Women Suspense

Japanese-American Rei Shimura is a 27-year-old English teacher living in one of Tokyo's seediest neighborhoods. She doesn't make much money, but she wouldn't go back home to California even if she had a free ticket (which, thanks to her parents, she does). Her independence is threatened, when a getaway to an ancient castle town is marred by murder. Rei is the first to find the beautiful wife of a high-powered businessman, dead in the snow. Taking charge, as usual, Rei looks for clues by crashing a funeral, posing as a bar-girl, and somehow ends up pursued by police and paparazzi alike.

It’s Mallory Atkinson’s first Christmas in Scotland. Victorian Scotland, that is. Also, as the twenty-first-century detective learns, Christmas really isn’t a thing in Victorian Scotland. It’s all about Hogmanay. But her boss, Dr. Duncan Gray, treats her to an early gift of tickets to the event of the season: a Charles Dickens reading. There, they bump into Lady Inglis—the lovely widow who has sent Gray sexy letters trying to entice him back to her bed.

Recipient of the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence, Carolyn Haines enjoys a reputation as “queen of the cozies” ( Providence Journal-Bulletin). When P.I. Sarah Booth makes a bid for film stardom, she may land a chance to shoot on location in Costa Rica—or she may find herself in a whole heap of trouble.

A former actress, Allison Rocca knows her husband, Tony, a screenwriter, has been extra busy lately. And news reporter Katy knows her ex, Chief Detective Sam Ladera, is desperately hunting the Video Killer. Still, each woman senses something unusual about the men's behavior. But as they attempt to find the truth, they unwittingly draw closer to the lens of a calculating madman searching for his next leading lady.

Every day, Mary wakes up before dawn to make breakfast from scratch. She tends the garden and feeds the animals. Every night, Mary makes sure she has dinner on the table for when her husband Cal gets home from work. She puts on his favourite lipstick and greets him with a smile. 'I've missed you.' It's not true and he knows it. But he likes to hear it all the same. Their cabin is hidden deep in the woods in the Scottish Highlands, and Mary doesn't remember the last time she saw another living soul. She tries not to think about her life before too much.

Mia Malone has landed a lucrative and convenient gig, catering a reunion at the old school that's become her new business headquarters. The town swirls with rumors that St. Catherine's Preparatory is haunted, but there's one living visitor that Mia wasn't expecting - her mother. Theresa Malone stepped away from the magic that runs in Mia's family, much to the annoyance of Mia's grandmother. Soon Mia has to deal with more than personal drama when Robin Hanover, the head of the reunion committee, is murdered in one of the classrooms.

Hope's schedule is already jam packed with recipe testing and shameless plugs for her food blog as she rushes off to attend a spring garden tour in the charming town of Jefferson, Connecticut. Unfortunately, it isn't the perfectly arranged potted plants that grab her attention - it's the bloody body of reviled real estate agent Peaches McCoy.... One of the tour guests committed murder, and all eyes are on Hope's older sister, Claire Dixon - who, at best, saw Peaches as a professional rival. And suspicions really heat up when another murder occurs the following night.

Dr. Frank Hafner is an archaeologist working on excavating a new-found Native American temple site in the Mississippi Delta. He's also too handsome for his own good, and a bit of a flirt. Oddly enough, it's the first quality that gets him in trouble when he discovers the ritualistic murder of one of his archaeological crew. When Coleman Peters, Sheriff and Sarah Booth's boyfriend, takes Dr. Hafner in for questioning in the murder, the accused doctor hires Sarah Booth to clear his name.

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".

Ten years have passed since Joe Lakota left Laurel Creek, Oregon, for the allure of the big city and a career in professional football. Now a single father, Joe returns to Laurel Creek hoping to rekindle his romance with Marilee Nelson. But their separation was painful, and Marilee is wounded deeper than anyone knows. Her head tells her to resist Joe's advances, but can she ignore her deepest desires?

Nevada Barr's award-winning mystery series captivates fans with vividly drawn wilderness settings and the resourceful sleuth, middle-aged park ranger Anna Pigeon. Deep South portrays Anna boldly confronting hostile teenagers, suspicious locals, and a resentful "old-boy" network as she struggles to solve a gruesome murder. Anna leaves behind her beloved Mesa Verde to take on a position as district park ranger of the Mississippi Natchez Trace Parkway.

When local handyman J.D. Rouse is found dead in his pickup truck with a bullet in his head, the mayhem - and the body count - grows. But Dwight launches his own investigation after his son and ex-wife turn up missing from their home in Virginia.

Ten years ago, Magnolia Steele fled Franklin, Tennessee, after an incident that left her with hazy memories and a horror of the place where she had been born and bred. Though her abrupt departure destroyed most of her treasured relationships, she vowed never to return...until she has no choice. When Magnolia's breakout acting role in a Broadway musical ends in disgrace, there's only one place she can go. She finds herself on her momma's porch, suitcase in hand.

When a visiting yachting couple go missing from the Shetland oil capital of Brae, sailing skipper Cass Lynch overcomes her mistrust of the land world to ask for help from her old adversary DI Gavin Macrae. He discovers a link to international art theft and warns Cass to steer clear - but when one of her sailing pupils goes missing, she goes alone to discover the secrets of the Neolithic tomb known locally as a ‘trowie mound’.... Ghosts, folklore and a nail-biting finale at the local show come together to make an atmospheric, fast-moving thriller.

Poppy Denby is intrigued when she is invited to attend the auction for the death mask of Nefertiti. Held on the country estate of Sir James Maddox, a famous explorer, the auction promises to be a controversial and newsworthy affair. Representatives from the world's leading museums are gathering to bid on the mask, which was discovered in Egypt. Poppy quickly sniffs out that the mask was not the only thing found that night: the underground chamber also contained a dead body.

Anyone growing up in Lobelia Falls is taught to learn the elegant, ancient, and occasionally deadly art of shooting with a bow and arrow. Practicing the craft, freelance secretary Dittany Henbit is strolling through the woods with her bow at her side when she meets a surveyor making surveys where he shouldn't. Dittany is giving him what-for when an arrow goes whizzing above her head. It is sharp enough to kill, and was not fired by accident, but Dittany wasn't the target.

Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindergarten teacher than somebody who could kill you with a wine bottle opener. Or a ballpoint pen. Or a dinner napkin. But the truth is, she’s an Executive Protection Agent (aka "bodyguard"), and she just got hired to protect superstar actor Jack Stapleton from his middle-aged, corgi-breeding stalker.

Nothing heats up Old Town quite like the annual Pie Festival, and this year is no exception, especially since Sophie's professional rival, Natasha Smith, is barred from participating. Sophie, meanwhile, has been asked to oversee the pie eating contest. But the drama really rolls out when celebrity judge, Patsy Lee Presley, host of television's most popular cooking show, bites the crust during the competition, and Sophie's friends are suspected of the crime. As the folks of Old Town dish, the tough truth about Patsy's meteoric rise to domestic stardom begins to leak.

Quinn and Graham’s perfect love is threatened by their imperfect marriage. The memories, mistakes, and secrets that they have built up over the years are now tearing them apart. The one thing that could save them might also be the very thing that pushes their marriage beyond the point of repair.

Cops can make mistakes, even when they're not rookies. Deeply traumatized by a shooting incident, Cass Raines resigned from the Chicago PD, leaving one less female African-American on the force. Now she's the head of a one-woman private investigation agency. She also plays chess with the only father figure she's ever known, Father Ray Heaton. When Father Ray asks Cass to look into a recent spate of vandalism at his church, she readily agrees to handle the case. But only hours later she's horrified to discover his murdered body in the church confessional, a dead gangbanger sprawled out nearby.