Womens Mystery Fiction

Pamela is hosting the next Knit and Nibble meeting and can't wait to liven up her otherwise empty home with colorful yarn, baking, and a little harmless gossip. She even recruits Amy Morgan, an old friend who recently moved to town, as the group's newest member. But on the night of the gathering, Amy doesn't show. Not until Pamela finds the woman dead outside - a knitting needle stabbed through the front of her handmade sweater....

When a young girl is found dead in the mountains outside Timber Creek, lifelong resident Officer Mattie Cobb and her partner, K-9 police dog Robo, are assigned to the case that has rocked the small Colorado town. With the help of Cole Walker, a local veterinarian and single father, Mattie and Robo must track down the truth before it claims another victim. But the more Mattie investigates, the more she realizes how many secrets her town holds. And the key may be Cole's daughter, who knows more than she's saying.

Josie Way loved working among the Library of Congress' leather-scented stacks - until she uncovered corruption and made herself a target. As Wilfred, Oregon's new librarian, Josie can stay undercover until the case goes to court. But life in this little town isn't as subdued as she expected. The library, housed in a Victorian mansion, is slated to be bulldozed. Still digesting the news that her safe haven is about to become scrap lumber, Josie discovers a body in the woods....

New York Times best-selling author Joanne Fluke will leave listeners hungry for more with this, her best recipe for murder yet. Devil’s Food Cake Murder finds the residents of Lake Eden, Minnesota, buzzing with activity. Perhaps busiest of all is Hannah Swensen, proprietor of The Cookie Jar, who is experimenting with a devil’s food cake recipe. But no matter how hectic times may be, Hannah can always find time to help a friend—particularly a dead one.

Jessica is invited to join other crime writers at an interactive murder mystery weekend in a historic mansion turned resort. A theatrical troupe presents a play for the paying guests, but a young actor's death during the actual performance isn't part of the script. The local sheriff has never investigated a murder before and enlists Jessica's help and expertise. As she begins to put the pieces together in her folksy fashion, Jessica recognizes that this could well be her last performance.

Hollywood has come to Lake Eden and The Cookie Jar is snack central for the movie crew. And when the demanding director turns up dead after someone switches the movie's prop gun with a real gun, there's a baker's dozen worth of suspects.

Published in instalments in 1859, The Woman in White is often considered to be one of the very first detective novels. Although critics weren’t impressed at the time, the novel proved to be a hit with the public and has since gone on to become one of the timeless classics of the Victorian era. Following the adventures of Walter Hartright, this is a story of sleuthing, inheritance, ghosts and mistaken identity and was recently the subject of a hit TV adaptation by the BBC.

Hannah Swensen, amateur sleuth and boutique bake store proprietor extraordinaire, is judging a dessert contest when fellow judge Coach Boyd Watson is found dead, face down in a delicate confection no less.

Deputy Mattie Cobb is in a dark place and has withdrawn from Cole Walker and his family to work on issues from her past. When she and her K-9 partner, Robo, get called to track a missing junior high student, they find the girl dead on Smoker's Hill behind the high school, and Mattie must head to the Walker home to break the bad news. But that's only the start of trouble in Timber Creek because soon another girl goes missing - and this time it's one of Cole's daughters.

When Deputy Ken Brody's sweetheart goes missing in the mountains outside Timber Creek, Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner Robo are called to search. But it's mid-October and a dark snow storm is brewing over the high country. And they're already too late. By the time they find her body, the storm has broken and the snow is coming down hard.

In the gentle coastal town of South Cove, California, all Jill Gardner wants is to keep her store - Coffee, Books, and More - open and running. So why is she caught up in the business of murder? When Jill's elderly friend Miss Emily calls in a fit of pique, she already knows that the city council is trying to force Emily to sell her dilapidated old house. But Emily's gumption goes for naught when she dies unexpectedly and leaves the house to Jill, along with all of her problems...and her enemies.

Often compared to both Ruth Rendell and P.D. James, Deborah Crombie is internationally acclaimed for her deftly written mysteries that combine suspense, with lyrical prose. Sharply etched characters further enrich this story of tangled relationships and dark secrets. Twelve years after their divorce, Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid receives a phone call from his ex-wife Victoria asking for his help.

After a routine delivery, midwife Sarah Brandt visits her patient in a rooming house and finds that another boarder, a young girl, has been killed. At the request of sergeant Frank Malloy, she searches the girl's room and discovers that the victim is from one of the most prominent families in New York - and the sister of an old friend. The powerful family, fearful of scandal, refuses to permit an investigation. But with Malloy's help, Sarah begins a dangerous quest to bring the killer to justice before death claims another victim.

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.

It’s not every day that you’re summoned to the Italian countryside on business, so when archaeologist Angelo Morelli asks for Ruth Galloway’s help identifying bones found in the tiny hilltop town of Fontana Liri, she jumps at the chance to go, bringing her daughter along with her for a working vacation. Upon arriving, she begins to hear murmurs of Fontana Liri’s strong resistance movement during World War II and senses the townspeople are dancing around a deeply buried secret. But how could that be connected to the ancient remains she’s been studying?

The first rule of a supernatural fight club? Don't kill your opponent. When the fighters come with lethal spells, werewolf strength, and half-demon powers, that can be a lot tougher than it sounds. It's hard to attract talent if they know they might not leave the ring alive. So when fighters at a California club start dying, it's bad for business. Witch detectives Paige Winterbourne and Savannah Levine take the case.

When a maid in the upper class Ellison household is strangled, Inspector Pitt is called in to investigate. He finds a world ruled by strict manners and social customs, where the inhabitants of the Ellison's neighborhood appear to be more outraged by the thought of scandal than they are by murder. Inspector Pitt finds a most unlikely ally in Charlotte, the Ellison's spirited daughter. But as the murders continue, Charlotte and Pitt find themselves drawn together by more than the investigation.

In a secluded farm house in the Pacific Northwest, a family has been slaughtered - and a teenage son has disappeared. Single mother and cop Emily Kenyon spearheads a dark hunt for a killer. But Emily's teenage daughter, Jenna, is one step ahead of her. Then another family is butchered, and another. As Emily fits the puzzle pieces together, she makes a chilling discovery: The killer is coming after her and her daughter....

All Mrs. Pollifax has to do is help a bumbling CIA agent confirm the identities of seven undercover informants in Morocco. A simple assignment. But right away, things go wrong. The first informant is murdered just after Mrs. P. identifies him in Fez. Worse, she has the frightening sensation that her associate is not who or what he says he is.

Now that Alexandra "Alex" Donavan is finally free of her troubled upbringing, she's able to live out her childhood dream of working for the FBI. But soon after she becomes a member of the FBI's elite Behavioral Analysis Unit, authorities in Kansas and Missouri contact them about bodies found on freight trains traveling across the country - all killed in the same way.