Historical Women Detectives

After she captured the interest of detective Sir Charles Sheridan during their first case together, Kathryn Ardleigh and Sir Charles are brought together once more by the demise of a local constable and the disappearance of a child. The sleuthing couple catches a trail of deadly greed and criminal mischief once again and, with the help of a shy woman who calls herself Beatrix Potter, Kate intends to uncover the sinister secrets of Gallows Green.

Mrs. Grace Humiston was an amazing lawyer and a traveling detective during a time when no women were practicing those professions. She focused on solving cases no one else wanted and advocating for innocents. One of her greatest accomplishments was solving the cold case of a missing 18-year-old girl, Ruth Cruger. Her work changed how the country viewed the problem of missing girls, but it came with a price: she learned all too well what happens when one woman upstages the entire NYPD.

When a local publican is murdered, Inspector Witherspoon takes Mrs. Jeffries' advice to heart. He is going to trust his own instincts - but that keeps Mrs. Jeffries in the dark. She must rouse the household staff to action and hope the Inspector doesn't arrest the wrong person before they can solve the crime.

In London, 1946, the Right Sort Marriage Bureau is getting on its feet and expanding. Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge are making a go of it. That is until Lord Bainbridge—the widowed Gwen’s father-in-law and legal guardian—returns from a business trip to Africa and threatens to undo everything important to her, even sending her six-year-old son away to a boarding school. But there’s more going on than that.

A series of baffling murders among a group of imprisoned agents threatens the outcome of World War II in this chilling mystery from the New York Times best-selling author of Mr. Churchill’s Secretary. World War II is raging, and former spy Maggie Hope knows too much. She knows what the British government is willing to do to keep its secrets. She knows the real location of the planned invasion of France. She knows who’s lying. She knows who the double-crossers are. She knows exactly who is sending agents to their deaths.

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.

With London's streets deserted, a young flower girl is murdered. But why was she out so late on the foggiest night of the year? Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard has nowhere to even begin looking for a suspect. However, Mrs. Jeffries, his housekeeper, is even more accomplished at detection than she is at household management. A policeman's widow herself, her quick wits allow her to nudge the inspector in the right direction to solve the mystery.

Like most women, Elizabeth Miles assumes many roles; unlike most, hers have made her a woman on the run. Living on the edge of society, Elizabeth uses her guile to relieve so-called respectable men of their ill-gotten gains. But brutal and greedy entrepreneur Oscar Thornton is out for blood. He's lost a great deal of money and is not going to forgive a woman for outwitting him. With his thugs hot on her trail, Elizabeth seizes the moment to blend in with a group of women who have an agenda of their own.

December 1918: As a difficult year draws to a close, there is much to celebrate for 19-year-old Phoebe Renshaw and her three siblings at their beloved family estate of Foxwood Hall. The dreadful war is finally over; eldest daughter Julia's engagement to their houseguest, the marquis of Allerton, appears imminent; and all have gathered to enjoy peace on Earth, goodwill toward men. But the peace of Foxwood Hall is shattered on the morning of Boxing Day, when the marquis goes missing.

At the foot of a tree shattered by shelling and gunfire, stretcher bearers find an exhausted officer shivering with cold and a loss of blood from several wounds. The soldier is brought to battlefield nurse Bess Crawford's aid station, where she stabilizes him and treats his injuries before he is sent to a rear hospital. The odd thing is the officer isn't British - he's French. But in a moment of anger and stress, he shouts at Bess in German.

Undeterred by world war and enemy submarines, Amelia Peabody, grandmaster Elizabeth Peters' indomitable archaeologist-sleuth, once again sets sail for Egypt, where ghosts of an ancient past and specters of a present-day evil hover silently over an inscrutable land.

1957 - A young woman is found dead in a mews house a mile from Buckingham Palace, wearing only silk underwear and a a diamond tiara. An older man is discovered nearby, garrotted and pierced through the eye with a long, sharp implement. According to the police, a high society card game was going on downstairs that night. One of the players surely committed the murders, but each of them can give the others an alibi.

When Edith responds to an advertisement to become a junior detective for a small detective agency in New York City, she hardly expects to land the job. Surprised and anxious to leave her divorced father and the big city behind to explore the rest of the world, she secretly harbors one small glimmer of hope the owner of the agency can also find her estranged mother while he sends her on a crazy assignment to work undercover as a switchboard operator in Alaska. Tasked with finding a man who appears to be on the run from his family and friends for reasons unknown, Edith is drawn to the ...

Eccentric Annabeth Gentry pretty much keeps to herself. Besides her recent inheritance - and the attention her bloodhound gets for digging up the body of a murdered thief - her life is in fact, rather dull. So why does she think that someone is trying to kill her? That's what Mrs. Jeffries and her staff has to find out. What they discover is a dead body next door, and three attempts on Annabeth's life. It sounds like there's a jealous dog in their midst. Mrs. Jeffries will have to sniff out some clues before the plot thickens....

In 1851, private detective Laetitia Rodd is enjoying a well-earned holiday when she gets an urgent request for her services. Mrs. Rodd’s neighbor Jacob Welland is a reclusive rich gentleman dying of consumption, and he wants Mrs. Rodd to find his brother, who has been missing for 15 years. Joshua Welland was a scholar at Oxford, brilliant, eccentric, and desperately poor when he disappeared from the university. Friends claim to have seen him since, in gypsy camps and wandering around the countryside.

Like your mysteries cozy and set during the Golden Age of Crime? This is the first audiobook in the Posie Parker mysteries, although this novel can be enjoyed as a stand-alone story in its own right. Set in London in 1921, Murder Offstage is full of intrigue and red herrings. When Posie Parker’s childhood friend is robbed of a priceless jewel and becomes a suspect in a cold-blooded murder case, budding detective Posie vows she will clear his name.

It's no rest for the wicked when Kate Shackleton picks up her second professional sleuthing case. But exposing the culprit of a pawn-shop robbery turns sinister when her investigation takes her to the wealthy neighborhoods of Harrogate - and murder is only one step behind. A night at the theater should have been just what the doctor ordered, until Kate stumbles across a body in the doorway. The knife sticking out of its chest definitely suggests a killer in the theater's midst. Kate likes nothing better than a mystery - except solving it.

Bubble, bubble, toil, and murder... When a woman is found dead near her village in Norfolk, the verdict is suicide. Not everyone agrees. Detective James Simpson is ordered to investigate and he brings Agatha Aston, Betty Simpson and Talleyrand the hound, with him. They stumble across a tale of murder that stretches back two centuries. Part occult story, part murder mystery - this creepy tale is steeped in witchcraft and strange rural festivals where everything is not as it seems. The second Agatha Aston murder mystery is full of laughs, twists and things that go bump in the night. Golden ...

The Disappearance of Lisaby Harper Stanwick, Sr. is a gripping mystery novel set in the bustling streets of 1920s New York. Carmen Sinclair, a determined and independent young woman, finds herself entangled in a web of mystery and intrigue when she becomes the secretary to the enigmatic Kensington family. Living under the strict and watchful eye of Mrs. Kensington, Carmen forms a close bond with Lisa Kensington, the sheltered and ethereal daughter of the household. One fateful night, Lisa mysteriously disappears, leaving behind only a few cryptic clues. The family, particularly Mrs. ...

It’s August 1861, and her latest assignment could end the bloody Civil War and bring the fractured United States together again. All she must do is win the trust of her captive: Confederate spy and socialite Rose Greenhow. But with Rose well aware of Kate’s working-class background and belief in abolitionism, it seems an impossible task. Worse, Kate has secrets that make her vulnerable, such as her forbidden love affair with a colleague.