Women Detectives

Have yourself a scary little Christmas. In the heart of the holiday season, priceless paintings have vanished from a Park Avenue murder scene. Now, dashing French detective Luc Moncrief must become a quick study in the art of the steal - before a cold-blooded killer paints the town red. Merry Christmas, Detective.

Kate Rosetti is supposed to be taking the week off. After all, she’s the maid of honor in her sister’s wedding, and Jane Rosetti will kill her if she’s too busy chasing a murderer to participate in the long-anticipated nuptials. Unfortunately, the police chief has news for Kate. When a severed hand shows up in a box at the precinct and a local jewelry store is robbed, Kate is called in to help investigate a not-quite-homicide. But with such a high-profile diamond heist combined with random body parts appearing ad nauseum, this case is unlike anything the department has seen before.

When Hannah Greenwood is murdered at the queen's jubilee, suspicion falls on the members of her literary circle. The case makes a baffling turn when it seems that no one has a motive for the murder. Since Inspector Witherspoon was a guest at the ball, the job of finding the murderer falls to him.

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.

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?

A prisoner languishes in a Phoenix jail cell, accused of brutally slaying his estranged wife. No one believes the man is innocent, except the new female sheriff of Cochise County, in town for a crash course in police training. Joanna Brady is out of her jurisdiction?and possibly in over her head. For a human monster is on the prowl, hiding the grisly evidence of his horrific crimes in the vast emptiness of the Arizona desert.

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.

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.

Frolicking with dogs is Melanie Travis's idea of heaven. So when she's invited to be a "puppy wrangler" at a benefit for a local dog rescue, the last thing she expects is to be chasing after a tricky killer.

From idyllic small towns to claustrophobic urban landscapes, Mallory Viridian is constantly embroiled in murder cases that only she has the insight to solve. But outside of a classic mystery novel, being surrounded by death doesn’t make you a charming amateur detective, it makes you a suspect and a social pariah. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to take refuge on a sentient space station, she thinks she has the solution. Surely the murders will stop if her only company is alien beings. At first her new existence is peacefully quiet…and markedly devoid of homicide.

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.

In 2009, Edie had New York’s social world in her thrall. Mercurial and beguiling, she was the shining star of a group of recent graduates living in a Brooklyn loft and treating New York like their playground. When Edie’s body was found near a suicide note at the end of a long, drunken night, no one could believe it. Grief, shock, and resentment scattered the group and brought the era to an abrupt end.

When the bodies of two teenage girls are discovered in a rundown New York City hotel room, Detective Maria Miller is called to the crime scene. The best friends were supposed to be at a sleepover miles away in the suburbs. With no record of the girls checking in and the room on the thirteenth floor closed off to guests, what were they doing there? Sinister messages on their phones suggest the girls were lured to the hotel, using its reputation for hauntings as bait. The killer left no DNA behind and Maria’s efforts to trace their identity leads to a dead end.

10am: A mother rushes for a train after dropping her daughter at school but is reported missing when she doesn't return to pick her up. 2.47pm: The same train causes the death of a young woman; her body bound and placed on the tracks. When Detective Alana Mack discovers the missing mother has vanished from the same train that claimed the life of the young woman, she fears the worst. A killer is on the loose, targeting women and leaving their broken bodies scattered across Dublin's Dart train line.

When a mummified body is discovered in a renovated building, the gruesome discovery leads Detective Kay Hunter and her team into a complex murder investigation. The subsequent police inquiry exposes corruption, lies and organised crime within the tight-knit community–and Kay’s determination to seek justice for the young murder victim could ruin the reputations of men who will do anything to protect their business interests.

In the eighth installment of Alexander McCall Smith’s best-selling Isabel Dalhousie series, the inquisitive heroine helps a new friend discover the identity of her father. Jane, a visiting Australian philosopher on sabbatical in Edinburgh, has more questions than answers. Adopted at the age of six, she knows little about her father, other than he was a student in Edinburgh years ago. Always up for a challenge, Isabel is more than happy to help.

Narrated by acclaimed British actor Edward Petherbridge. On the eve of war, Sherlock Holmes is asked by the Prime Minister of England to recover a new British superweapon that has fallen into the wrong hands. But Lucy James, an actress and Holmes's recently discovered grown daughter, has inherited the family sleuthing skills and strong-willed nature. Despite her father's objections, she insists on helping him, although several horrific murders have been linked to the weapon's disappearance.

When a baby girl is snatched from the crowd of spectators at a fun run, the local police have a major investigation on their hands. DI Clare Mackay and her team are in a race against the clock when they learn that the child has a potentially fatal medical condition. As Clare investigates she realises this victim wasn’t selected at random. Someone knows who took the baby girl and why. But will they reveal their secrets before it's too late?

Arriving at a quiet family home on the outskirts of the Lake District, Detective Morgan Brookes must deliver devastating news to a heartbroken mother. Seeing Lexie’s pink boots against the side of the house, she remembers the girl’s happy face and can’t help but think of her carefree childhood. Three years ago, Morgan saved Lexie from a serial killer, who is now behind bars. But this time, she’s failed to protect her. Certain a new and more terrifying killer is at large, Morgan finds a neighbor who claims a man in a silver car was watching Lexie’s house.

When two young girls disappear from their primary school, the village of Heighington is put on high alert—and not for the first time. Called in to investigate, Detective Karen Hart is sure that parallels with a previous disappearance are anything but coincidental. DS Hart is still reeling from a case she tried and failed to solve eighteen months ago, when a young woman vanished without a trace. She’s no nearer to the truth of what happened to Amy Fisher, but with two children missing now, too, the stakes have never been higher.