Women Detectives

Oxford summer balls are one of the highlights of the calendar and tearoom sleuth Gemma Rose is looking forward to taking a break and slipping into something gorgeous for the evening. But when the night ends with a celebrity chef murdered by his own whisk, Gemma finds herself plunged into a new mystery - and the nosy Old Biddies keen to help with the investigation.

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.

Cambridge University, 1888. The world of Miss Vanessa Duncan, a young schoolmistress, is shattered when a Fellow of Mathematics, Mr Akers, is found dead. Another death occurs and Vanessa's new love becomes a suspect. Convinced of his innocence, Vanessa sets about to clear his name.

Just as a murderer dumps his corpse into the lake across Valley View in Lily Dale, Bella Jordan happens to be at her window, not quite realizing what she's seeing. Jiffy Arden, a neighborhood kid looking for the black cat and stumbling across the killer, begins to have premonitions of being kidnapped during the season's first snowstorm. Sure enough, he vanishes. A body shows up in the lake. Now everyone is pulling out all the stops to find the missing child, identify the victim, and collar the killer - and fast, because he's coming for Bella next in Dead of Winter.

Thomas Mundy checks in to London's Wrexley Hotel, but he never checks out. The maid finds him on the floor of his room, bludgeoned to death by his own walking stick. Inspector Witherspoon is soon on the case and learns Mundy was an unlikely victim for such a violent crime. But Mrs. Jeffries and the household staff uncover that Mundy was less an amiable businessman and more a duplicitous con man with enemies on both sides of the Atlantic. Now Witherspoon and his staff must determine who on their lengthy list of suspects had the motive to put Mundy in the red.

Police Constable Matthew Riley is called to an emergency on a hot day in Langthorne. He is forced to read out words live on police radio. Then he is shot dead. Someone is killing the officers of the Langthorne Police one by one. And in a sadistic twist he makes each victim push their radio panic button before they die, thus broadcasting their last moments to the entire force. And as the police face this ruthless adversary, detective George Elms is in no fit state to help. He can barely keep his life together and is desperate to sort things out with his estranged wife and daughter.

1792, England: Lord Francis and Lady Ottilia Fanshawe are on their way home when their coach comes to a sudden stop. A woman is standing in the middle of the road - covered in blood. The woman refuses to speak but on further investigation they find the body of a man hidden in the woods. Ottilia insists on bringing the woman home to find out what occurred. But the more she finds out the more complicated the case becomes....

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.

Stephanie Plum is thinking her career as a fugitive apprehension agent has run its course. She's been shot at, spat at, cussed at, fire-bombed, mooned, and attacked by dogs. Time for a change, Stephanie thinks. Time to find the kind of job her mother can tell her friends about without making the sign of the cross. So Stephanie Plum quits. Resigns. No looking back. No changing her mind. She wants something safe and normal. As it turns out, jobs that are safe and normal for most people aren't necessarily safe and normal for Stephanie Plum.

Dr. Maura Isles makes her living dealing with death. As a pathologist in a major metropolitan city, she has seen more than her share of corpses every day, many of them victims of violent murder. But never before has her blood run cold, and never has the grim expression "dead ringer" rung so terrifyingly true. Because never before has the lifeless body on the medical examiner's table been her own.

A boy’s frozen body is found trapped in the ice of a Minneapolis lake. The horrifying discovery leads Detective Jude Fontaine and her partner, Uriah Ashby, to more bodies in the ice, all of twelve-year-old boys missing for twenty years. Then, in one of the worst blizzards the city has ever seen, a four-year-old is abandoned on Jude’s doorstep. The child can’t tell them where he’s from, who his parents are, or how he got there. He doesn’t even know his name. But in his unspoken language, Jude reads something horrifying - a connection to the dead boys.

Months after discovering the mastermind behind her own kidnapping, Detective Jude Fontaine is dealing with the past the only way she knows how: by returning to every dark corner of it. But it’s a new, escalating series of mass slayings that has become her latest obsession at Homicide. At first, Jude and her partner, Detective Uriah Ashby, can see no pattern to the seemingly random methods, the crime scenes, or the victims - until they’re approached by a brilliantly compulsive math professor.

A man is found stabbed to death on the Southampton morning commuter train. But why can't Detective Sophie Allen's team find out anything about his history? And why was he staying in a house that seems to be owned by a government security unit? Then there is another stabbing, this time in a refuge for abused women. And again, Sophie can find very little about the victim's life.

A young boy walks into a police station in France. He claims to be Carl Meagan - a missing child from Sheffield whose name is still whispered as a warning to kids who stay out after dark. On her way home from the supermarket, nine-year-old Keeley Armitage vanishes without trace. Her family is overcome with shock and DCI Matilda Darke can’t help but focus on memories of the Carl Meagan case that almost ruined her career.

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.

Between tourist season, planning her beach wedding, and running her pancake house, the Flip Side, Marley McKinney is busier than ever. On top of that, one of her regulars is competing in Wildwood Cove's Golden Oldies Games - a sporting event for athletes 50 and over - and Marley wants to cheer her on. Everything's running as smooth as batter - until sports reporter Yvonne Pritchard stirs up a triple batch of trouble. Yvonne has one admirer in town - Ed Herman - but she has many more enemies. So when a body washes up on shore, it's not a complete surprise Yvonne is the victim.

While attending a crime scene on the outskirts of Maidstone, DI Kay Hunter makes a shocking discovery. The victim has been brutally cut to pieces, his identity unknown. When more body parts start turning up in the Kentish countryside, Kay realizes the disturbing truth–a serial killer is at large and must be stopped at all costs. With no motive for the murders and a killer who has gone undetected until now, Kay and her team of detectives must work fast to calm a terrified local population and a scornful media. When a third victim is found, her investigation grows even more complicated.

New York Times best-selling author Diane Mott Davidson has taken readers by storm with clever mysteries filled with tantalizing plots and mouthwatering recipes. In her 12th novel, her tastiest tale yet, the ingenious storyteller whips up a rich soufflé of murder and mischief.

Nikki Griffin isn't your typical private investigator. In her office above her bookstore’s shelves and stacks, where she luxuriates in books and the comfort they provide, she also tracks certain men. Dangerous men. Men who have hurt the women they claim to love. When a regular PI job tailing Karen, a tech company's disgruntled employee who might be selling secrets, turns ugly and Karen's life is threatened, Nikki has to break cover and intervene.

Secrets and lies can’t stay buried forever in Cedar Valley. In the summer, hikers and campers pack the small Colorado town’s meadows and fields. And in the winter, skiers and snowboarders take over the mountains. Season by season, year after year, time passes, and the lies, like the aspens and evergreens that surround the town, take root and spread deep. Now, someone has uncovered the lies, and it is his murder that continues a chain of events that began almost 40 years ago.