Women Detectives

Charlie Harris is stressed out. The Southern Academic Libraries Association is holding this year's annual meeting at Athena College. Since Charlie is the interim library director, he must deliver the welcome speech to all the visiting librarians. And as if that weren't bad enough, the keynote address will be delivered by Charlie's old nemesis from library school. It's been 30 years since Charlie has seen Gavin Fong, and he's still an insufferable know-it-all capable of getting under everyone's skin.

Since she bought her rambling fixer-upper of a house, Jacobia Tiptree has gotten used to finding things broken. But her latest problem isn't so easily repaired. Along with the rotting floor joists and sagging support beams, there's the little matter of the dead man in Jake's storeroom, an ice pick planted firmly in his cranium. Jake's unknown guest turns out to be local boy turned billionaire Threnody McIlwaine.

Isabel Dalhousie grapples with complex matters of the heart as she tries to juggle her responsibilities to friends, family, and the philosophical community. With two small boys to raise, a mountain or articles to edit for the Review of Applied Ethics, and the ever-increasing demands of her niece, Cat, who always seems to need a helping hand at the deli, Isabel barely has any time for herself. Her husband, Jamie, suggests acquiring extra help, and she reluctantly agrees.

A safari expedition in Zambia is the disguise Emily employs in order to locate a professional assassin among her fellow explorers. Along the way, she meets an extraordinary man named Cyrus.

With her personal life in disarray, Julia Lanchester feels she has no option but to quit her job on her father's hit BBC Two nature show, A Bird in the Hand. Accepting a tourist management position in Smeaton-under-Lyme, a quaint village in the English countryside, Julia throws herself into her new life, delighting sightseers (and a local member of the gentry) with tales of ancient Romans and pillaging Vikings. But the past is front and center when her father Rupert tracks her down in a moment of desperation.

Isabel's life is thrown for a few loops when her cousin Mimi arrives from Dallas with her husband Joe. Through Mimi and Joe, Isabel meets Texas hotshot Tom Bruce, who is about to marry someone Isabel suspects of gold-digging. Further complicating matters, Tom seems to have an unusual level of interest in Isabel. Meanwhile, Isabel has her own feelings to deal with, not to mention those of her beloved niece Cat, whose romantic interest may not be up to snuff.

Orchids, Obsession, and Omens: A Thorne Sisters Cozy Mystery Sisters Iris and Poppy Thorne are no strangers to unusual flower requests at their shop, Blossom & Thorne. But when a mysterious man orders a rare blue orchid for a funeral, they sense something is off. Their suspicions grow when the reading of the deceased’s will reveals shocking secrets—secrets that ignite a firestorm of greed and betrayal. Before long, another murder shakes the town of Bloomwood, and the sisters realize the blue orchid isn’t just a flower—it’s the killer’s calling card. Determined to uncover the ...

In the eighth installment of Alexander McCall Smith’s best-selling Isabel Dalhousie series, the inquisitive heroine helps a new friend discover the identity of her father. Jane, a visiting Australian philosopher on sabbatical in Edinburgh, has more questions than answers. Adopted at the age of six, she knows little about her father, other than he was a student in Edinburgh years ago. Always up for a challenge, Isabel is more than happy to help.

Evil Waits For Her Under the Witch's Tree A troubled woman returns to her childhood home in Tempest Grove, West Virginia, determined to find the truth behind her twin sister’s disappearance decades earlier, and soon falls into a malicious killer’s deadly trap. When FBI profiler Bridget Bishop joins the investigation into the woman’s brutal murder, she discovers an unsettling connection to her own mother’s tragic past. Book Eight in the chilling FBI mystery thriller series by Melinda Woodhall, author of the Mercy Harbor Thriller Series, the Veronica Lee Thriller Series, and the ...

Aurora Teagarden is basking in the news of her pregnancy when disaster strikes her small Georgia town: four kids vanish from the school soccer field in an afternoon. Aurora's 15-year-old brother, Phillip, is one of them. Also gone are two of his friends and an 11-year-old girl who was just hoping to get a ride home from soccer practice. And then there's an even worse discovery - at the kids' last known destination, a dead body.

Haunted by the serial killer she never caught, Detective Kimberley King leaves her job in New York and relocates to the sleepy town of Dead Woman Crossing, Oklahoma. Kimberley hopes to bring her daughter Jessica up close to her family, far from the bad memories the city holds. But her quiet new home is not the peaceful place she dreamed of. Within days of her arrival, Kimberley is called to the scene of a terrible crime: her friend Hannah, a single mother, has been brutally murdered while her one-year-old daughter was sleeping nearby.

She keeps house for Inspector Witherspoon...and keeps him on his toes. Everyone's awed by his Scotland Yard successes - but they don't know about his secret weapon. No matter how messy the murder or how dirty the deed, Mrs. Jeffries' polished detection skills are up to the task...proving that behind every great man there's a woman - and that a crimesolver's work is never done.

A Murderer Works Under the Cover of Darkness, Turning Flesh and Blood into Ashes and Bones When the daughter of a local detective goes missing from her home in Belle Harbor, Florida, FBI Special Agent Bailey Flynn joins the search and makes a gruesome discovery. Two dead teenagers have been dumped in an abandoned car near Summerset Park. One of the bodies has already been embalmed. After Bailey uncovers evidence linking the shocking crime scene to a former gravedigger with a gruesome criminal past, she learns that the suspect is already on the run and that another young woman has also gone ...

A Moonlit Ride Ends in Murder, Betrayal, and a Secret Grave When the new barn manager at Wilde Valley Stables goes on a late-night horseback ride and never returns, behavioral analyst and profiler Bridget Bishop investigates the young woman’s disappearance and discovers the hidden graveyard of a killer set on revenge. After the missing person case escalates into a serial murder investigation, a threatening letter is delivered to the local police and press from a vindictive killer identified only as the Wilde Reaper. Terror settles over the small town of Wilde Valley as another grave is ...

Isobel McKenzie is an experienced and intuitive psychotherapist who is on sabbatical while recovering from illness. Reluctantly she goes to London to help out an old friend, solicitor Peter Wright, who is uneasy about the partisan nature of a proposed divorce settlement. He asks her to meet the couple, Thomas and Anne Banks, to assess the situation. Is Anne, a recovering alcoholic, possibly being coerced into signing an agreement which not only gives Thomas control of all their assets but also sole custody of their son? Isobel immediately senses that something is awry and, despite herself, ...

Welcome to Sarah’s Eatery, where the food is to-die-for! Escaping a dreadful marriage and an angry ex-husband, Kylie Berry moves to the small town of Camden Falls, Kentucky, to run her cousin’s café, Sarah’s Eatery. Only one problem: Kylie can’t cook to save her life, and the longtime chef walks out on Kylie’s first day. "Winters will have you giggling into your book!" Answering the call for a new chef, in walks lovely Rachel Summers, a friendly local brownie-addict who immediately gets the job. But when Rachel is found dead a few hours later, all fingers point to Kylie and her ...

When snobby candle maker Darcy Bloom ends up dead outside Junie Carmichael's bookshop, all signs point to local antiques dealer Walter Fitch. But Junie knows he's not the one with a guilty heir. Junie came to Thistleberry Point to pack up her late aunt's bookstore-not stumble over a dead body during the Midsummer Market. Darcy Bloom had a fake lineage, a real brooch, and a knack for making enemies. Now she's dead, and Walter Fitch is the prime suspect. But Junie isn't buying it. With her chatty parrot Edgar, her aunt's spirited best friend Flo, and a stong cup of local gossip, Junie digs ...

What's a kitchen witch to do when her almost-fiance leaves her suddenly single and unemployed? For Mia Malone, the answer's simple: move to her grandmother's quirky Idaho hometown, where magic is an open secret and witches and warlocks are (mostly) welcome. With a new gourmet dinner delivery business - and a touch of magic in her recipes - Mia's hopes are high. But her first catering job takes a distasteful turn when her client's body is found stabbed and stuffed under the head table.

In the summer of 1924, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher is off on a holiday by the sea with her step-daughter Belinda, Belinda's chum Deva, and Daisy's husband, Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard. Daisy is anticipating a relaxing, nondramatic holiday. But Daisy doesn't have that kind of luck.

One afternoon over coffee at Cat’s delicatessen, a friend of Isabel’s shares a call for help from Duncan Munrowe. Crafty thieves have stolen a prized painting from his collection, a work by the celebrated French artist Nicolas Poussin that was earmarked for donation to the Scottish National Gallery. Munrowe has been approached by the thieves and hopes that Isabel will assist him in recovering the painting. Never one to refuse an appeal, she agrees, and discovers that the thieves may be closer to the owner than he ever would have expected.