Woman Detective

On his way home to San Diego, PI Patrick Kincaid takes a detour through San Francisco to check on the wellbeing of a family friend who's mysteriously been unreachable. What he doesn't expect is to be shot at before he can find out why attorney Elle Santana won't ask the police for help in finding a missing girl. Soon, he's on the run from both good guys and bad as he and Elle race to find the witness and take down a sweatshop run by a corrupt businessman with a penchant for violence.

When a body is pulled from the dank and dangerous fens on the outskirts of town, everybody assumes it was a tragic accident. But Detective Tara Thorpe, newly joined and determined to prove herself, suspects there’s more to the story. Tara is desperate to investigate further, but her supervisor Patrick Wilkins has other ideas. He would rather die than let this ambitious upstart show him up - even if it means some digging in Tara’s secret past to keep her under his thumb.

For my birthday, my best friends Gilly and Pippa signed us up for a weekend at the Central Midwest Spa Convention. Yay. Massages, fine dining, maid service, and best of all, as long as we attend a few workshops, the weekend is a tax write-off. It should be all sunshine and roses, right? Wrong. My former intern at Belliza Beauty aka the Job Stealer, Carmen Carraway, is a featured presenter. Yuck. Throw in an ex-boyfriend, a number one fan, a brewing scandal, and a dead body, and my relaxing birthday weekend is DOA.

In spring a young man’s fancy will turn to love, and the Honorable Phillip Petrie is no exception. Daisy’s chum is totally smitten with Miss Gloria Arbuckle, daughter of a millionaire Yank. But before the enthusiastic suitor can pop the question, his beloved is abducted. As a distraught Mr. Arbuckle begins assembling the ransom, Phillip enlists Daisy to help him recover his missing sweetheart.

As a kid, Charlotte Illes’ uncanny sleuthing abilities made her a minor celebrity. But in high school, she hung up her detective’s hat and stashed away the signature blue landline in her “office”—aka garage—convinced that finding her adult purpose would be as easy as tracking down missing pudding cups or locating stolen diamonds.

The ladies of the Mayfair Orchid and Exotic Plant Society are known for a bit of friendly rivalry, but the backstabbing has never been literal - until now. When Hiram Filmore, an orchid hunter and supplier, is found dead in Mrs. Helena Rayburn's conservatory, Inspector Witherspoon is called in to weed out a murderer. When it comes out that Mrs. Rayburn and her flowery friends knew each other from long ago, Mrs. Jeffries begins to suspect that there's more to unearth about this case than meets the eye.

One hot summer evening, 11-year-old Mikey Driscoll is on the way home from playing with friends. Two days later, his body is discovered on a bed of wildflowers by some local teenagers. The case is assigned to Detective Lottie Parker, and this time it’s personal. The victim was a close friend of her son, Sean, from the run-down Munbally estate on the other side of town. Sean tells his mother Mikey was behaving normally before he died, but Lottie can’t help but feel that her son is keeping something from her.

Teenaged Internet bully Ivy Lake fell off a cliff, and few people cared...except her mentally challenged 18-year-old stepbrother, Tommy. He loved her in spite of her cruelty. He's distraught and doesn't understand why his blended family is falling apart. After a year, the police still have no answers: Ivy could have jumped, she could have been pushed, or it could have been an accident. With too many suspects and not enough evidence, the investigation has grown cold.

Harry Richards, a local solicitor, is found in his car, throat slit. DI Clare Mackay is on the case. She soon learns that Harry was not the upstanding man he seemed to be. Finding the killer should be easy. Then the wife of one of Harry's colleagues is discovered dead in her car, and Clare realises there is something more sinister at play… Can she find out who's behind the murders before they turn their attention to her?

When Detective Kate Rosetti is handed her latest case - a dead body covered in leaves along the side of the road - there’s something peculiar about it: A broken heart is carved into the man’s arm. It seems to be a foreboding warning that love can be deadly. The deeper Kate gets into the investigation, the more she’s forced to face love and murder like never before.

In the west end of London, an apparently crazed individual is on the loose, breaking into art galleries and private homes to slash valuable paintings of women. Despite Scotland Yard's best efforts, the criminal remains at large and continues on his destructive path. When Joanna and the Watsons are called in to solve the mystery, they soon discover that although the canvases have been slashed, their backings remain pristine, with no cuts or scratches. The criminal, it seems, is no mere vandal - he's searching for something hidden behind the portraits.

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.

Beneath the surface lie deadly secrets... DI Shona Oliver agreed to move to Dumfries with her ex-banker husband when their teenage daughter got in with a bad crowd in London. As a Glasgow native, she's back on home turf. Living on the shores of the Solway Firth allows Shona to continue as an RNLI volunteer, and a call out to recover a woman's body indicates foul play. Police in Cumbria take the case but links back to Scotland keep Shona's team involved. As they investigate, reports of people trafficking and a spate of thefts from local shops compete for attention with a large scale drug bust.

Award-winning New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith, creator of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series of novels, delivers the fourth tale from his charming Isabel Dalhousie series, featuring the highly ethical and plucky protagonist. She's now a mother, but has an uncertain relationship with her son's father. She must also deal with academic politics and, of course, a mystery: did a Scottish painter drown, commit suicide or fall victim to a murder plot?

When friends Louise and Irina find a dead body in the local park whilst walking their dogs, they are soon drawn into the mystery of who murdered local entrepreneur Phil Creasey. Phil used to be a member of their dog walking community – nicknamed The Pack – until the death of his cockapoo, and The Pack feel they owe it to Phil to investigate his death. With Louise and Irina leading the charge, they soon come up against local drug dealers, stolen cars and a disturbing incident of poisoned dog biscuits.

New York, 1958. Even though Evelyn Murphy has made progress conquering her agoraphobia by leaving the Pinnacle, she still feels most comfortable in her father's hotel. With Malcolm Cooper, her new boyfriend and fellow employee at the hotel, Evelyn feels prepared for whatever happens next. In this case, it’s throwing a big fundraiser with the who’s who of New York City. The night is a success, and Evelyn finally takes up Malcolm’s offer to visit his apartment in Yonkers. As the party ends, they sneak away to the garage to get Evelyn's car. But Evelyn's always been good at finding things.

After a long career as a police officer, Moira hopes a move to a luxury retirement community will mean she can finally leave the detective work to the youngsters and focus on a quieter life. But it turns out The Homestead is far from paradise. When she discovers the body of a young woman floating in one of the pools, surrounded by thousands of dollar bills, her crime-fighting instinct kicks back in and she joins up with fellow ex-cops - and new neighbours - Philip, Lizzie and Rick to investigate the murder.

Jean Sheridan, a college dean and prominent historian, sets out to her hometown to attend the 20-year reunion of Stonecroft Academy alumni, where she is to be honored along with six other members of her class. There is something uneasy in the air: one woman in the group about to be feted, Alison Kendall, a beautiful, high-powered Hollywood agent, drowned in her pool during an early-morning swim. Alison is the fifth woman in the class whose life has come to a sudden, mysterious end.

On a beautiful morning in mid-May, the body of a young woman is found in one of Notting Hill's private gardens. To passersby, the pretty girl in the white dress looks as if she's sleeping. But Reagan Keating has been murdered, and the lead detective, DI Kerry Boatman, turns to Gemma James for help. She and Gemma worked together on a previous investigation, and Gemma has a personal connection to the case: Reagan was the nanny of a child who attends the same dance studio as Toby, Gemma, and Kincaid's son.

Charlie may be a proud new grandfather, but he and Diesel still have work to do at Athena College and the small Mississippi town's public library. He's too busy to deal with true-crime writer Jack Pemberton, who wants Charlie as the subject of his latest book - and who won't take no for an answer. A more appealing proposition for Charlie is spending time helping a kind, elderly man navigate the library's genealogical database. But he's shocked when he learns that the visitor's search is focused on a member of his own family: his late aunt's husband.