British Women Detectives

In the dead of night, four teenagers taking a shortcut through an archaeological dig site find a body in a trench. It doesn’t take long for them to be more scared than they’ve ever been in their lives. These are no ancient remains: the woman was killed just hours earlier . . .

A COLD CASE. A MISSING PERSON. A MURDER WITH NO MOTIVE. AND ONE DEADLY CONNECTION. When private detective Maggie Bainbridge is hired to track down missing software developer Paul Davie, the case seems straightforward - the man had been having a passionate affair with a colleague, and it looks like he's simply run off with his mistress. But ten years earlier, Davie's brother Jaz had drowned in Loch Fyne in tragic circumstances, and now another body has been found in the same loch, this one wrapped in polythene sheeting. The cases can't possibly be connected, can they? But as Maggie delves ...

World War II has finally come home to Britain, but it takes more than nightly air raids to rattle intrepid spy and expert code breaker Maggie Hope. After serving as a secret agent to protect Princess Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, Maggie is now an elite member of the Special Operations Executive–a black ops organization designed to aid the British effort abroad–and her first assignment sends her straight into Nazi-controlled Berlin, the very heart of the German war machine. Relying on her quick wit and keen instincts, Maggie infiltrates the highest level of Berlin society, gathering information to pass on to London headquarters. But the secrets she unveils will expose a darker, more dangerous side of the war–and of her own past.

Fifteen years ago, a serial killer was on a rampage murdering young women in Middlehampton. Then, suddenly, the killings stopped, and the murderer was never found… So when the body of another young woman is found bearing the twisted killer’s unique hallmark—the overpowering stench of lavender and an origami heart—DS Kat Ballantyne knows this can only mean one thing: the killer is back.

August 1911. Emily Hardcastle and her inimitable lady’s maid Florence Armstrong are enjoying a fine summer until Harry, Lady H’s brother, turns up out of the blue with a mystery for them to solve. A routine parachute test at a local aeroplane factory has gone horribly wrong - with pilot Dickie Dupree plummeting to his death. Harry is certain there is more to this ‘tragic accident’ than meets the eye, having discovered that someone at the airfield is leaking top secret intelligence to foreign rivals.

It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.

A man's body is found on a canal towpath. In his pocket, a magnetic letter in the shape of an E. Days later, a second victim is murdered, this time with the letter V tucked into her clothing. When the letter E is located near to a third victim, DI Allie Shenton and her colleagues are sent into full alert. Is their killer spelling a word, a name or are the letters an anagram? One thing's for certain as the body count rises—the eerie, childlike clues point to a pattern that doesn't look like stopping.

Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his wife, Detective Inspector Gemma James, have been invited for a relaxing weekend in the tranquil Cotswolds, one of Britain’s most beautiful and historic regions. A centerpiece of this glorious fall getaway is a posh charity luncheon catered by up-and-coming chef Viv Holland. But a tragic car accident followed by a series of mysterious deaths could ruin her ascent. Each piece of information that surfaces makes it clear that the killer had a connection with Viv’s pub - and perhaps with Beck House itself.

Lord Francis and Lady Ottilia Fanshawe have suffered a devastating blow. With Ottilia sunk deep into a depression, Francis is desperate to get his beloved wife back. So when he hears about a murder at the seaside town of Weymouth, an idea starts to form.... A young girl's body has been discovered, laid out in an open coffin, surrounded by candles. The staged scene, and the fact that the victim was a member of a theatrical troupe, suggests one of her colleagues is the killer. Knowing Ottilia's sharp intuition and penchant for solving mysteries, Francis brings her to the murder site.

DC Sophie Jones was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Viciously bludgeoned one night in a dark alley, she is left fighting for her life in hospital, leaving no clues as to why she was there or what might have motivated the attack. For Detective Karen Hart, fiercely protective of her young protégée, this is already deeply personal: an attack on Sophie is an attack on the whole team. When a car workshop near the crime scene is linked to local mobster Quentin Chapman, the man Hart has spent years trying to bring down, it’s hard not to jump to the most obvious conclusion.

Susan Elia MacNeal introduced the remarkable Maggie Hope in her acclaimed debut, Mr. Churchill's Secretary. Now Maggie returns to protect Britain's beloved royals against an international plot - one that could change the course of history. As World War II sweeps the continent and England steels itself against German attack, Maggie Hope, former secretary to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, completes her training to become a spy for MI-5.

When an elderly priest is murdered, the killer searches the victim so roughly that his already ragged cassock is torn in the process. What was the killer looking for? And what had a dying woman confided to the priest on her deathbed only hours earlier? Mark Easterbrook and his sidekick, Ginger Corrigan, are determined to find out. Maybe the three women who run The Pale Horse public house - and who are rumored to practice the "Dark Arts" - can provide some answers....

When a woman is abducted from a quiet suburban street and bundled into the back of a white van, the only witness to the crime is a child with a reputation for telling tall tales. The police doubt the girl’s story, except for Detective Karen Hart, who is determined to follow her instincts—perhaps because the shy little girl reminds her of the daughter she’s still grieving. When a playing card is found at the scene, Karen finds her first clue. And when a second card is found at the home of a missing woman, Tamara, Karen finds her victim.

Detective Sergeant Ashley McCoy is about to face her most challenging case yet, when her own brother is accused of the callous murder of a young woman. Though desperate to prove his innocence, Ashley is prevented from investigating the case. Instead, she is sent to solve a strikingly similar murder. As she struggles with the immense pressures of work, her own personal life starts to implode when her partner abandons her. Just as things can’t seem to get any worse, a past case comes back to haunt her. Sometimes it takes the pain of the past to uncover the mysteries of the present…

An unexpected jackpot win, a handsome new villager, and an angry landlord... When Allie Day wins three-quarters of a million pounds in a mysterious jackpot, she attempts to help out her friend Bree, owner of her favorite Cotswolds cafe. "Winters will have you giggling into your book!" But instead of making things better, Allie's attempts to help lead her into hot water - and straight to a dead body! Before she knows it, Allie is accused of murder, and written up in the local papers as a killer – and worse, she seems to be in the real killer’s crosshairs! When the killer tries to strike ...

It's with a heavy heart that Jane Austen takes up a new residence at Chawton Cottage in Hampshire. Secretly mourning the lost love of her life, she's stunned to learn that the late Lord Harold Trowbridge has made her heir to an extraordinary bequest: a Bengal chest filled with his diaries, letters, and most intimate correspondence. From these, Jane is expected to write a memoir of the Gentleman Rogue for posterity. But before she can put pen to paper on this labor of love, she discovers a corpse in the cellar of her new home.

Three dark and daunting mysteries for Police Constable Elizabeth West to solve. Can she do it when she is lumbered with a plodding police investigation. 1: On the floor of an old Mansion there is the body of a young girl killed by a poisoned dart. 2: In a village in the mountains a teacher dies from eating poisonous mushrooms. 3: In an old mill town a young man, with connections to China Town, is found dead in his flat! 'Great mysteries.' 'Go Elizabeth West.'

When a top Hollywood Agent is found poisoned in the bathtub of her home, suspicion quickly turns to one of her two nieces. But Carol Childs, a reporter for a local talk radio station, doesn’t believe it. The suspect is her neighbor and friend, and also her primary source for insider industry news. After a media frenzy pits one niece against the other—and the body count starts to rise—Carol knows she must save her friend from being tried in the court of public opinion. Even the most seasoned reporter can be surprised, and when a Hollywood psychic shows up in Carol’s studio one night ...

Determined to make the First Edition Library a success, Hayley Burke wasn’t expecting to have to solve an old friend’s murder in this all-new mystery from USA Today best-selling author Marty Wingate.

Thomas Mundy checks in to London's Wrexley Hotel, but he never checks out. The maid finds him on the floor of his room, bludgeoned to death by his own walking stick. Inspector Witherspoon is soon on the case and learns Mundy was an unlikely victim for such a violent crime. But Mrs. Jeffries and the household staff uncover that Mundy was less an amiable businessman and more a duplicitous con man with enemies on both sides of the Atlantic. Now Witherspoon and his staff must determine who on their lengthy list of suspects had the motive to put Mundy in the red.