Womens Mystery Fiction

Jill Gardner has volunteered her Coffee, Books, and More to host a Christmas adopt-a-pet party. Among the potential forever friends is a male terrier named Baby, whose owner died of a heart attack. With few clues to go on, even finding the name of Baby's human is a daunting task. But there's no challenge too big for Jill this holiday season. Playing Santa's Little Helper, Jill is determined to find out what happened - and to fulfill a long-time coming Christmas wish.

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

Still in hiding after infiltrating a dangerous gang, Cassidy Livingston just has to make it a few more months before she can testify at trial and resume her old life. But trouble keeps finding her, and Cassidy is pulled into a local investigation after a man mysteriously disappears from the island she now calls home. A recurring nightmare from her time undercover only muddies things, as does a visit from the parents of her handsome ex-Navy SEAL neighbor. When a friend's life is threatened, Cassidy must make choices that put her on the verge of blowing her cover.

London is Lydia Crow’s city so when a man is found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge, she takes it personally. Even when it seems as if the Silver Family might be involved, Lydia refuses to back down. The Silver Family, who run the finest law firm in London, have a gift for persuasion. In the 'Bad Old Days' it was said they could make a man jump off a roof by convincing him he could fly. But that's all in the past...isn’t it?

Daisy, a widowed mom of two teenagers, is used to feeling protective - so when Iris started dating the wealthy and not-quite-divorced Harvey Fitz, she worried...especially after his bitter ex stormed in and caused a scene at the party Daisy's Tea Garden was catering. Then there was the gossip she overheard about Harvey's grown children being cut out of his will. Daisy didn't want her aunt to wind up with a broken heart - but she never expected Iris to wind up a suspect in Harvey's murder.

It's the most dangerous case of Will Trent's career. He knows this from the moment he sets foot in the abandoned Atlanta warehouse where a body lies on the floor—the body of an ex-cop. Bloody footprints leading away from the scene reveal that another victim, evidently a woman, was carried away and has vanished into thin air. And, worst of all, the warehouse belongs to the city's biggest and most high-profile athlete—a local hero protected by the world's most expensive lawyers.

In July 1970, actress Elaina Styles was slain in her rented Seattle mansion along with her husband and their son's nanny. When the baby's remains were found buried in a shallow grave close to a hippie commune, police moved in - only to find all its members already dead in a grisly mass suicide. Now, decades later, a film about the murders is shooting at the mansion. On-set caterer Laurie Trotter ignores gossip that the production is cursed. But then people start dying....

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins. A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

London, 1883. Actress Lizzie Dixie drowned in the River Thames, so how was she murdered five years later in Highgate Cemetery? Intrepid Fleet Street reporter Penny Green was a friend of Lizzie's, and Scotland Yard needs her help. Does Penny unwittingly hold clues to Lizzie's mysterious death? Penny must work with Inspector James Blakely to investigate the worlds of theater, showmen, and politicians in search of the truth. But who is following her? And who is sending her threatening letters?

As a 14-year-old girl in London, Alice survived a horrific stabbing attack by two classmates obsessed with Mister Tender, a graphic novel character created by Alice's own father. Now, a decade later and an ocean away, Alice is trying to focus on the present - but the past won't leave her alone. Someone knows far more than they should - not just about the night she's tried so hard to forget, but also deeply private details about Alice's life.

Kelly Roth, FBI profiler, returns home to Syracuse to stop a sadistic serial killer. Three murders in three separate jurisdictions in central New York State have the same pattern: women killed by fatal headshots from a hunting rifle. Kelly Roth is sent from Virginia to help the local police. Each victim was found murdered in a remote area or in a quiet park. The media call him “The Park Killer.” But Kelly doesn’t think the killer lurks in the bushes. She thinks he hunts his victims somewhere else.

Now an official Witch Apprentice, Amalie is back to work and busier than ever. With the new school year on the horizon, she's got PTA meetings and parent-teacher conferences, on top of all her magical responsibilities. Oh, and Taylin is being possessed by ghosts, boyfriend Reese is a temporary houseguest, and Amalie has been recruited as a chaperone on Taylin's next field trip. When the head of the PTA, Becky, is found dead after Amalie serving her lunch, both Amalie and Taylin are tossed into a murder investigation of the human variety this time.

South Cove's local businesses are up in arms after volunteer fire chief Barry Gleason threatens to shut down anyone who doesn't comply with the fire code. But when Barry schedules a training burn in an old abandoned barn, he is the only one who doesn't come out alive. Jill Gardner - owner of Coffee, Books, and More - smells murder in the ashes. She'll have to work quickly to nab a killer with a short fuse - or else everyone's holiday will end with a fizzle.

Twelve years ago, forensic anthropologist Jamie Cash survived a brutal kidnapping. After years of therapy, she has made a life for herself, though it is one that is haunted by memories of her terrifying past. She finally lets herself believe that she can have a close relationship with a man, when signs start appearing that point to one frightening fact: her attacker is back and ready to finish the job he started all those years ago. Can Jamie escape her attacker's grasp a second time?

After enduring years of her nobleman father's cruelty and abuse, Celestina Lunde is ready to take her own life rather than enter into an arranged marriage with an equally brutal man. But just when she is about to leap through the window of her tower bedroom, a brawny Highland warrior arrives at her home and changes everything.

Jill Gardner, owner of Coffee, Books, and More is almost out of Mother's Day cards. She has a few more in stock, but she's set them aside because she needs Greg's help choosing one for his mother. It'll be Jill's first time meeting her boyfriend's mother, and she's understandably nervous. Turns out Jill isn't the only one having feelings about mothers. Kyle, who works at the antiques store next door, needs to find the perfect card for a mother he hasn't seen since he was five - when she went away to jail.

A teenage girl disappears after witnessing a gangland murder in Chicago. Nine months later and heavily pregnant, she arrives in England … only to disappear again. Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg, working out of the US embassy in London, has just two days to find the girl and get her to testify or else a brutal killer walks free. But Ingrid isn’t the only one looking for the girl, and a gang war that started on the streets of Chicago is about to explode in the peaceful English countryside.

Alexandra Campbell’s life comes to a crashing halt the night her younger sister is killed during a convenience store robbery. Shattered by guilt, Alex distances herself from her friends and family. Months later, with the police investigation stalled, she fears justice may never be served. Determined to avenge her sister’s murder, Alex disguises herself and joins the gang responsible for the shooting.

Two students coming home from a drunken night out see something strange in the river. It is a young woman’s body. Hours later, a second young woman’s body is discovered on another stretch of the same river. DS Ava Merry and DI Jim Neal are assigned to both investigations. And they’re joined by a new detective, Tom Knight. Soon a connection is found between the two dead women. A list of 'victims' is discovered in one of their flats. Who will be next, and what really happened to the women on this sinister list?

Two cyclists die on the Somerset Levels, and the Exham bakery gets the blame. Libby Forest runs into danger as she sets out to solve the mystery, save the bakery and rescue her career, helped by Bear, the enormous Carpathian Sheepdog, Fuzzy, an aloof marmalade cat, and the handsome, secretive Max Ramshore. Set in the coastal resort of Exham on Sea, Murder on the Levels features a cast of local characters, including Mandy the teenage Goth, her new boyfriend, Steve, Frank the baker, and Detective Sergeant Joe Ramshore, Max's estranged son.