Women Detectives

With the country in the grip of economic malaise, and worried about her business, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment from an old friend to investigate certain matters concerning a potential land purchase. Her inquiries take her to a picturesque village in Kent during the hop-picking season, but beneath its pastoral surface she finds evidence that something is amiss. Mysterious fires erupt in the village with alarming regularity, and a series of petty crimes suggests a darker criminal element at work.

The year is 1933. Maisie Dobbs is contacted by an Indian gentleman who has come to England in the hopes of finding out who killed his sister two months ago. Scotland Yard failed to make any arrest in the case, and there is reason to believe they failed to conduct a thorough investigation. The case becomes even more challenging when another Indian woman is murdered just hours before a scheduled interview. Meanwhile, unfinished business from a previous case becomes a distraction, as does a new development in Maisie's personal life.

When an executed original of a secret treaty between England and France, known as the French Treaty, is stolen from the country estate of Lord Halifax, Scotland Yard asks Joanna, Dr. John Watson, Jr., and Dr. John Watson, Sr., to use their detective skills to participate in the hunt for the missing treaty. As the government becomes more restless to find the missing document and traditional investigative means fail to turn up the culprit, Joanna is forced to devise a clever plan to trap the thief and recover the missing treaty.

Lady Georgiana Rannoch has once again been called into service by Her Majesty the Queen. This time she's sent to Nice on a secret assignment that's nothing to sneeze at: recover the Queen's stolen snuff box. As much of an honor as it is to be trusted by Her Majesty, an even greater honor awaits Georgie in Nice - as Coco Chanel herself asks Georgie to model her latest fashion. But when a necklace belonging to the Queen is stolen on the catwalk, Georgie has to find two priceless items-and solve a murder. How's a girl to find any time to go to the casino?

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni attends a course hosted by the local chamber of commerce entitled “Where Is Your Business Going?”. But rather than feeling energized, he comes back in low spirits, unsure how to grow the already venerable and successful Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. Then an old friend from school approaches him about a new business venture that could be just the ticket. When it turns out he will need to mortgage his property in order to pursue this endeavor, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi wonder what this will mean for his current business - as well as their own.

Is there such a thing as a good sociopath? Newly minted private investigator Annalisa Vega is skeptical, but her first client, Mara Delaney, insists that some sociopaths are beneficial to society. Mara has even written a book titled The Good Sociopath that is centered around Chicago neurosurgeon Craig Canning. Dr. Canning has saved hundreds of lives so it shouldn’t matter that he doesn’t actually care about his patients, should it? But Mara has a more urgent problem, which is that she is now concerned that Canning might not be such a good sociopath after all.

In the latest mystery in the New York Times best-selling series, Maisie Dobbs must unravel a case of wartime love and death—an investigation that leads her to a long-hidden affair between a young cartographer and a mysterious nurse..... August 1914. Michael Clifton is mapping the land he has just purchased in California’s beautiful Santa Ynez Valley, certain that oil lies beneath its surface. But as the young cartographer prepares to return home to Boston, war is declared in Europe,,,,

Precious Ramotswe's comfortable existence as the only detective in Botswana is suddenly rattled when the Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency opens, and its brochure proclaims, "Don't take any chances! Entrust your enquiries to a MAN!" As if the development isn't enough, Mma Ramotswe has also taken on two difficult cases, one of which hits close to home. But with wisdom on her side, Mma Ramotswe figures to crack both cases and upstage her competition.

It began with the mysterious disappearance of Harriet Hollingsworth - Eastport, Maine's, snoopiest resident. Everyone is convinced the old busybody bolted out of town to escape her creditor - everyone except Jake and her best friend, Ellie, who suspect otherwise. But they'll need to come up with proof more sinister than a pair of abandoned binoculars. Just as Jake starts poking around for clues, things take a troubling turn for the worse.

Spring has sprung in Eastport, Maine, and in Jacobia Jake Tiptree's 1823 Federal style fixer-upper, that means a housecleaning so thorough even the skeletons in the closet get polished! But nothing can prepare Jake for what she'll uncover: a trio of mysteries certain to make her usual home repair projects seem as simple as scraping paint. What do an old book hidden in Jake's cellar, the appearance of her ex-husband's ghost, and the murder of her housekeeper's son have in common? Only Jake can jigsaw the clues into place - and she'd better do it fast, before a killer snares her in a trap she can't escape.

When DIY enthusiast Jacobia Jake Tiptree and her friend, Ellie White, agree to refurbish Eastport's most disreputable old dwelling, Harlequin House, pulling up the floorboards reveals something far more sinister than dry rot. A hidden trapdoor unearths the skeleton of a notorious 1920s flapper with a fresh corpse sitting neatly beside her. With a good old-fashioned Maine murder on their hands, Jake and Ellie are hot on the trail of the murderer - but this time more than their reputations may be on the line.

Jake Tiptree has a problem. A coven of self-styled witches has taken over her Eastport, Maine, waterfront rental property for Halloween - and their repair requests are annoyingly frequent. But while Jake is normally game to take on any fixer-upper challenge, she'd rather be tackling her own needed repairs on her 1823 Federal-style home. Until, that is, preacher Gene Dibble turns up dead - and the whole town is convinced that Jake and her tenants are up to sorcery and skullduggery.

From a master of suspense comes a chilling novel that explores the dangers lurking closer than you think. Because even in the perfect family, you never know what is going on behind closed doors…. This is what happened… It was a case guaranteed to spark a media feeding frenzy—a young mother, blond and pretty, disappears without a trace from her South Boston home, leaving behind her four-year-old daughter as the only witness and her handsome, secretive husband as the prime suspect. In the last six hours…

Inspector Thomas Lynley is mystified when he's sent undercover to investigate the death of Ian Cresswell at the request of the man's uncle, the wealthy and influential Bernard Fairclough. The death has been ruled an accidental drowning, and nothing on the surface indicates otherwise. But when Lynley enlists the help of his friends Simon and Deborah St. James, the trio's digging soon reveals that the Fairclough clan is awash in secrets, lies, and motives.

When a mysterious book is unearthed from the foundation of Jake's 1823 fixer-upper, she immediately sends it off to local book historian Horace Robotham. After all, there must be a logical explanation for why the long-buried volume has her name in it - written in what looks suspiciously like blood. But all logic goes out the window when the book disappears - and Horace turns up dead.

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.

P. D. James meets E. L. James in Under a Silent Moon, this first novel in an exciting British crime series-a blend of literary suspense and captivating thriller that introduces formidable Detective Chief Inspector Louisa Smith - from suspense talent Elizabeth Haynes, author of the best-selling Into the Darkest Corner. In the crisp, early hours of an autumn morning, the police are called to investigate two deaths. The first is a suspected murder at a farm on the outskirts of a small village. A beautiful young woman has been found dead, her cottage drenched with blood.

When private detective Agatha Raisin comes across a severed leg in a roadside hedge, it looks like she is about to become involved in a particularly gruesome murder. Looks, however, can be deceiving, as Agatha discovers when she is employed to investigate a case of industrial espionage at a factory where nothing is quite what it seems. The factory mystery soon turns to murder and a bad-tempered donkey turns Agatha into a national celebrity, before bringing her ridicule and shame.

While on a much needed camping vacation with her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, Casey hears a baby crying in the woods. The sound leads them to a tragic scene: a woman buried under the snow, murdered, a baby still alive in her arms. A town that doesn’t let anyone in under the age of 18, Rockton must take care of its youngest resident yet while solving another murder and finding out where the baby came from - and whether she's better off where she is.

Journalist and occasional sleuth Sunni Taylor is working hard on restoring the Cider Ridge Inn to its former glory so she can open a bed-and-breakfast, but Edward Beckett, the resident ghost, is not exactly helpful. Still, Sunni has grown used to having the arrogant gentleman spirit hanging around. Despite her busy life, Sunni offers to help her sister, Lana, set up a bridal shower camping party in the mountains behind the inn. The festivities end in disaster when the maid of honor ends up dead.