Women Detective Mystery

Helena Lanark is an elderly woman, living in a luxurious care home. The heiress of an immense family fortune, she keeps the secret to the horror which once occurred within the Lanark family house. Jane Tennison is leading a murder investigation into the recent brutal death of a young girl, her decomposed starved body discovered in an old air raid shelter in the garden of the Lanark's now derelict house. Initially the focus is on identifying the victim, until another body is found, hidden in the walls of the shelter.

When Mma Potokwane suggests to Mma Ramotswe that she run for a seat on the city council, Mma Ramotswe is at first unsure. But when she learns about the proposed construction of the flashy Big Fun Hotel next to a graveyard, she allows herself to be persuaded. Her opponent is none other than Violet Sephotho, who is in the pocket of the hotel developers.

Detective Kate Rosetti is at the top of her career. She’s catching bad guys, thwarting crooks, and putting murderers behind bars. Not to mention, she’s finally in a committed relationship with her billionaire boyfriend. Kate’s next case is sure to be edgy and dangerous, filled with media attention… and located at a nursing home? When a family friend is found dead in his bed, an autopsy is ordered, and lo and behold—the cause of his death wasn’t so natural after all.

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 Isabel bumps into Minty Auchterlonie for the first time in years, she is skeptical (again) of Minty's integrity. But Minty mentions the bank where she works is having internal troubles, and Isabel must determine, once and for all, if Minty can be trusted.

The peaceful town of Painters Mill is shattered when an Amish grandmother is brutally murdered on an abandoned farm. When Chief of Police Kate Burkholder arrives on the scene, she learns that the woman’s seven-year-old granddaughter is gone, abducted in plain sight. Kate knows time is against her - the longer the girl is missing, the less likely her safe return becomes. The girl’s family is a pillar of the Amish community, well-respected by all. But Kate soon realizes they’re keeping secrets - and the sins of their past may be coming back to haunt them....

DI Louise Blackwell is still reeling from her brother Paul's murder when she is brought back from enforced leave and tasked with solving a strange new case - the slaughter of wild sheep at Cheddar Gorge, a place shrouded in mystery and folklore. When a man is brutally attacked with a machete on the clifftop and a young girl disappears, Louise realises that the horror is just beginning. Rumours of a mythical presence near the gorge are spreading fast, and why is a local environmental cult resisting all attempts to solve the case?

In the life of Precious Ramotswe, a woman duly proud of her fine traditional build, there is rarely a dull moment, and in the latest installment in the universally beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, there is much happening on Zebra Drive and Tlokweng Road. Mma Ramotswe is experiencing staffing difficulties. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni asks to be put in charge of a case involving an errant husband. But can a man investigate such matters as successfully as the number-one lady detective can?

It’s 1927. Letty Hart’s father is long gone, but his old winery provides a meager wage and a legal livelihood for selling sacramental wine. But when that contract goes bust, Letty stumbles upon a desperate option: her father’s hidden cellar—and enough liquor to tempt Letty to bootleg the secret stash. In an underworld dominated by merciless men, Letty is building an empire.

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.

With London's streets deserted, a young flower girl is murdered. But why was she out so late on the foggiest night of the year? Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard has nowhere to even begin looking for a suspect. However, Mrs. Jeffries, his housekeeper, is even more accomplished at detection than she is at household management. A policeman's widow herself, her quick wits allow her to nudge the inspector in the right direction to solve the mystery.

When a young woman is found murdered in the woods, Detective Mackenzie Price and her partner are first on the scene. The harrowing discovery leaves them both breathless—the victim’s left eye has been removed. Mackenzie identifies the victim as Whitney Smythe, a lost soul with troubled past, and makes another shocking discovery—Whitney recently gave birth. Reeling from the scene, Mackenzie and her team soon discover that this case is very similar to a murder that happened thirty years ago. But the killer was captured and died behind bars, so how can the two murders possibly be connected?

When a gruesome murder is discovered at the Osthorne Academy of Young Mages, where her estranged twin sister teaches theoretical magic, reluctant detective Ivy Gamble is pulled into the world of untold power and dangerous secrets. She will have to find a murderer and reclaim her sister - without losing herself.

A series of baffling murders among a group of imprisoned agents threatens the outcome of World War II in this chilling mystery from the New York Times best-selling author of Mr. Churchill’s Secretary. World War II is raging, and former spy Maggie Hope knows too much. She knows what the British government is willing to do to keep its secrets. She knows the real location of the planned invasion of France. She knows who’s lying. She knows who the double-crossers are. She knows exactly who is sending agents to their deaths.

When a 68-year-old woman is found dead outside the hospital in a wheelchair with an anti-abortion sign strapped to its back, Detective Madison Knight expects it to be an open-and-shut case. On the surface, there are no signs of foul play, but the deeper she digs, the suspicious death turns into a homicide. Just as the victim is identified as Faye Duncan, two more bodies turn up - Faye’s niece and a homeless man.

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.

Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock finds herself lost and alone after a recent move to Melbourne. Her new workplace is a minefield, and Detective Sergeant Nick Fleet, the partner she has been assigned, is uncommunicative and often hostile. When a homeless man is murdered and Gemma is put on the case, she can't help feeling a connection with the victim and his lonely, isolated existence. Then when actor Sterling Wade is murdered in the middle of an action-packed shot, Gemma and Nick have to put aside their differences to unravel the mysteries surrounding the actor's life and death.

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.

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.

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.