Women Sleuths Mystery Suspense

Near the creek that runs behind her Pennsylvania house, Willow Bellamy has converted an old barn into an art school. When some local merchants gather in the studio for a painting party, they focus their attention on a still life with flowers and an assortment of garden tools, including antique pruning shears that disappear - at the same time despised restaurant owner Evangeline Fletcher is murdered. Willow must use all her gifts to find the killer.

Cooper Lee is at a crossroads. Her boyfriend of five years just left her for another woman, she's living in an apartment above her parents' garage, and her job as a copier repairperson is feeling a little, well, repetitious. Hoping for a fresh start and a new outlook on life, she joins the Bible study group at Hope Street Church. The last thing she expects while studying the Bible is a lesson in murder.

What if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all? Andrea Cooper knows everything about her mother, Laura. She knows Laura has spent nearly her whole life in the small beach town of Belle Isle, Georgia; she knows Laura's never wanted anything more than to lead a quiet, normal life in this conventional community; she knows Laura's a kind and beloved speech pathologist who helps others; she knows Laura's never kept a secret in her life. Andrea knows that Laura is everything she isn't—confident, settled, sure of herself.

With the arrival of six senior reading group members at the Merry Ghost Inn, the long-awaited grand opening week has finally begun for Melanie West and her grandmother Liza. All is well with the Oregon coast-side B&B until Melanie's dog, Max, finds the dead body of one of their guests.

Kelly Roth, FBI profiler, returns home to Syracuse to stop a sadistic serial killer. Three murders in three separate jurisdictions in central New York State have the same pattern: women killed by fatal headshots from a hunting rifle. Kelly Roth is sent from Virginia to help the local police. Each victim was found murdered in a remote area or in a quiet park. The media call him “The Park Killer.” But Kelly doesn’t think the killer lurks in the bushes. She thinks he hunts his victims somewhere else.

During the most wonderful time of the year, famous author Helen Monroe arrives in Briar Creek to be the writer in residence, but her “bah humbug” attitude excludes her from the many holiday celebrations the town residents enjoy. To try to spread some Christmas cheer, library director Lindsey Norris invites the new writer in town to join her crafternoon club. Helen politely refuses and when an altercation happens between Helen and another patron, Lindsey begins to suspect the author has been keeping to herself for a reason.

The irascible husband of Victorian Egyptologist Amelia Peabody demonstrates again why he has been nicknamed "Father of Curses." Denied permission to dig at the pyramids of Dahshoor, Emerson is awarded instead the "pyramids" of Mazghunah: countless mounds of rubble in the midst of nowhere. Nothing in this barren spot seems worthy of interest - until an antiquities dealer is murdered in his Cairo shop.

Agatha Raisin’s private detective agency is working flat out on a series of shop burglaries. The break-ins seem to have taken a violent turn when a friend of Agatha’s is murdered during a raid on his shop. Although determined to nail the villains, Agatha still makes time to help Sir Charles Fraith prepare to stage a massive, hugely glamorous, promotional event in the grounds of his ancestral home, Barfield House.

Cat Cooper never imagined selling off her in-demand marketing firm would mean going from the pinnacle of success to a walking hot mess. Gouged from an unexpected divorce, Cat suddenly finds herself struggling through a new career as a business-savvy life coach for the hopelessly adrift in East Hampton and contending with Heather Holland - a spiteful neighbor who will do anything to bully her out of town. But her second act may very well continue behind bars when Heather's dead body turns up next to a shattered punchbowl...and Cat's pinned as the murderer.

Ellen Wingate thinks she's hit the jackpot when she learns the millions she's inherited comes with a super-exclusive condo in the mountains outside of Las Vegas. But leaving Minnesota for paradise turns out to be the ultimate nightmare. Trapped with her neighbors in a freakish winter avalanche, a chilling discovery at the bottom of an indoor pool signals a frightening turn of events.

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.

Back when Harry Bosch was just a rookie homicide detective, he had an inspiring mentor who taught him to take the work personally and light the fire of relentlessness for every case. Now that mentor, John Jack Thompson, is dead, but after his funeral his widow hands Bosch a murder book that Thompson took with him when he left the LAPD 20 years before - the unsolved killing of a troubled young man in an alley used for drug deals.

When a last-minute opportunity arises to accompany her boss to an art auction in Atlanta, Lilly throws some money at the problem of where to board her toy poodle Aggie (short for Agatha Christie). Posh Pet Haven offers the most luxurious canine accommodations in all of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The place even provides pet cams so anxious owners can check in on their pampered pooches.

Three gripping crime fiction thrillers featuring DCI Whitney Walker and forensic psychologist Dr. Georgina Cavendish. Deadly Games: DCI Whitney Walker’s in trouble. She’s threatened with demotion if she screws up another case. When a killer starts murdering female students, it’s a chance to redeem herself. Forensic psychologist, Dr Georgina Cavendish, has spent her life inside the university walls, but when one of her students is murdered, she steps out from behind the books, putting her skills to the test. The two headstrong women join forces to stop the killer.

It's June in Montreal, and Dr. Temperance Brennan, who has left a shaky marriage back home in North Carolina to take on the challenging assignment of Director of Forensic Anthropology for the province of Quebec, looks forward to a relaxing weekend in beautiful Quebec City. First, though, she must stop at a newly uncovered burial site in the heart of the city. The remains are probably old and only of archeological interest, but Tempe must make sure they're not a case for the police. One look at the decomposed and decapitated corpse, stored neatly in plastic bags, tells her she'll spend the weekend in the crime lab.

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.

Thinking that she has been summoned by German immigrant Agnes Otto to usher a new life into the world, midwife Sarah Brandt is greeted by the news of an untimely death instead. It seems that Agnes' beautiful younger sister, Gerda, had fallen into the life of a "charity girl". Caught up in the false glamour of the city's nightlife, she would trade her company and her favors for lavish gifts. And now she was dead - victim, no doubt, of one of her "gentlemen friends".

Mackenzie "Mack" Dalton is a Milwaukee bar owner with a nose for trouble - literally. A neurological glitch has left her with extra-perceptive senses. So when she stumbles upon a dead body in the alley behind the bar - the same spot where her own father was shot eight months earlier - she can tell right away there's something fishy in the air. The lead detective thinks there's a link between the two deaths, and he'll need Mack's help to sniff out the murderer. But when all the evidence points to her as the most likely culprit, it could be an early last call for Mack.

L’hiver s’est installé en Caroline du Nord et, avec lui, une baisse de la criminalité. Tempe Brennan profite d’un emploi du temps moins chargé pour passer du temps avec sa fille, Katy, qui vient de quitter l’armée. Mais un soir qu’elles se retrouvent chez Tempe, les deux femmes découvrent une mystérieuse boîte, déposée sur le perron. À l’intérieur : un globe oculaire humain fraîchement prélevé. Les coordonnées GPS gravées sur l’organe mènent à un monastère bénédictin où une découverte tout aussi macabre attend Tempe Brennan et l’inspecteur Slidell.

Booklover Sadie Coleman knows that in life, as in fiction, the right setting can make a world of difference. The small town of Shady Creek, Vermont, seems like the perfect place to start over after losing her Boston job to a merger and her relationship to her ex's gambling addiction. She's bought and redecorated the old grist mill pub, transforming the Inkwell into a cozy spot where tourists and regulars alike can enjoy a pint or a literary-themed cocktail, or join one of several book clubs.