Womens Mystery Fiction

Alchemist Zoe Faust and her impish gargoyle sidekick Dorian Robert-Houdin travel to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to investigate a mysterious discovery found in the wreckage of the tragic fire: a long-lost gargoyle illustration drawn by Victor Hugo himself. When the work of art is stolen under impossible circumstances, Dorian must use his “little gray cells” — not to mention his culinary skills — to solve the crime and discover the true origins of where he came from.

When Jennifer Smiley’s grandmother, Ginny, leaves her an old farmhouse on Edgewater Road in seemingly quiet Ross County, Ohio, Jennifer can’t pass up the opportunity for a new beginning. Almost immediately, she meets a group of men who generously help her move in. When she realizes that they work for Lincoln Bennett, her next-door neighbor, she’s intrigued. Lincoln is gorgeous and has dark lapis-blue eyes she could get lost in...but he doesn’t seem all that friendly. She’s torn between getting to know him and sticking with the solitude she knows so well.

When coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi awakens on a bench in Washington Square Park, she has no idea she’s been missing for the past week, or that her friends and family have been frantic with worry. Now that she’s back, everyone is overjoyed, including a handsome NYPD detective who claims to be her fiancé. But to Mike Quinn’s crushing distress, Clare doesn’t remember him, or much of anything about the last decade of her life.

Forensic anthropologist Caitlin Fleming knows bones. So she is the first one called when seven sets of skeletal remains are found dumped in a makeshift graveyard in the Oregon wilderness. The skeletons bear the same distinctive marks - and each is minus a skull.

I only wanted a cup of coffee. Alone. It was a simple request, right? Just stroll into the coffee shop on the corner, grab my usual cup of liquid nitrogen, and walk back out. All while minding my own business. But I had to walk in at that exact moment. Not 10 minutes earlier. Not 10 minutes later. Precisely when Savannah Fields needed someone to help her. When no one except me had the courage to stand up for her. After the incident, she looked at me like I was her hero. But I'm no hero. I don't even know who or what I am anymore. Who is Nick Tucker? A DEA agent? A criminal? Both?

Running the family bakery and living in the store's attic might not be Daisy's dream life, but she's beginning to understand what being content feels like. And then she gets some unexpected news. In one moment, Daisy's calm existence turns into chaos. Now she's struggling to keep it together, especially with renovations at the bakery spiraling out of control.

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.

Restaurant critic Derek Schumaker, notorious for his bitter reviews, is about to visit Daisy's Tea Garden, and Daisy and Aunt Iris are simmering with anxiety. A bad word from the culinary curmudgeon could really hurt their business. But how can he resist her cucumber sandwiches with pimento spread - not to mention the cheesy cauliflower soup and strawberry walnut salad? Schumaker takes a to-go order when the afternoon tea service is done, which Daisy hopes is a good sign. But when he perishes from a seizure, it looks like his food was dosed with something deadly.

As yuletide settles upon Gwenafwy Abbey, the rural Welsh convent's peace is shattered when Tiffany Reese, president of the Village Art Society, is found dead on the floor of the parish hall. Sister Agatha, whose interests lie more with reading and writing mystery stories than with making the abbey's world-renowned organic gouda, is not shy about inserting herself into the case. With the not-entirely eager assistance of Father Selwyn, she begins her investigation.

San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage. Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace.

In Cara Black’s “accomplished, absorbing debut” ( Kirkus Reviews), PI Aimée Leduc must decrypt a digitized photo from the 1940s. But when Aimée visits the historic Jewish quarter of Paris to deliver the picture, she finds its intended recipient murdered—and with a swastika carved in her aged forehead

When an old friend of her ex-husband develops the world's first botanically decaffeinated coffee bean and smuggles it into the country, Clare Cosi believes it's a business opportunity she needs to investigate... at least until the first dead body shows up. With casualties piling up and a complicated blend of old and new loves muddying the waters, it's up to Clare to find the murderer before one of her near and dears takes the fall. Otherwise, her latest addition to the menu will prove to be a real buzz killer….

A weekend getaway in an isolated country house is just what Caitlin needs to fix her relationship with husband Eli. Her spirits are up as they enter the spacious retreat and cool off in the nearby lake. With Eli's easy-going brother accompanying them - the party was his idea - the barbecue lit and beers cracked open, everything should be set for a perfect evening. But her husband is cold and dismissive, so Caitlin decides to drown her sorrows and heads into the wine cellar. What she finds there will change their lives forever.

There's a killer on the loose in San Francisco, and he's stalking newlyweds. When the usual procedures to stop him don't work, four women, each holding a piece of the puzzle, form a Women's Murder Club to collaborate outside the box and pursue the case. 1st to Die is the start of a new series of crime thrillers from James Patterson.

Tending to the soldiers in the trenches of France during the First World War, battlefield nurse Bess Crawford can't help but notice the photo of a young pilot's wife every time she tends to him. But then at the railway station, in a mob of troops leaving for the front, Bess glimpses a familiar face - the pilot's wife, with another man. Later, back in France, Bess sees a newspaper with a drawing of the woman's face on the front page. She'd been murdered - the very day Bess saw her.

Years after an Easter weekend tragedy devastates a family, they return to the house they grew up in to unearth the many secrets hidden within the nooks and crannies of home.

It's wedding season on Nantucket. The beautiful island is overrun with summer people - an annual source of aggravation for year-round residents. When one lavish wedding ends in disaster before it can even begin - with the bride-to-be discovered dead in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony - everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash digs into the best man, the maid of honor, the groom's famous mystery novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, the chief discovers that every wedding is a minefield - and no couple is perfect.

A grieving young widow, Charlene needed a new start - so she bought a historic mansion, sight unseen, and drove from Chicago to New England to start turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. On her first night in the house, she awakens to find a handsome man with startling blue eyes in her bedroom. Terror turns to utter disbelief when he politely introduces himself as Jack Strathmore - and explains that he used to live here - when he was alive. He firmly believes that someone pushed him down the stairs three years ago, and he won't be able to leave until someone figures out who.

After a tragic loss, Jessica Chamberlain changes jobs, moves, and adopts a rowdy German shepherd. The two begin training with a Virginia search-and-rescue group. The group's training director, Nathan Tanner, is a former military working dog handler with scars of his own and he quickly picks up on Jess's ongoing anxiety. After the unexpected discovery of a body in the woods, Jess and her dog and Nate are drawn into the FBI's search for an abductor targeting women. Tormented by her past and terrified of the future, Jess still forges ahead.

To get a fresh start away from a bad relationship, Kylie Strange moves across the country to open a shop in a seemingly quiet town in rural Maine. During renovations on Strange Herbs & Teas, she discovers a peculiar and ancient codex, The Booke of the Hidden, bricked into the wall. Every small town has its legends and unusual histories, and this artifact sends Kylie right into the center of Moody Bog's biggest secret.