Womens Mystery Fiction

Jane Darrowfield is a year into her retirement, and she's already traveled and planted a garden. She's organized her photos, her recipes, and her spices. The statistics suggest she has at least a few more decades ahead of her, so she better find something to do...After Jane helps a friend with a sticky personal problem, word starts to spread around her bridge club - and then around all of West Cambridge, Massachusetts - that she's the go-to girl for situations that need discreet fixing.

The night of their senior picnic, Scarlett Russo and her best friend Pepper were involved in a car accident that left two of their classmates dead. Afterward, they lied to the police, protecting each other from the consequences. Then Pepper left town and Scarlett never heard from her again.

Deep in the Bavarian forest, archaeologists unearth a medieval human skull with a brick stuffed in its mouth. When Annja Creed catches wind of the strange discovery, the TV host and archaeologist rushes to join the dig. But the superstitious locals are furious, fearing the excavation has angered one of the chewing dead - those who rise from their graves to feast on human flesh and blood. And soon she and her colleagues are facing down violent mobs and death threats. As far as Annja is concerned, though, the vampire myth is a load of bunk. Then a child goes missing.

After a whirlwind romance, London teashop waitress Fleur Richards can’t wait for her new husband, Hugh, to return from the Great War. But when word of his death arrives on Armistice Day, Fleur learns he has left her a sizable family fortune. Refusing to accept the inheritance, she heads to his beloved home country of Australia in search of the relatives who deserve it more.

As a tabby cat with criminal tendencies, MacGyver is always a whisker away from trouble. But when he stumbles upon a litter of four motherless kittens, he really has his paws full. It's clear Mac has to take care of the cuddly little furballs, at least until he finds them each a human. That's not going to be easy though. Not when Mac's the prime suspect in a series of thefts at Storybook Court - and his loving but concerned owners, Jamie and David, have put him under house arrest. As if that could stop a clever cat like Mac....

It is 1946, and war-weary young ex-intelligence officer Lane Winslow leaves London to look for a fresh start. When she finds herself happily settled into a sleepy hamlet in the interior of British Columbia surrounded by a suitably eclectic cast of small-town characters, she feels like she may finally be able to put her past to rest. But then a body is discovered, the victim of murder, and although she works alongside the town's Inspectors Darling and Ames to discover who might have possibly have motivation to kill, she unknowingly casts doubt on herself.

After splurging to buy her childhood home in the Catskills, recently widowed Mikki Lincoln emerges from retirement as a freelance editor. With her ability to spot details that others fail to see, it's not long before Mikki earns clients - and realizes that the village of Lenape Hollow isn't the thriving tourist destination it was decades ago. Not with a murderer on the loose.

Caterer Goldy Bear's wedding day becomes a nightmare when her groom, homicide detective Tom Schulz, calls her from a murder scene and then vanishes. Her only clue to his disappearance is a cryptic note dropped at the scene of the crime. Its biblical references lead her to search for a Judas among her friends in the church congregation.

Addison’s about to get married, but she’s not looking forward to the big day. It’s not her fiancé; he’s a wonderful man. It’s because Addison doesn't know who she really is. A few years ago, a kind driver found her bleeding next to a New Jersey highway and rescued her. While her physical wounds healed, Addison’s memory never returned. She doesn’t know her real name. Or how she ended up injured on the side of a road. Or why she can’t shake the notion that she may have done something very, very bad.

DI Sally Parker has a serial killer on her patch. One thing that sets this killer apart from the others she's hunted before: his willingness to leave DNA at each of the crime scenes. It's up to Sally and her partner, DS Jack Blackman, to find out why before the body count rises to double figures. While Sally is engrossed in the investigation, her ex-husband, Darryl, pays a surprise visit to her new home.

Jane reluctantly agrees to accompany her good friend Cordelia Thorn on a peculiar holiday trip: Cordelia's estranged sister, Broadway star Octavia Thorn, has asked them to attend her wedding. Octavia getting married is no surprise, but her candidate for hubby #4 certainly is. Roland Lester is a reclusive 83-year-old retired Hollywood director. No one can understand how the two met. When the bodies start to drop, Jane realizes it might not be love at all that brought the young diva and the aged director together, but something much deeper, and perhaps more sinister.

A week at a beautiful chateau in the south of France—it should be a straightforward final job for Dora. She's a smart, stunning and discreet escort, and Daniel has paid for her services before. This time, all she has to do is to convince the assembled guests that she is his girlfriend. Dora is used to playing roles and being whatever men want her to be. It's all about putting on a front.

Set in 1944 Chicago, Edgar Award-winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery, the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister's death, brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese-American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.

Police chief Cameron McDonald has lived in idyllic Wheelock, Massachusetts for most of his life, as has his beloved wife Allie. Their comfortable lives are thrown into tumult, however, when Cam's distant cousin Jamie arrives in town along with his wife's dead body. Jamie admits to the murder - a mercy killing to end the pain caused by a ravaging cancer. And now Cam is torn by his oath to uphold justice and his family obligations as chief of the Scottish McDonald clan.

A lurid crime scene photo of a beautiful woman arrives on mystery writer Bunny Prescott's doorstep with no return address - and it's not the first time she's seen it. The reemergence of the photo, taken 55 years earlier, sets her on a journey to reconstruct the vicious summer that changed her life. In the summer of 1945, Ceola Bliss is a lonely 12-year-old tomboy, mourning the loss of her brother, Robbie, who was declared missing in the Pacific. One unforgettable August day, Robbie's friend Jay leads Ceola and Bunny to a stretch of woods where he found a dead woman, but when they arrive, the body is gone.

Professor Olive Twist has come to Zinnia, Mississippi, to study a mysterious grave wherein lies the Lady in Red, a perfectly preserved and stunningly beautiful but unnamed and unclaimed body. Olive claims she can not only identify the corpse, she can also prove the woman’s scandalous role in the nation’s history. Olive takes it a step too far, though, when she starts connecting elite Zinnia families with the same scandal. Dander up, Zinnia’s society ladies know only one way to handle Olive: They call on the private investigative services of Sarah Booth Delaney.

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.

Sitting in cold cars for hours, serving lowlifes with summonses...being a PI means riding out a lot of slow patches. But sometimes the most familiar paths can lead straight to danger - like at Cass's go-to diner, where new delivery guy Jung Byson wants to enlist her expertise. Jung's friend, Tim Ayers, scion of a wealthy Chicago family, has been found dead, floating in Lake Michigan near his luxury boat. And Jung is convinced there's a murderer on the loose....

Folks say the Sugar Creek Theater is haunted. But that doesn't scare off Cookie Chanel, owner of Georgia's chicest vintage clothing store, It's Vintage Y'All - especially since Cookie talks to the ghost of her grandmother every day through her cat Wind Song. Still, after she agrees to be in charge of costumes for a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, she's surprised to find the specter of a young woman in the theater, keeping watch over a trunk of 1950s dresses. And when Cookie's best friend, Heather, is found standing over a stabbed actor, she has two mysteries to solve.

The Winter Carnival always brings holiday cheer to picturesque Shady Creek, Vermont. At the center of the glittering decorations and twinkling lights is booklover and pub owner Sadie Coleman, creating original cocktails, hosting a literary trivia night, and cheering on loyal employee Melanie "Mel" Costas as she competes in the ice carving competition. But holiday cheer can't compete with former resident and renowned chef Freddy Mancini showing off his sculpting skills. During the contest's artists' break, Mel's tools disappear...and Freddy's found dead with Mel's pick in his chest.