Women Detectives

Casey Duncan, Rockton's only detective on a police force of three, has already faced murder, arson, and falling in love in the several months she's lived there. Yet even she didn't think it would be possible for an outsider to locate the town and cause trouble in the place she's come to call home. When a US marshal shows up demanding the release of one of the residents but won't say who, Casey and her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, are skeptical. And yet only hours later, the marshal is shot dead, and the only possible suspects are the townspeople and Casey's estranged sister....

A pretty, popular teenager never returned from her secret tryst in Skeleton Canyon. Perhaps it was a youthful rage or savage passion that ripped the life from a child of privilege and abandoned her broken body to the cold Arizona night. Or maybe she stumbled onto something terrible, something too dangerous to know. Now dark secrets about a future hideously destroyed are pulling Sheriff Joanna Brady of Cochise County into a lethal nest of lies and greed.

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....

The fifth novel in New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith's beloved Isabel Dalhousie series has the ethical problem solver from Edinburgh finding comforts in unlikely places.

When Rusty Mason, scion of one of Nantucket's oldest and wealthiest families, is found dead in a flooded cranberry bog one foggy fall night, 32-year-old detective Meredith Folger is faced with her first murder case. Merry is the daughter of the local police chief and granddaughter of his predecessor; her father is a strict boss and Merry feels pressure to go the extra mile to prove her promotion to detective isn't just nepotism. But the Mason murder is a demanding first test.

Fresh from her first murder case, Nantucket detective Merry Folger is unwillingly sucked into her second. When Joe Duarte, a fishing boat captain with decades of experience on the wild seas off Nantucket, is swept overboard during a spring storm, his death is pronounced accidental. But his estranged daughter, Del, is convinced it's murder. She moves back to Nantucket to get closer to the truth and enlists her old friend, Detective Merry Folger, to help. But Del is also hiding secrets of her own.

One little question. Cold Case Detective Cassidy Miller is beginning to feel more comfortable in her new career path. She has a close-knit group of friends and a drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend. Living together has been easier than either of them could have ever expected. But will one little question ruin everything she and Julia have built?

When a local publican is murdered, Inspector Witherspoon takes Mrs. Jeffries' advice to heart. He is going to trust his own instincts - but that keeps Mrs. Jeffries in the dark. She must rouse the household staff to action and hope the Inspector doesn't arrest the wrong person before they can solve the crime.

On a cold dark night in February, as a blizzard shrieks through Cedar Valley, police officer and new mother Gemma Monroe responds to an anonymous report of a prowler at the local private high school, The Valley Academy. In her idyllic Colorado small town, Gemma expects the call was just a prank by a bored teenager. But there in the snow lies the savaged body of a man whose presence in town was meant to be a secret. And a disturbing message left by his killer promises more death to come.

Now that Madison Reynolds has agreed to be part of a reality-television home remodeling show, she barely recognizes her own life. The show is an instant success, bringing cameras and reporters right to her doorstep, eager to chronicle her every move in the small Texas town. With In a Pinch Temporary Services hovering on the thin line between prosperity and extinction, Madison takes on another quirky case, this one concerning a property dispute. Complications turn a simple mission into all-out danger, and once again Madison finds herself embroiled in an intriguing mystery.

Madison's newest client at In a Pinch Temp Service is a suspicious wife, up against a formidable foe - the lovely Caress Ellingsworth, former soap opera queen. When the star is murdered and Madison is eyewitness to the deed, she wonders if the shadowed person she saw commit the crime might really be her client. Now Madison is torn between uncovering the truth and keeping her client's name off the suspect list. Caress is not the only star in town these days. With a little help from Granny Bert and Madison's best friend Genesis, the popular television show Home Again arrives.

When Detective Amanda Steele’s niece, Ava, begs her to look for a missing schoolfriend, she immediately agrees to take on the case. Eighteen-year-old Reese left home three nights ago after fighting with her mother and hasn’t been seen since. But when the teenager’s body is discovered brutally murdered, poised dramatically at the prom venue, Amanda is devastated she didn’t save the girl in time.

When Detective Amanda Steele unexpectedly reconnects with an old boyfriend, the last thing she expects to see lying on his bed is the dead body of his wife, Claire, who walked out on him four years ago. Logan begs Amanda to believe he’s innocent. But she doesn’t miss the gun on a nearby table, and she’s torn when forensics reveal that not only was this the murder weapon, but Logan’s fingerprints are all over it.... Could he have been framed? Or is he using his connection to Amanda to get away with murder?

Jenna Blake is home from college for the holidays, and this is one vacation she’ll never forget. A childhood friend has suddenly erupted in a murderous rage. When other teens follow suit, the authorities blame the violence on video games and movies. But Jenna believes something far more sinister is behind the madness.

First-year detective Kathleen Doyle is a plucky Irish redhead of humble origins and modest means. Chief Inspector Michael Acton is her antithesis: a British lord turned cop. He's tall, handsome, and enigmatic - to a fault. He also has a knack for solving London's most high-profile crimes. Acton selects Doyle out of the newbie squad to partner with him on a series of investigations because she always knows when someone is lying - a trait that comes in handy when interviewing suspects and witnesses.

Juin 1996. Nuit de la Saint-Jean. Trois jeunes gens ont rendez-vous dans une clairière isolée où ils se livrent à d'étranges jeux de rôle. Ils ignorent qu'ils sont surveillés. Peu avant l'aube, la fête tourne au drame. Août 1996. Le commissariat d'Ystad somnole sous la chaleur. Alors que les parents signalent la disparition de leurs enfants, Svedberg, un proche collègue de Wallander, est retrouvé mort, défiguré. La peur s'installe dans la région.

When a woman’s mutilated body is discovered in a remote countryside property, Detective Kay Hunter is faced with one of the most challenging investigations of her career. There is nothing in the victim’s past to explain her brutal slaying, and no clues as to how her killer got away. Then a second body is found in a run-down storage facility, the man’s remains covered in horrific injuries that bear the hallmarks of prolonged torture.

When the call comes in that fifteen-year-old Kelsey Tiller has gone missing from her bedroom in the middle of the night, Detective Ellie Reeves rushes to talk to her distraught parents. They tell her that Kelsey, a slender blond with green eyes and a timid smile, had plans to go shopping for her homecoming dress the next day, insisting she would have no reason to run away. But when neighbors report seeing Kelsey with a secret boyfriend, Ellie wonders how much Kelsey really told her parents.

The next book in the perennially adored No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series sees Precious Ramotswe calling upon all her maternal instincts when she's faced with a two-ton case. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but can Mma. Ramotswe and the rest of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency come together to raise a pipsqueak pachyderm? We may find out in this novel. We may not. Who can say?

A friend in his cigar club asks Antoine Verlaque to visit Rene Rouquet, a retired postal worker who has found a rolled-up canvas in his apartment. As the apartment once belonged to Paul Cezanne, Rouquet is convinced he's discovered a treasure. But when Antoine arrives at the apartment, he finds Rene dead, the canvas missing, and a mysterious art history professor standing over the body. When the painting is finally recovered, the mystery only deepens.