Womens Mystery Fiction

"This is a very difficult letter to write. I hope you will not hate us too much.... My son broke into your home recently while you were out." In a quiet, leafy suburb in upstate New York, a teenager has been sneaking into houses - and into the owners' computers as well - learning their secrets, and maybe sharing some of them, too. Who is he, and what might he have uncovered? After two anonymous letters are received, whispers start to circulate, and suspicion mounts. And when a woman down the street is found murdered, the tension reaches the breaking point.

Burnt-out social worker Amalie Holmes thinks she's finally caught a lucky break in the form of a free cottage from her mystery great aunt. With nothing to lose, Amalie heads for the hills, or, in this case, the mountains. Turns out the cottage comes with a big family secret: Amalie is from a long line of witches. She quickly discovers that living in a new town isn't easy, especially when lightning strikes whenever she loses her temper! When an orphaned 11-year-old stands accused of murder, Amalie's social worker instincts compel her to solve the case and clear the child.

Miss Daphne Beekman is a mystery writer by day, inquiry agent by night. Known for her ability to puzzle out plots, she happily works behind the scenes for the Bleecker Street Inquiry Agency, staying well away from danger. However, when Mr. Herman Henderson arrives on the doorstep of the agency, desperate for someone to investigate numerous attempts on his life, Daphne soon finds herself in the thick of a case she's determined to solve.

It is the spring of 1885, and wealthy New York socialite Beret Osmundsen has been estranged from her younger sister, Lillie, for a year. Then she gets word from her aunt and uncle that Lillie has died suddenly in Denver. What they do not tell her is that Lillie had become a prostitute and was brutally murdered in the brothel where she had been living. Detective Mick McCauley may not want her involved in the case, but Beret is determined.

A young nanny who plunged to her death, or was she pushed? A nine-year-old girl who collects sharp objects and refuses to speak. A lawyer whose job it is to uncover who in the family is a victim and who is a murderer. But how can you find out the truth when everyone here is lying? Rose Barclay is a nine-year-old girl who witnessed the possible murder of her nanny—in the midst of her parent's bitter divorce—and immediately stopped speaking.

London, July 1889. Eight months have passed since the horrific murder of Mary Jane Kelly. The residents of Whitechapel have begun breathing easy again - daring to leave windows open and walk about at twilight. But when old Alice McKenzie is found dead, throat slashed from ear to ear, the whispers begin once more: Jack the Ripper is back. Constance Piper, a flower seller with a psychic gift, was a friend to both women. With the supernatural help of her late mentor and her more grounded ally, police detective Thaddeus Hawkins, she uncovers links between the murders and a Fenian gang.

Molly Gray is not like anyone else. With her flair for cleaning and proper etiquette, she has risen through the ranks of the glorious five-star Regency Grand Hotel to become the esteemed Head Maid. But just as her life reaches a pinnacle state of perfection, her world is turned upside down when J.D. Grimthorpe, the world-renowned mystery author, drops dead—very dead—on the hotel’s tea room floor.

Maddie Kosloski is no fan of San Benedetto's Christmas Cow, a 30-foot straw bovine that graces the town square every December. For one thing, the cow displaces her paranormal museum as the number one tourist attraction. Plus, every year, despite around-the-clock surveillance, the cow goes up in flames. But this year, there's more than just a fire blazing in Maddie's wine-country hometown. One of the Christmas Cow guards has been found with an arrow in his chest, and Maddie's new haunted cowbell exhibit is fueling a panic.

Nothing much happens in Myrtle Grove, Oklahoma. So when prominent businessman Harry Kerr is discovered face down in his pool shortly after dawn, the breakfast crowd in Jesse Camden's tearoom is buzzing. Recognizing the name, Jesse hurries to her friend Vivian Windsor, Myrtle Grove's resident oil heiress. Vivian is the great-aunt to Bliss Kerr, widow of the deceased and soon-to-be prime suspect in his suspicious death.

It's Wine and Chocolate Days in San Benedetto, and paranormal museum owner Maddie Kosloski has sweet dreams about her new Magic of Chocolate exhibit. Her latest attraction is a haunted Mexican whisk called a molinillo that rattles if someone lies. When Maddie visits the town's new boutique chocolate shop, she finds one of the owners dead and covered in melted cocoa.

Having solved the shooting death of her cheating husband, Lilly's left behind the drama of Lighthouse Dunes, Indiana, to start over in the hometown of her best friend, Scarlett "Dixie" Jefferson. As she gets settled in her new rented house, Lilly gives Aggie her own fresh start by enrolling her in the Eastern Tennessee Dog Club. But drama seems to hound Lilly like a persistent stray. When Aggie unearths the buried body of a mysterious man who claimed ownership of a lost golden retriever Lilly recently rescued, it's up to Lilly and Dixie to try to muzzle another murderer.

Living on her family’s gorgeous lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, clever, inquisitive, innocent, and precociously talented fourteen-year-old who loves to write stories. But the mysteries she pens are no match for the one her family is about to endure ...One midsummer’s eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest son, Theo, has vanished without a trace.

With her inquisitive mind, Charlotte Holmes has never felt comfortable with the demureness expected of the fairer sex in upper class society. But even she never thought that she would become a social pariah, an outcast fending for herself on the mean streets of London. When the city is struck by a trio of unexpected deaths and suspicion falls on her sister and her father, Charlotte is desperate to find the true culprits and clear the family name. She’ll have help from friends new and old—a kind-hearted widow, a police inspector, and a man who has long loved her.

As a private eye in New York City, it’s Jessica Jones’s job to investigate humanity’s worst, unleashed impulses. Possessing superhuman strength and endurance does nothing to help her process other people’s tragedies, much less her own slate of unresolved traumatic issues. Realizing drinking and hitting things is no way to cope with her problems—no matter how much fun it is—Jessica gives therapy a try. But she finds it hard to look after herself when so many people need help.

For residents of Salem, Massachusetts, the day after Halloween brings empty candy wrappers, sagging pumpkins, and a community-wide identity crisis. That is, until Lee Barrett's TV production class suggests extending the spooky season with the traditional Mexican celebration Dia de Los Muertos. But when the students discover not all of Salem's dead are resting in peace, the post-October blues don't seem so bad after all....

When Monica Albertson comes to Cranberry Cove - a charming town on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan - to help her half brother, Jeff, on his cranberry farm, the last thing she expects to harvest is a dead body. It seems that Sam Culbert, who ran the farm while Jeff was deployed overseas, had some juicy secrets that soon prove fatal, and Jeff is ripe for the picking as a prime suspect.

Mystery author Rachel Goldman is getting used to the idea that her fictional creation, Duffy Madison, has somehow taken flesh-and-blood form and is investigating missing person cases not far from where Rachel lives. Wait. No. She's not getting used to it at all, and the presence of this real-life Duffy is making her current manuscript - what's the word? - lousy.

New to the historic town of Metamora, Indiana, Cameron Cripps-Hayman is looking to make friends with her neighbors. What she isn't looking for is one of their bodies floating in the canal. When she and her estranged husband, the town sheriff, are both named suspects for the murder, Cameron takes solving the crime into her own hands, teaming up with her eccentric coworkers who dub themselves The Metamora Action Agency.

Angie Turner's restaurant, The County Seat, is conveniently located near a first-class farmers market - so her menu is full of fresh ingredients. But a visiting culinary professor has just had a taste of something very unhealthy.... Angie first meets Daniel Monet at a local mission, where she and her chef-in-training, Hope, are serving barbecued chicken poutine to the homeless. Monet is one of Hope's teachers - but Angie's boyfriend knows him from his youthful days in England. But soon, the bon vivant is no longer vivant.

From the best-selling author of Before We Were Yours comes a dramatic historical novel of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students’ lives.