Women Detective Mystery

After five years away from her hometown of Fawn Lake, Detective Freya Sinclair isn’t expecting a warm welcome from the people she’s sworn to protect. She became a detective to bring serial killers like her parents to justice, but the tight-knit North Carolinian community can’t see past her twisted roots. Minutes after stepping foot back home, the body of a dark-haired young girl is pulled from the river and Freya races to the scene.

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.

On a cold night in February, the popular Lighterman's ball festivities are cut short when a guest of honor, Stephen Bremmer, goes into spasms and abruptly collapses. Once again Inspector Witherspoon returns to the Wrexley Hotel to investigate a murder. The victim was considered a boorish snob who felt entitled to anything and anyone he wanted. Yet despite his Oxford education, he was barely literate, lazy, and prone to make stupid mistakes - his last mistake turned out to be crossing a killer.

An explosion and fire at the Ashton Gunpowder Mill in Kent has killed over a hundred men. It's called an appalling tragedy - until suspicion and rumor raise the specter of murder. While visiting the Ashton family, Bess Crawford finds herself caught up in a venomous show of hostility that doesn't stop with Philip Ashton's arrest. Indeed, someone is out for blood, and the household is all but under siege.

Natalie Sinclair has dedicated her life to animal rescue. From lost dogs and cats to lab rabbits and pigs, Nat and her team of volunteers at All Creatures Great and Small will do almost anything to keep animals out of harm's way. When a freak accident results in the death of her beloved horse, and the man responsible ends up murdered, Nat is a natural suspect. Worse, she has caught the attention of the dead man's brother, whose wealth and unsavory connections run deep, including a link to a dangerous ring of criminals trafficking in wild animals.

Harriet Andover had no intention of dying young like her silly siblings had. She intended to outlive them and outdo them as she always had. But Harriet discovers that the best intentions can lead to murder when she is strangled inside her mansion with a house full of holiday guests. As much as Inspector Witherspoon enjoys his job delivering justice, the last thing he wanted was a complicated murder case just a week before Christmas. He soon discovers that Harriet's own husband and grown stepchildren are not overcome with grief and neither are most of her friends.

Two bodies have been found in a park in the fashionable London neighborhood of Callander Square. While Inspector Thomas Pitt is fighting to get the square’s aristocratic residents to speak with him, his pretty, well-born wife, Charlotte, decides to do some detective work of her own. Soon she is unearthing secrets in every house on the square, while Thomas tries to discover what would drive a person to murder.

Normally dead bodies in a graveyard are buried - but not this one. When a woman is found strangled in a North London cemetery with an old newspaper clipping clutched in her hand, Inspector Witherspoon is surprised to find that he and the victim have crossed paths before. Alice Robinson was a respectable widow who ran a quiet Islington lodging house. None of her lodgers have any apparent motive to murder their landlady.

A murderer who drinks his victim’s blood? FBI profiler Zoe Bentley and Agent Tatum Gray thought they’d seen it all, but this young woman’s barbaric murder is especially hard to stomach. They didn’t expect to work this case. But vampirism aside, the murderer’s MO is identical to that of Rod Glover - the serial killer who’s been pursuing Zoe since childhood. Forensics reveals the murder to be his work, but not his alone; desperate to fulfill his sick purpose, he has taken on an equally depraved partner.

Sophie never considered ghostwriting as a side gig, until former actress and aspiring lifestyle guru, Tilly Stratford, trophy wife of Wesley Winthrope, needs someone to write her celebrity cookbook. Sophie agrees, hoping she'll earn enough bread on this assignment to finish her bathroom renovations. But as it turns out, Sophie isn't the first foodie to get a taste for recipe ghostwriting, and if the marginalia are any indication, this project could be a killer....

Detective Madison Knight should have ignored her phone when it rang on Christmas Eve. Now she is spending the holiday dealing with her least favorite thing: a bloody murder scene. The victim, Claire Reeves, was a successful entrepreneur and had it all - sex appeal, intelligence, and money - but it seems that one of those things may have caught up with her.

The evidence was all there: a dead body, two dessert plates, and a gun. Could it be that Mr. Ashbury was sharing his cake with his killer? The old bloke had enemies galore - even his own daughter disliked him. Mr. Ashbury's son-in-law doesn't want Inspector Witherspoon asking questions. Of course this doesn't stop Mrs. Jeffries and her staff from snooping around.

When a report comes in that a van containing two prison officers and a convicted jewel thief is missing, the police in St Andrews work quickly to locate the vehicle. Their efforts prove in vain when no trace is found and they realise the wives of both officers also appear to have left the area. DI Clare Mackay leads the team but has to do without her right hand man; DS Chris West is a cousin to one of the missing prison officers and must not be involved in the case. With a new sergeant at her side plus a previously unencountered DCI, Clare’s people skills are pushed to the limit.

Homicide detective Frank Bennett has a new partner - dark, beautiful, coldly efficient Eden Archer. Frank doesn’t know what to make of her, or her brother Eric, who’s also on the police force. Their methods are... unusual. But when a graveyard full of large steel toolboxes filled with body parts is found at the bottom of Sydney harbor, unusual is the least of their worries. For Eden and Eric, the case holds chilling links to a scarred childhood - and the murderer who raised them. For Frank, each clue brings him closer to something he’s not sure he wants to face.

Former Seattle homicide cop J. P. Beaumont is learning to enjoy the new realities of retirement - doing morning crossword puzzles by a roaring fireplace; playing Frisbee with his new dog; having quiet lunches with his still-working wife. But then his past comes calling.

Irene Adler, American opera singer and the one woman who outsmarted Sherlock Holmes, finds herself a widow at thirty-two, wealthy but emotionally broken. At the same time, Sherlock Holmes finds himself unable to return to England after faking his death at Reichenbach Falls and is drawn into an investigation of two men with designs on a woman they call Miss A, who is none other than Irene Adler herself. The Detective and The Woman throw their lot in together to uncover a dangerous plot with implications that stretch across the Atlantic. In the process, they meet legendary inventor Thomas Edison and experience life in Florida at the turn of the 20th century.

With her twins, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, back in school, Jane Steward can finally focus on her work again - managing Storyton Hall and breaking ground on the resort's latest attraction: a luxurious, relaxing spa named in honor of Walt Whitman. But when the Earth is dug up to start laying the spa's foundation, something else comes to the surface - a collection of unusual bones and the remnants of a very old book. The attendees of the Rare Book Conference are eager to assist Jane with this unexpected historical mystery - until a visitor meets an untimely end in the Henry James Library.

Spring has come to charming Mayville Heights, and with it, some Hollywood glamour. The little town is abuzz because the reboot of a popular baking TV show is filming there. Librarian Kathleen Paulson is working as an advisor on historical facts for the show, local restaurants are providing catering for the camera crews, and Kathleen's faithful felines, Hercules and Owen, are hoping there is a cat treat challenge. But then Kathleen finds one of the judges dead.

When small-town police officers discover the grave of a young boy, they’re quick to pin the crime on a convicted criminal who lives nearby. But when it comes to murder, Officer Susan Marlan never trusts a simple explanation, so she’s just getting started. Meanwhile, college professor Eric Evans hallucinates a young boy in overalls: a symptom of his schizophrenia - or so he thinks. But when more bodies turn up, Eric has more visions, and they mirror details of the murder case.

Meet the indomitable lady detective Loveday Brooke. Able to assume a multitude of disguises and possessed of analytical powers rivaling those of the great Sherlock Holmes, she masters every baffling situation and solves each perplexing crime in these seven atmospheric and entertaining Victorian mysteries.