Women Detectives

When firefighters discover the body of a teenage girl at an abandoned house, Detective Amanda Steele hurries to the scene. Dumfries, Virginia, is a small town, yet no one seems to have any idea who the dead girl is, until Amanda finds a dragonfly pin with the name Crystal engraved on it. Working tirelessly, Amanda traces the pin to Crystal Foster, a 13-year-old who disappeared three years ago from her wealthy parents’ home. Breaking the news to the distraught parents won’t be easy, but the loss of her own daughter still haunts Amanda, and she knows this will bring them closure.

Minerva Kenny is a dear woman, but her tendency to "borrow" things without asking has finally caught up with her. William Barrett has learned Minerva's shameful secret, and he's holding it over her head. Mrs. Jeffries and the staff at Upper Edmonton Gardens have hatched a scheme to save her - but when they try to recover the damning evidence from Barrett, they discover something more shocking: Barrett's corpse. Considering the victim's wicked ways, Minerva is far from the only suspect.

Ten years ago, 15-year-old Scarlett Rainsford vanished while on a family holiday in Greece. Lou Smith worked the case as a police constable, and failing to find Scarlett has been one of the biggest regrets of her career. No one is more shocked than Lou to learn that Scarlett has unexpectedly been found during a Special Branch raid of a brothel in Briarstone. Lou and her Major Crime team are already stretched working two troubling cases: 19-year-old Ian Palmer was found badly beaten; and soon after, bar owner Carl McVey was found half-buried in the woods.

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.

From the best-selling author of The Dog Stars and The Painter, a luminous, masterful novel of suspense - the story of Celine, an elegant, aristocratic private eye who specializes in reuniting families, trying to make amends for a loss in her own past.

On her first day back with the Denton PD after a major trauma, Detective Josie Quinn is on the hunt for a missing woman, Krystal Duncan, the mother of one of five children killed in a devastating school bus crash. Hours later, Josie finds Krystal’s body beside her daughter’s grave, her lips sealed together forever with wax.

The cast of Donna Andrews’ New York Times best-selling Meg Langslow mystery series is back for an unforgettable holiday story in The Twelve Jays of Christmas.

In this latest installment of Alexander McCall Smith's ever-delightful and perennially best-selling series, amateur sleuth and philosopher Isabel Dalhousie is called upon to help when a matchmaker begins to question her latest match. Rosemary is something of a matchmaker and has brought together a cosmetic surgeon and a successful banker at her most recent dinner party. But new information comes to light about the cosmetic surgeon that causes Rosemary to doubt the auspiciousness of the match.

When a young red-haired woman is found brutally murdered in downtown Chicago, one detail stands out: the red lipstick encircling her wrists and ankles. Detective Harriet Foster is on the case, even though she’s still grieving the sudden death of her partner. As a Black woman in a male-dominated department, Foster anticipates a rocky road ahead acclimating to a new team—and building trust with her new partner isn’t coming easily. After another victim turns up with the same lipstick markings, Foster suspects she’s looking for a serial killer.

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.

Kennedy Farmer, an experienced athlete, never returns after leaving for her usual running route through the dusty mountain trails of New Mexico. While the search for Kennedy begins, Detective Alyssa Wyatt and her squad face a terrifying new case when the body of a young woman, Rheagan Pembroke, is discovered in the desert terrain surrounding Albuquerque. Her wounds horrify even the hardened squad of the Albuquerque P.D.—and the case takes an even darker turn when they discover a polaroid stuffed into the victim's mouth, showing the body of Gunner Galveston, a murder victim from years ago.

Not much can make Detective Betty Rhyzyk flinch. But when forced into therapy, a desk assignment, and domestic bliss following a terrifying run-in with an apocalyptic cult, she’s having trouble readjusting to life as it once was. At home, she struggles to connect with her loving wife, Jackie. At work, someone has been assassinating confidential informants. To make matters worse, Betty’s partner seems to be increasingly dependent on the painkillers he was prescribed for injuries he sustained narrowly rescuing her.

Lord Comstock is a barbarous newspaper tycoon with enemies in high places. His murder in the study of his country house poses a dilemma for the Home Secretary. In the hours before his death, Lord Comstock’s visitors included the government Chief Whip, an Archbishop, and the Assistant Commissioner for Scotland Yard. Suspicion falls upon them all and threatens the impartiality of any police investigation. Abandoning protocol, the Home Secretary invites four famous detectives to solve the case: Mrs Adela Bradley, Sir John Saumarez, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Mr Roger Sheringham.

Alice Rogers, an elderly widow, is dead, found murdered in the Arizona desert. It's easy enough to pin the killing on the teens caught driving her car across the Mexican border, but Sheriff Brady isn't about to let it go at that. Alice was something of a free spirit, with a penchant for Scotch, the glitter of Las Vegas, and a romance with a man twenty years her junior. Her hot-tempered daughter Susan suspects Mom's boyfriend—her former handyman who moved in instead of moving on.

Detective Margot Phalen has spent years running from her father’s shadow—and the awful truth of her own past as the daughter of a serial killer. But then she receives a message from him. He’s willing to share his darkest secret—but only with her. Now, as she sits across from the empty chair waiting for Ed Finch to be led in, Margot closes her eyes and steels herself for what lies ahead. The key to solving one of California’s most infamous missing persons cases is here, in the one place she fears most: her father’s cell.

Arriving in London on leave, Bess Crawford receives an unusual summons from the War Office. She's been requested to accompany a wounded soldier to Buckingham Palace, where he's to be decorated for gallantry. Though she is certain she's never met or nursed Sergeant Jason Wilkins, she cannot refuse the honor. Heavily bandaged and confined to a wheelchair, the soldier will be in her care for barely a day. But on the morning after the ceremony when Bess goes to collect her charge for his return journey, she finds the room empty.

Hayley Burke has landed a dream job. She is the new curator of Lady Georgiana Fowling's First Edition library. The library is kept at Middlebank House, a lovely Georgian home in Bath, England. Hayley lives on the premises and works with the finicky Glynis Woolgar, Lady Fowling's former secretary. Mrs. Woolgar does not like Hayley's ideas to modernize The First Edition Society and bring in fresh blood. And she is not even aware of the fact that Hayley does not know the first thing about the Golden Age of Mysteries.

When Detective Casey White is called to a murder scene on an empty stretch of coastal road, her whole team is in a panic. Could the body be their missing colleague Samantha? The promising investigator was last seen two days ago, going home after an evening of dancing with friends. Her family are beside themselves with worry. Casey’s relief is short-lived when she sees the short dark hair of another woman. Pauline Rydel has been missing for a week. Devastated that anyone would take this innocent life, the tear-shaped cuts on the victim’s face make Casey’s heart stop.

After an eventful first few months in Provence, it seems Penelope is finally settling into her delightful new life, complete with a gorgeous love interest in the mayor of St. Merlot. When Penelope and the mayor attend a glamorous gallery opening, Penelope’s biggest worry is embarrassing herself in front of her date. But the evening takes a horrifying turn when a controversial expat painter, Roland Doncaster, chokes to death.

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.