Woman Detective Mysteries

Private detective Cordelia Gray is invited to the sunlit island of Courcy to protect the vainly beautiful actress Clarissa Lisle from veiled threats on her life. Within the rose red walls of a fairy-tale castle, she finds the stage is set for death.

Maurice Seton was a famous mystery writer - but no murder from his imagination could equal the ghastliness of his own death. When his grotesquely mutilated corpse is found in a drifting dinghy, ripples of horror spread among his bizarre neighbors: the cruel and cynical drama critic, the celebrated recluse, and the rakish young heir. It is up to Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh and his extraordinary aunt to discover the shocking truth about Seton's past - before the plot takes another murderous turn.

The outcry when Conan Doyle pushed Sherlock Holmes over the Reichenbach Falls and the dismay when Freeling shot Van der Valk are as nothing compared to the chaos that ensues when Lorinda Lucas tries to dispose of Miss Petunia and her siblings, Lily and Marigold. Not only does the lid blow off the fictional village of St. Waldemar Boniface, but the literary colony of Brimful Coffers is shaken to its foundations.

Jo Jones has always had a little trouble fitting in. As a neurodivergent, hyperlexic book editor and divorced New Yorker transplanted into the English countryside, Jo doesn’t know what stands out more: her Americanisms or her autism. After losing her job, her mother, and her marriage all in one year, she couldn’t be happier to take possession of a possibly haunted (and clearly unwanted) family estate in North Yorkshire. But when the body of the moody town groundskeeper turns up on her rug with three bullets in his back, Jo finds herself in potential danger—and she’s also a potential suspect.

Elizabeth Bell runs a quiet household, with no family and no more than the usual number of servants. She passes her time thinking about crime and working on her biography of a relative. When a young cousin comes to stay, life in the house becomes uncharacteristically lively. First, cousin Judy burns a hole in Miss Bell's desk. Next, they spy a burglar on the staircase - a shadowy figure who vanishes without a trace. And finally, Sarah, the nurse, takes the dogs for a walk and never returns.

Have yourself a scary little Christmas. In the heart of the holiday season, priceless paintings have vanished from a Park Avenue murder scene. Now, dashing French detective Luc Moncrief must become a quick study in the art of the steal - before a cold-blooded killer paints the town red. Merry Christmas, Detective.

Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's premier lady detective, is a little short on help. The codirector of the agency, Grace Makutsi, is busy with her own case, her client none other than their erstwhile assistant, Mr. Polopetsi, who has unwittingly involved himself in a pyramid scheme. The agency's other assistant, Charlie, may also need more help than he can offer, as he is newly embroiled in a romance with a glamorous woman about whom the others have their doubts.

Harry Blue is the top sex crimes investigator in her department. She's a seasoned pro who's seen it all. But even she didn't see this coming: her own brother arrested for the grisly murders of three beautiful young women. Harry's been sent to a makeshift town in a desolate landscape - a world full of easy money, plenty of illegal ways to spend it, and a ragtag collection of transient characters who thrive on the fringes of society.

Medical-school-dropout police detective Richelle Dadd is...well, dead. But that won't stop her from trying to hold on to her house in a divorce battle with a bitter husband. Or keep her from digging into her own murder, to discover who put the bullet into her heart. Or from coming to terms with her Gypsy heritage. And it certainly won't stand in the way of finding out the reason she's been reanimated as a zombie assassin, no longer in control of her life.

Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series has become a worldwide phenomenon thanks to the appeal of endearing protagonist Precious Ramotswe and the author’s charmingly quirky prose. In this 13th installment, Mma Ramotswe’s attention is focused on a pesky disciplinary problem at her adopted daughter’s school - while Grace Makutsi adjusts to wedded bliss and the famed Clovis Andersen arrives in Botswana looking for more than bush tea.

When 18-year-old Chloe Emery returns to her West London home she finds her mother missing, the house covered in blood. Everything points to murder, except for one thing: there’s no sign of the body. London detective Maeve Kerrigan and the homicide team turn their attention to the neighbours. The ultra-religious Norrises are acting suspiciously; their teenage daughter and Chloe Emery definitely have something to hide. Then there’s William Turner, once accused of stabbing a schoolmate and the neighborhood’s favorite criminal. Is he merely a scapegoat?

Along the ever-changing border of gentrifying Los Angeles, 17-year-old Monique Darson is found dead at a condominium construction site, hanging in the closet of an unfinished unit. Homicide Detective Elouise "Lou" Norton's new partner, Colin Taggert, fresh from the comparatively bucolic Colorado Springs police department, assumes it's a teenage suicide. Lou isn't buying the easy explanation. For one thing, the condo site is owned by Napoleon Crase, a self-made millionaire...and the man who may have murdered Lou's missing sister, Tori, 30 years ago.

Prison is a dangerous place for a former cop - as Harriet Blue is learning on a daily basis. So, following a fight for her life and a prison-wide lockdown, the last person she wants to see is Deputy Police Commissioner Joe Woods. The man who put her inside. But Woods is not there to gloat. His daughter Tonya and her two-year-old child have gone missing. He's ready to offer Harriet a deal: find his family to buy her freedom....

Ngaire Blakes is trying to put her life back together. The ex-cop resigned from the police after a vicious assault left her battling PTSD. Dragged into a murder investigation, she's shocked to discover that all the evidence points to her. When the body count climbs, Ngaire flees to the cold comfort of her estranged father's hometown. In danger and not knowing whom to trust, she severs contact with her closest allies and must learn to rely on herself if she's going to catch the killer before it's too late.

Once again, Kinsey Millhone, America's favorite female P.I., embroils herself in a complex and entertaining Alphabet Murder Mystery. When Wendell Jaffe, mastermind of a real-estate scam, disappeared at sea, no body was found. Now, five years later, he's declared legally dead, and California Fidelity has to pay up on his life insurance policy to the tune of half-a-million dollars. Soon after, the tune slides off-key when Jaffe is spotted in Mexico and Fidelity hires Kinsey Millhone to sort things out.

It's harvest season at Montgomery Estate Vineyard - the busiest time of year for winemakers in Atoka, Virginia. A skull is unearthed near Lucie Montgomery's family cemetery, and the discovery of the bones coincides with the arrival of handsome, wealthy aristocrat Jean-Claude de Merignac. He's come to be the head winemaker at neighboring La Vigne Cellars, but he's no stranger to Lucie - he was her first crush 20 years ago when she spent a summer in France. Not long after his arrival, Jean-Claude is found dead.

Mystery writer Lorinda Lucas tosses yet another paperback in the trash, appalled at the gruesome direction of today's crime fiction. She's even more disturbed at the half-starved state of Roscoe, the cat next door. Before Lorinda left for her latest book tour, Roscoe was as plump and pampered as her own two felines. It only takes a modicum of sleuthing to find out that in Lorinda's absence Roscoe's owner, Macho Magee, has acquired a new girlfriend-a harridan who has put the gentle Macho and his pet on a strict diet. And that's only the first disturbing news in Brimful Coffers.

After a scandal forces DI Kelly Porter out of the Met, she returns home to the Lake District. Crimes in the Cumbrian constabulary tend to be minor, but Kelly begins work on a cold case that shocked the local community - the abduction and brutal murder of a 10-year-old girl.

1930: Miss Clara Vale, chemistry major turned detective, is taking a night off from sleuthing to attend the launch party of a new exhibition at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle. But when the piece de resistance, a rare ornate sarcophagus, is finally opened and it turns out the mummy inside it is a fake it looks like there is no rest for Clara after all... Later that night, she is summoned back to the museum and asked to investigate a series of stolen Egyptian artefacts.

When the body of a young woman is discovered in a local playground in the center of Black Rock Falls, Sheriff Jenna Alton and her deputy, David Kane, rush to the scene. Jenna recoils with horror when she sees the body, dressed in a thin nightgown, her face covered by a terrifying Halloween mask. Jenna makes a connection with a cold case where the killer tortured young women for years and was never caught. Days later, Jenna’s fears are confirmed. A serial killer is back in town, and they’re picking off women one by one.