Women Police Mystery

Abby Maddox is serving 20 years for slashing Seattle PD officer Jerry Isaac's throat during the harrowing capture of her former lover, serial killer Ethan Wolfe. To the demented fans, lunatics, and creeps on the outside, she is a celebrity. But to Jerry, now a private investigator whose scarred neck and tortured speech are daily reminders of Abby's vicious attack, she alone may be the key to solving a new wave of murders. Because this killer has been sending her love letters, and carving a message on the victims' bodies: Free Abby Maddox.

Award-winning author P.D. James' second mystery in her best-selling series featuring Scotland Yard investigator Adam Dalgliesh is now available as an audiobook! When the administrative head of the Steen Psychiatric Clinic is found dead with a chisel in her heart, Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate. Dalgliesh must analyze the deep-seated anxieties and thwarted desires of patients and staff alike to determine which of their unresolved conflicts resulted in murder.

One look at the decomposed and decapitated corpse, stored neatly in plastic bags, tells Temperance Brennan she'll spend the weekend in the crime lab. Something about the crime scene is familiar to Tempe: the stashing of the body parts; the meticulous dismemberment. As a pattern continues to emerge, Tempe calls upon all her forensic skills, including bone, tooth/dental, and bite mark analysis and x-ray microflourescence to convince the police that the cases are related and to try to stop the killer before he strikes again.

A woman vanishes in the fog up on "the Hill", an area locally known for its tranquillity and peace. The police are not alarmed; people usually disappear for their own reasons. But when a young girl, an old man, and even a dog disappear, no one can deny that something untoward is happening in this quiet cathedral town.

A call from an ex-husband is never welcome. For Berkeley cop Jill Smith it wins a Nobel Prize for chutzpah. Her ex wants a favor. His "friend" and co-worker, Anne Spaulding, is missing. Anne's ransacked apartment - complete with blood-sprayed walls - gives Jill the chilling feeling that her ex may be up to his arrogant neck in murder. Now Jill's out with the street people of Berkeley and the crazies of People's Park to uncover the fate of a welfare worker. But her best suspect is her ex: the former "significant other" who still pushes her buttons.

In the quiet town of Painters Mill, an Amish family of seven has been found brutally murdered on their farm. Chief of Police Kate Burkholder and her small force have few clues, no motive, and no suspect. Formerly Amish herself, Kate is no stranger to secrets, but she can't get her mind around the senseless brutality of the crime. State agent John Tomasseti arrives on the scene to assist. He and Kate worked together on a previous case during which they began a tentative relationship, but each is wary of commitment. The disturbing details of this case will push them to their limits.

ver a decade ago, beloved Amish bishop Ananias Stoltzfus disappeared without a trace. When skeletal remains showing evidence of foul play are unearthed, his disappearance becomes even more sinister. The town’s elders arrive in Painters Mill to ask chief of police Kate Burkholder for help, but she quickly realizes she has a personal connection to the crime. The handsome Amish man who stands accused of the murder, Jonas Bowman, was Kate’s first love.

Detective Angie Pallorino hasn't forgotten the violent rapist who left a distinctive calling card—crosses etched into the flesh of his victim's foreheads. When a comatose Jane Doe is found in a local cemetery, sexually assaulted, mutilated, and nearly drowned, Angie is struck by the eerie similarities to her earlier unsolved rapes. Could he be back?

When 12-year-old Sophie Williams went on a Girl Scout summer camp, she never returned home. Three months later, her body is found inside her sleeping bag in the most frequented area of Cocoa Beach, and the town is outraged. The girl isn't just any child. She's the town's most beloved surf idol, and it was believed that she could be the next Kelly Slater. As another child, the son of a well-known senator, is kidnapped, and the parents receive a disturbing video, FBI profiler Eva Rae Thomas plunges into the investigation, breaking her promise to her children not to do police work again.

New York Times best-selling author Linda Castillo is known as a “master of the genre” (People) for her pulse-pounding mystery series set in Amish country. Now, together for the first time in print, A Simple Murder features six original short stories starring whip-smart chief of police, Kate Burkholder.

The perfect family. The perfect house. The perfect life. All gone now. What could cause a man, when all the stars of fortune are shining upon him, to suddenly snap and destroy everything he has built? This is the question that haunts Sergeant Ryan DeMarco after the wife and children of beloved college professor and best-selling author Thomas Huston are found slaughtered in their home. Huston himself has disappeared and so is immediately cast as the prime suspect.

The Slabaugh family are model Amish farmers, prosperous and hardworking, with four children and a happy extended family. When the parents and an uncle are found dead in their barn, it appears to be a gruesome accident: methane gas asphyxiation caused by a poorly ventilated cesspit. But in the course of a routine autopsy, the coroner discovers that one of the victims suffered a head wound before death—clearly, foul play was involved. But who would want to make orphans of the Slabaughs' children? And is this murder somehow related to a recent string of shocking hate crimes against the Amish?

When a woman’s body is discovered submerged in a crab pot in the chilly waters of Puget Sound, Detective Tracy Crosswhite finds herself with a tough case to untangle. Before they can identify the killer, Tracy and her colleagues on the Seattle PD’s Violent Crimes Section must figure out who the victim is. Her autopsy, however, reveals she may have gone to great lengths to conceal her identity. So who was she running from?

It was one of Eve Dallas’s earliest takedowns, back in her uniform days. A monster named Isaac McQueen had been abducting young victims and leaving them scarred in both mind and body. Thanks to Eve, he wound up where he belonged, removed from civilized society in Rikers. But he’s not behind bars anymore. After his escape, McQueen has two things in mind. One is to take up where he left off, preying on the young and innocent - when necessary, with the help of a female partner all too - willing to be manipulated and to aid and abet his crimes.

His victims are young, beautiful, and coldly mutilated. He calls himself the Beijing Ripper. Li Yan, head of Beijing's serious crime squad, must stop him. Just as pathologist Margaret Campbell finds an insight into the killer's cruel signature, Li receives a letter from the killer, betraying his cruel intentions. There's no way Li can misinterpret the Ripper's motives: He wants to tear Li and Campbell's lives apart, and write the darkest chapter in Beijing's history.

When teenagers Danielle and Gracie Sullivan take a clandestine car trip to visit their friend in Montana, little do they know it's the last time anyone will ever hear from them again. The girls and their car simply vanish. Cody Hoyt, who's just lost his job and has fallen off the wagon after a long stretch of sobriety, is in no condition to investigate. But his son Justin, who the girls were going to visit, and his former partner, Cassie Dewell, convince him to drive south to their last known location.

After their last deployment, when she got shot, her fiancé, Martinez, got killed, and his bomb-sniffing dog, Elvis, got depressed, soldier Mercy Carr and Elvis were both sent home, her late lover’s last words ringing in her ears: “Take care of my partner.” On the Fourth of July weekend, when all of Northshire celebrates with fun and frolic and fireworks, the dog alerts to explosives and they find a squalling baby abandoned near a shallow grave filled with what appear to be human bones.

Helena Lanark is an elderly woman, living in a luxurious care home. The heiress of an immense family fortune, she keeps the secret to the horror which once occurred within the Lanark family house. Jane Tennison is leading a murder investigation into the recent brutal death of a young girl, her decomposed starved body discovered in an old air raid shelter in the garden of the Lanark's now derelict house. Initially the focus is on identifying the victim, until another body is found, hidden in the walls of the shelter.

FBI Special Agent Ella Dark has studied serial killers from the time she could read, devastated by the murder of her own sister, and has gained an encyclopedic knowledge of murderers. A serial killer is leaving clues around the city, using Ella’s knowledge of historical murders to taunt her. Can Ella dig deep into her encyclopedic mind and crack the case? Or will this killer finally outsmart her?

The Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter backlist lights up the night. In her eighth adventure, Anita Blake can't turn her back on a former lover during the full moon. Especially since he's behind bars - and he's a werewolf.