Walker and his family to work on issues from her past. When she and her K-9 partner, Robo, get called to track a missing junior high student, they find the girl dead on Smoker's Hill behind the high school, and Mattie must head to the Walker home to break the bad news. But that's only the start of trouble in Timber Creek because soon another girl goes missing - and this time it's one of Cole's daughters.

London 1884. Electricity pioneer Simon Borthwick lights up Victorian London with a stunning illuminations display - then shoots himself in a hansom cab. Plucky Fleet Street reporter Penny Green witnesses the inventor's death and suspects the clue to his suicide lies in a mysterious letter he left behind. But can she persuade Inspector James Blakely of Scotland Yard that a crime has been committed? Borthwick isn't the only person who died that day, and Penny soon encounters a shadowy world which the police can't get close to.

As summer draws to a close, the Spirit, Health, and Heart Conference arrives, just in time for Winifred's sisters to open their store next to the Cozy Corgi Bookshop. To Fred's surprise, chakras turns out to be a beautiful addition to the delightful mountain town. But not everyone is charmed by the crystals, tarot readings, and messages of personal enlightenment. When a famous spiritualist is found dead, Chakras and the entire town are plunged into a conflict that touches the lives of those closest to Fred.

Molly Appleby is a young writer for Collector's Weekly, and when the attractive reporter isn't covering auctions and antique shows all over the South, she's trying to get her new relationship with a coworker off the ground. When her latest assignment takes her to North Carolina pottery country to cover an exclusive kiln opening, she's certain that the show promises surprising offerings and rare finds. What she doesn't expect to find is a dead body.

Determined to find the men responsible for her disgraced father's murder, Lady Arianna Hadley disguises herself as a man and contrives to be hired as a chef in one of London's aristocratic households. But when the prince regent is poisoned by Arianna's special chocolate dessert, she finds her own quest has become intertwined with a far more deadly intrigue. The earl of Saybrook is asked by the government to investigate. When someone tries to kill them both, they become reluctant allies in the hunt to discover what evil is afoot.

On a beautiful spring morning on the island of Pellestrina, south of the Lido on the Venetian lagoon, a small fishing boat moored at the docks suddenly explodes. When it becomes clear that the fire was deliberately set and the boat’s owners brutally murdered, Commissario Brunetti tries to dig up information from Pellestrina’s close-knit - and closemouthed - citizenry. But it is with mixed feelings that he accepts Signorina Elettra’s offer to visit her relatives there and search for clues.

With Mrs. Hudson gone from their lives and domestic chaos building, the last thing Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, need is to help an old friend with her mad and missing aunt. Lady Vivian Beaconsfield has spent most of her adult life in one asylum after another, since the loss of her brother and father in the Great War. And although her mental state seemed to be improving, she’s now disappeared after an outing from Bethlem Royal Hospital...better known as Bedlam.