Women Sleuths Mystery Suspense

Amateur sleuth Agatha Raisin is going through a man-hating phase and is unmoved by news of a captivating new curate. But when she meets the golden-haired, blue-eyed Tristan Delon, she is swept off her feet...along with every other female in the village. She is positively ecstatic when he invites her to dine with him, but the next day Agatha is left with a hangover from hell and Tristan is worse off: he's dead.

It's a snowy Christmas at St. Stephen's Convent, where a cheerful party awaits an old friend and former confessor, Father Hudson McCormick. But he never reaches his destination. Christine Bennett, a former St. Stephen's nun, arrives to investigate the disappearance. But the nuns are mum until an old scandal involving the priest and a St. Stephen's novice rears its ugly head. Has Father McCormick, unable to face the scene of his sins, gone underground?

Ruth and Nelson investigate a string of murders and disappearances deep within the abandoned tunnels hidden far beneath the streets of Norwich. Norwich is riddled with old chalk-mining tunnels, but no one's sure exactly how many. When Ruth is called in to investigate a set of human remains found in one of them, she notices the bones are almost translucent - a sign they were boiled soon after death. Once more she finds herself at the helm of a murder investigation.

When Private Investigator Agatha Raisin learns that her friend and one-time lover Charles Fraith is to be married to a mysterious socialite, Miss Mary Brown-Field, she sees it as her duty to find out what she can about the woman. Coming up empty, Agatha - out of selfless concern for Charles, of course - does the only sensible thing she can think of: She crashes their wedding, which ends in a public altercation. Nursing a hangover the next morning, she gets a phone call from Charles, with even more disturbing news: Mary has been murdered.

Allie McMurphy is up to her neck in renovations at the grand old hotel that's been in her family for generations. With its quaint Victorian charm - and world-famous fudge shop - the place is one of Mackinac Island's most beloved landmarks.

At age 26 Agatha Raisin has already come a long way. She has clawed her way up since leaving the Birmingham slum where she was born. She's lost her Birmingham accent, run away from her drunken husband, and found a job at a public relations office as a secretary. Then her boss asks Agatha to go to the home of Sir Bryce Teller to tell him that he is soon to be arrested for the murder of his wife and that the agency no longer wants to represent him.

Young architect Wren Fontaine lands her dream job: restoring Greenleaf House, New York’s finest Gilded-Age mansion, to its glory days. But old homes have old secrets: Stephen Greenleaf—heir to what’s left of his family’s legacy—refuses to reveal what his plans are once the renovation is completed. And still living in a corner of the home is Stephen’s ninety-year-old Aunt Agnes who’s lost in the past, brooding over a long-forgotten scandal while watching Wren with mistrust.

Detective Sara Hirst has moved from London to Norfolk Police's Serious Crimes Unit. She wants to know the truth about her father, who has connections to the area. Her mother won't tell her the real story. A new job. A new place. Same old problems. Sara's first call-out is to a decomposing body discovered in a ditch on a local farm. How does the murder relate to a recent spate of thefts? Who wanted the victim dead? Then the case grows very personal.

Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by. Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life’s complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job.

A small Georgia town erupts in panic when a young college professor is found brutally mutilated in the local diner. But it's only when town pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton does the autopsy that the full extent of the killer's twisted work becomes clear. Sara's ex-husband, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver, leads the investigation - a trail of terror that grows increasingly macabre when another local woman is found crucified a few days later.

At the age of 13, Charlie Quinn's childhood came to an abrupt and devastating end. Two men, with a grudge against her lawyer father, broke into Charlie's home - and after that shocking night, her world was never the same. Now a lawyer herself, Charlie has made it her mission to defend those with no one else to turn to.

Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: She must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful 13-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims - a bit too strongly.

Grieving the death of his partner, Theo Bosco has no room in his life for distractions. Though his instincts scream that he should avoid Juliet "Jules" Jackson, he can't seem to stay away. When Jules rescued her siblings, whisking them away to the safety of the beautifully rugged Colorado Rockies, she never expected to catch the eye - or the heart - of a cop. Yet as Jules struggles to fight her growing attraction to the brooding K9 officer, another threat lurks much closer to home. And this time, there's no escape.

In July 1970, actress Elaina Styles was slain in her rented Seattle mansion along with her husband and their son's nanny. When the baby's remains were found buried in a shallow grave close to a hippie commune, police moved in - only to find all its members already dead in a grisly mass suicide. Now, decades later, a film about the murders is shooting at the mansion. On-set caterer Laurie Trotter ignores gossip that the production is cursed. But then people start dying....

Suffering from bald patches thanks to a hair conditioner spiked with depilatory cream - supplied by the murderess in her last investigation - Agatha escapes to the coastal resort of Wyckhadden to allow her crowning glory to recover in privacy. A local witch provides her with hair tonic and Agatha’s lost locks begin to grow - but then the witch is found bludgeoned to death. The elderly residents at Agatha’s faded hotel seem innocuous enough, if a little odd. But, as she enquires into the murder she turns up an alarming number of secrets....

When therapist Jill Davent moved to the village of Carsely, Agatha Raisin was not a fan. Not only was this therapist romancing Agatha's ex-husband, she dug up details of Agatha's not-too-glamorous origins. Jill also counsels a woman, Gwen Simple, that Agatha firmly believes assisted her son in some grisly murders, although there is no proof. Not one to keep her feelings to herself, Agatha tells anyone who will listen that Jill is a charlatan and better off dead.

When Jessica receives a call that her old friend Tillie Mortelaine passed away, she is surprised to learn that Tillie bequeathed her a million dollars. All Jessica has to do is solve a decades-old mystery - the murder of Tillie's fiancé Wanamaker Jones. There is no shortage of suspects. Many in Savannah stand to benefit from Tillie's will or are looking to prosper from her death. With people opposing her at every turn in her investigation, will Jessica be able to solve the crime or will she fail her friend?

Jessica Fletcher finds herself in an incredibly compromising situation, awakening on a lobster boat adrift in Cabot Cove to discover she's not alone: there's a dead body aboard. Jessica soon finds herself in a swirling investigation that involves the sleepy town of Cabot Cove and its lobstermen.

Dogwood Donuts owner Maggie Sharpe is busy preparing for the introduction of a new lunch feature at her shop. To clear her mind after long hours at work, she takes walks around the neighborhood and her route takes her by the old house on the hill that used to belong to her aunt. It seems someone is doing renovations and Maggie becomes curious about the new owner. When curiosity makes her take a closer look, the disgruntled owner makes it abundantly clear that she’s not welcome. A suspicious incident happens at the house, a body is discovered, and all fingers seem to be pointing at Maggie.

Young widow Penelope Thornton-McClure and her old Aunt Sadie are making ends meet by managing a mystery book shop - a quaint Rhode Island landmark rumored to be haunted. Pen may not believe in ghosts, but she does believe in good publicity - like nabbing Timothy Brennan for a book signing. But soon after the bestselling thriller writer reveals a secret about the store's link to a 1940s murder, he keels over dead - and right in the middle of the store's new community events space. Who gives Mrs. McClure the first clue that it was murder?