Historical Women Detectives

When a mysterious puppet show arrives in Bishop's Lacey, death is not far behind... a grisly murder during a performance of Jack and the Beanstalk in the village hall reaches back to an earlier crime that has cast a shadow over the village for years. Flavia's investigations test her powers of deduction to the limit - and provide a shocking insight into the darker corners of the adult world.

When Bradon Riggston decides to write his family history, he is shocked to find that many of his relatives and their friends have died by unfortunate accidents. Are Riggston family members and their close associates just unlucky, or is there some sinister power working behind the scenes? Holmes and Watson are called in to investigate, only to uncover a deadly saga of revenge for long-hidden crimes.

Sherlock Holmes said that Mary Morstan might have been most useful in detective work if she had only remained single. She had a decided genius. So, bored with staying at home while her husband is away helping Holmes catch criminals, Dr. Watson's wife decides to have a go at the game herself. In this she is ably assisted by her friend Emily Fanshaw, who likes to play a transvestite role occasionally.

Classic Movies, Ghostly Mischief, and Murder! Nora Paige is settling into her new life as manager of the Palace movie theater. She only has a few things to worry about. Like keeping the theater safely out of the clutches of an evil real estate developer, dealing with her staff of movie-obsessed misfits and their daily meltdowns, and hiding the fact that her new best friend Trixie is the ghost of an usherette who died in 1937. It would also be helpful if she could figure out whether she wants to take her charming-but-cheating husband back. But when someone close to the Palace is murdered, ...

Twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce is back at Buckshaw at last, but her homecoming is overshadowed by news of her father's illness. Forbidden from visiting him in hospital, Flavia busies herself in the village, but she soon makes a macabre discovery: the corpse of a reclusive woodcarver in an empty house, except for a curiously uncurious cat. Curiosity may not kill this cat, but Flavia is energized at the prospect of a new investigation. However, what awaits Flavia will shake her to the core.

The legacy of literary icon Sherlock Holmes is alive and well in 1912 Canada, where best friends Merinda Herringford and Jem Watts continue to develop their skills as consulting detectives. The city of Toronto has been thrown into upheaval by the arrival of radical anarchist Emma Goldman. Amid this political chaos, Benny Citrone of the Royal North-West Mounted Police arrives at Merinda and Jem's flat, requesting assistance in locating his runaway cousin - a man with a deadly talent.

December 1918: There is much to celebrate for 19-year-old Phoebe Renshaw and her three siblings at their beloved family estate of Foxwood Hall. The war is finally over; eldest daughter Julia’s engagement to the Marquis of Allerton appears imminent; and all have gathered to enjoy peace on earth, good will toward men. But the peace is shattered on Boxing Day, when the Marquis goes missing and macabre evidence of foul play turns up in gift boxes given to lady’s maid Eva Huntford and a handful of others.

This mystery is part of the famous "Had-I-But-Known School" of mysteries founded by Mary Roberts Rinehart with the 1908 publication of her first work, The Circular Staircase. The story deals with civic corruption, a popular theme of early American mysteries. Stories like this anticipate the hard-boiled school to come. So does Rinehart's realistic style, which does not gloss over life's problems.

Ireland. AD 671. Sister Fidelma has a mission, and she is sworn by oath to reveal her purpose to no other. The secret investigation leads Fidelma and her companions to the abbey of Finnbarr to question the abbot. But before they have a chance to speak to him, the abbot is found murdered - and the young girl suspected of the crime has fled the scene. Despite their protests, Fidelma's cohorts agree to accompany her in pursuit of the girl for answers.

The Mayor’s Missing Message A Birdie Lou Baxter Mystery – Book Two In the charming Southern town of Haven Hills, where sweet tea flows and gossip travels faster than high-speed fiber, Birdie Lou Baxter just wants a smooth installation job. But when her crew uncovers a decades-old confession tape hidden inside the walls of the mayor’s historic home—and the newly elected mayor vanishes the very next day—Birdie finds herself tangled in a web of long-buried secrets, political cover-ups, and a scandal that threatens to rewrite the town’s history. With the help of her loyal dispatch ...

The theft of a priceless emerald neckless leads to murder and Blythe, the Dowager Duchess of Ashby along with Bow Street Runner Owen Kennedy must rely on a lie to find the killer before they become the next victims.

Ireland, AD 670. When an eminent scholar is found murdered in his cell in the abbey of Lios Mór, fear spreads among his brethren; his door was secured from the inside, with no other means of exit. How did the murderer escape? And what was the content of the manuscripts apparently stolen from the scholar's room? Abbot Iarnla insists on sending for Sister Fidelma and her companion Brother Eadulf to investigate the killing. But even before they reach the abbey walls, there is an attempt on their lives.

Mount Gretna is a community where artists and scholars come every summer to live and work in perfect harmony. However, when that harmony is disturbed by the discovery of a dead body, the local sheriff reaches out to an unlikely resident for help. Best known for bird watching and chewing tobacco, August Summerfield moved to Mount Gretna to enjoy retirement and reconnecting with his niece, Grace. When she urges her uncle to help with the case, Grace begins to learn about her uncle’s secret past in Washington DC. She also learns that he has a sharp eye for details. Whether thwarting ...

Flavia is enjoying the summer, spending her days punting along the river with her reluctant family. Languishing in boredom, she drags a slack hand in the water - and catches her fingers in the open mouth of a drowned corpse. Flavia needs to put her super-sleuthing skills to the test to investigate the murder of three gossips in the local church and to keep her sisters out of danger.

2023 Illustrated Edition Part two of two. How To Frame A Murder: Part Two: Household Of Death Mystery: Horo-sha (the female ronin) and Riko (a streetwise boy) form a duo of crime-fighting investigators. They are well into their first official case together and were investigating a simple theft of a painting, but the case turned horribly wrong when the suspects started dying. Two people are dead and one is near death. Horo-sha has no idea who the mastermind is behind a scheme to frame one of the members of the household. In the conclusion, Horo-sha must put her apt mind against an unknown ...

Toronto, 1914. Merinda Herringford and Jem Watts never could have imagined their crime-solving skills would set them up as emblems of female empowerment in a city preparing to enter World War I at the behest of Great Britain. Yet, despite their popularity, the lady detectives can't avoid the unrest infiltrating every level of society. A war measure adopted by Mayor Montague puts a target on Jem and her Italian husband, Ray DeLuca.

Anne and Emily Brontë have had their books accepted for publication, while Charlotte's has been rejected everywhere, creating a strained atmosphere at the parsonage. At the same time, a shocking court case has recently concluded, acquitting a workhouse master of murdering his wife by poison. Everyone thinks this famously odious and abusive man is guilty. However, he insists he is many bad things but not a murderer. When an attempt is made on his life, he believes it to be the same person who killed his wife and applies to the detecting sisters for their help.

Talented, ambitious designer-dressmaker Rose Burnham knows well both the strains of her profession and the secrets it can yield. Newly established in her own business, she and her sisters are privy to the hushed conversations that unspool behind the fitting room’s closed doors. So when a major client finds herself the victim of a deception, it is Rose she tells. Driven by the shortage of men following the Great War, Miss Holmes had engaged the services of a matrimonial agency, only to be cheated out of her inheritance by a fake suitor.

First published in 1864, decades before there were official female detectives or female police officers in Britain, The Female Detective features the original lady detective: the determined and resourceful Miss Gladden, known as “G”. She examines crime scenes incognito, tracks down killers, and solves mysteries employing all manner of skill, subterfuge, and charm to achieve her ends while attempting to conceal her own identity from others..

Paris, 1929. For Harris Stuyvesant, his current assignment is a private investigator's dream - he's getting paid to trawl the cafés and bars of Montparnasse, looking for a pretty young woman. The missing person in question is Philippa Crosby, a 22-year-old from Boston, whose family have become alarmed at her lack of communication. As Stuyvesant follows Philippa's trail through Paris, he finds that she is known to many of its famous - and infamous - inhabitants, from Shakespeare and Company's Sylvia Beach to the surrealist photographer Man Ray. But when the evidence leads Stuyvesant to the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in Montmartre, his investigation takes a sharp and disturbing turn.