Women Sleuths Mystery Suspense

Just when she thought she'd seen everything... Detective Lieutenant Anita McElone is one of Harbor Haven's finest. She's also a hard-boiled ghost skeptic. So when she shows up on the doorstep of Alison Kerby's Haunted Guesthouse to ask for supernatural help in solving the murder of her former partner, it's hard to tell which woman is more flabbergasted. But McElone is dead serious, so Alison promises to help in any way she can - even asking her resident ghosts, Paul and Maxie, for help with the case.

It was summer in the mountains when five small children vanished from their nursery school picnic. The heat was stifling that day, the tinkle of an ice-cream van in the air.... Three-and-a-half years later, in the dead of winter, the children are returned to their families...one by one. All except for Ivy - the granddaughter of Homicide Detective Kate Wakeland. The other four children say Ivy is dead.

The ghosts haunting Alison Kerby's Jersey Shore guesthouse are sad. Maxie wants to know who murdered her ex-husband, and Paul pines for his still-living almost-fiancee. The only one who isn't missing her ex is Alison-because The Swine just arrived on her doorstep...

When Mia Malone's grandmother asks her to take a week away from her restaurant job and come to Magic Springs, Idaho, she's happy to oblige. Like Mia, Grans has witchcraft running through her veins, and life with her is never boring. Plus, the cause is a good one - helping Grans get the local food bank up and running again. But there's an unappetizing surprise in store. While Mia is knee-deep in boxes of donated produce, she encounters the body of Dorian Alexander. Dorian was a warlock, leader of the local coven. He was also her Grans' new beau.

Like many old New England families, the Kellings live to die. Although their family vault is spacious and comfortable, it will not do for Sarah Kelling's great-uncle Frederick. In his will, he demands to be buried inside the ancient family tomb at Boston Common, which hasn't admitted a new member in more than a century. But when the Kellings crack the old vault's door, they find a recently built brick wall - and behind it lays a surprisingly fresh corpse, a skeleton with rubies in its teeth.

For fans of the compulsive psychological suspense of Ruth Ware and Tana French, a mother daughter story—one running from a horrible truth, and the other fighting to reveal it—that twists and turns in shocking ways, from the internationally bestselling author of The Scholar and The Ruin.

When local businessman Jed Greenberg is found dead with a Chocolate lab whimpering over his body, the police start sniffing around Robbie Jordan's country restaurant for answers. Was it something in Robbie's hot cocoa that killed Jed, or was it Cocoa the dog? As the suspects pile as high as her holiday tree, Robbie attempts to get to the bottom of the sickly sweet murder.

When young wife and mother Tara Burke goes missing with her baby girl, all eyes are on her husband, Lucas. He paints her not as a missing person but a wayward wife — until a gruesome piece of evidence turns the investigation criminal. While Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas pursues the story and M.E. Claire Washburn harbors theories that run counter to the SFPD’s, ADA Yuki Castellano sizes Lucas up as a textbook domestic offender...who suddenly puts forward an unexpected suspect.

Now an official Witch Apprentice, Amalie is back to work and busier than ever. With the new school year on the horizon, she's got PTA meetings and parent-teacher conferences, on top of all her magical responsibilities. Oh, and Taylin is being possessed by ghosts, boyfriend Reese is a temporary houseguest, and Amalie has been recruited as a chaperone on Taylin's next field trip. When the head of the PTA, Becky, is found dead after Amalie serving her lunch, both Amalie and Taylin are tossed into a murder investigation of the human variety this time.

Shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library. Ruth Galloway receives a phone call that bears shocking news. A friend of hers from college, Dan Golding, has been killed in a fire at his Lancashire home. Her shock turns to alarm when she gets a letter from Dan. He has made a discovery that will change archaeology forever but he needs Ruth's advice. Even more alarming, he sounds vulnerable and frightened. DCI Harry Nelson is also rediscovering his past. Up north for a holiday, he meets his former colleague Sandy MacLeod, now at Blackpool CID.

When last we met, dear friends, a man had come calling, claiming to be Crispin Alistair Winterbottom, my dead British ex-spy. A notion I'd find ludicrous, if the handsome imposter didn't, in fact, look exactly like my dead British ex-spy. But there's no time for that mystery when a quiet walk on our private stretch of beach turns up something far more pressing - another tragedy in my beloved small Washington town. That's right. I, Stevie Cartwright, ex-witch turned amateur sleuth, have stumbled upon another murder. But this time it's closer to home, more personal.

Alison Kerby's guesthouse is already crowded with spirits. The last thing she needs is a whole new batch of haunts settling in. As Alison's reputation as "the ghost lady" grows, so does her business - and not always in a way she'd like. Tourists may be flocking to her guesthouse for a chance to glimpse her resident spirits, but her special abilities are also bringing unwanted private investigation cases to her door.

Violet Mooney owns The Full Moon crystal shop in quaint North Harbor, Connecticut. Still grieving her beloved grandmother's recent unexpected death, she takes comfort in her fat orange cat, Monty, and her work. Not everyone in town is thrilled with her business, however. When disagreeable town Councilwoman Carla Fernandez picks a fight over Violet's "voodoo shop", the two have a very public confrontation. Of course, when Carla turns up dead, Violet gets little sympathy from the police as suspect number one.

Someone is snatching priceless jewels right off the necks of British aristocrats. With his intimate access to the parlors and bedrooms of Regency London, the Richmond Thief strikes again and again. The Bow Street Runners, the city's only detectives, seem powerless to stop him. Enter Althea, lady scientist. As the young widow of a country gentleman, Lady Althea Trent is introduced to the upper-class social scene as yet another pretty face. But her own scientific inquiries and an invitation to act as an agent of Bow Street propel her into the hunt for the Richmond Thief.

Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up – to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there.

She said yes to Morelli. She said yes to Ranger. Now Stephanie Plum has two fiancés and no idea what to do about it. But the way things are going, she might not live long enough to marry anyone.

Inheriting a cottage in Pine Lake was supposed to be the escape from her stressful life as a social worker. Instead, Amalie Holmes is taking witch lessons from her crazy, lightning-wielding grandmother, juggling guardianship of a sassy pre-teen, and taking over a pet shop, all while trying to get used to her super-loud, super-new family. Too bad she can't clone herself. Maybe there's a spell for that? When the head of the local Witch Council is found dead, and Amalie's Grandma Vivian is named the prime suspect, Amalie's new-found family is in jeopardy.

It was a hell of a long shot.... CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever - in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world's largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element.

Angie Turner hopes her new farm-to-table restaurant can be a fresh start in her old hometown in rural Idaho. But when a goat dairy farmer is murdered, Angie must turn the tables on a bleating black sheep.... With three weeks until opening night for their restaurant, the County Seat, Angie and her best friend and business partner Felicia are scrambling to line up local vendors - from the farmer's market to the goat dairy farm of Old Man Moss. Fortunately, the cantankerous Moss takes a shine to Angie, as does his kid goat Precious.

April 1928: Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher is visited in London by her young cousins. On the list of must-see sites is the Crystal Palace. Discovering that her children's nanny, Nanny Gilpin, has never seen the Palace, Daisy decides to make a day of it - bringing her cousins, her three-year-old twins, her step-daughter Belinda, the nurserymaid, and Nanny Gilpin. Yet this ordinary outing goes wrong when Mrs. Gilpin goes off to the ladies room and fails to return. When Daisy goes to look for her, she doesn't find her nanny but instead the body of another woman dressed in a nanny's uniform.