12 Thrillers and Their Unforgettable Female Leads
We love seeing women who can kick ass and take names. These 12 mysteries & thrillers showcase some of our favorite female leads, from detectives investigating cults and cartels to widows banding together to uncover the hidden depths of their seemingly perfect lives. There is something for every type of reader in this book list.
When the body of disgraced reality TV star Desiree Pierce is found on a playground in the Bronx the morning after her 25th birthday party, the police and the media are quick to declare her death an overdose. It’s a tragedy, certainly, but not a crime.
But Desiree’s half-sister Lena Scott knows that can’t be the case. A graduate student at Columbia, Lena has spent the past decade forging her own path far from the spotlight, but some facts about Desiree just couldn’t have changed since their childhood. And Desiree would never travel above 125th Street. So why is no one listening to her?
Despite the bitter truth that the two haven’t spoken in two years, torn apart by Desiree’s partying and by their father, Mel, a wealthy and influential hip-hop mogul, Lena becomes determined to find justice for her sister, even if it means untangling her family’s darkest secrets—or ending up dead herself.
Related: How Kellye Garrett Went From Silver Screen Magic to Award-Winning Crime Fiction Author
Lost something? Gabriela Rose knows how to get it back. As a recovery agent, she’s hired by individuals and companies seeking lost treasures, stolen heirlooms, or missing assets of any kind. She’s reliable, cool under pressure, and well trained in weapons of all types. But Gabriela’s latest job isn’t for some bamboozled billionaire, it’s for her own family, whose home is going to be wiped off the map if they can’t come up with a lot of money fast.
Inspired by an old family legend, Gabriela sets off for the jungles of Peru in pursuit of the Ring of Solomon and the lost treasure of Lima. But this particular job comes with a huge problem attached to it—Gabriela’s ex-husband, Rafer. It’s Rafer who has the map that possibly points the way to the treasure, and he’s not about to let Gabriela find it without him.
Rafer is as relaxed as Gabriela is driven, and he has a lifetime’s experience getting under his ex-wife’s skin. But when they aren’t bickering about old times the two make a formidable team, and it’s going to take a team to defeat the vicious drug lord who has also been searching for the fabled ring. A drug lord who doesn’t mind leaving a large body count behind him to get it.
Anna McDonald has made a terrible mistake. She has forced her blended family to vacation together. The weather is bad, her daughters are bored, and her ex-husband still insufferable. Oh, and Fin Cohen brought his latest girlfriend, too. So when news of a shocking kidnapping breaks, Anna and Fin do the responsible thing. They take off to solve the case.
Lisa Lee, a young YouTube star, has vanished after answering the door to what she thought was a pizza delivery. Police suspect her dad or the delivery guy, but in Lisa’s last known video she ventured into an abandoned chateau in France, where she uncovered a priceless artifact. Anna knows they must find this young woman before it’s too late. To do so, they need to track down that treasure, a casket that could hold answers to the greatest questions ever asked.
But Anna and Fin might have misunderstood the stakes of the game. Soon, they find themselves mixed up with some very dark characters, on another thrilling chase across Europe—and another race to save their own lives.
Related: 8 Mysteries & Thrillers for the True Crime Aficionado
Fast-paced with plenty of twists and turns, The Dime, The Burn, and The Pledge all feature adrenaline-packed rides with Detective Betty Rhyzyk, a six-foot-tall, tough-talking redhead who relocated from Brooklyn to the Dallas Police Department. Cult leaders, Mexican drug cartels, criminal organizations, and the power of old money are making her new job in the Lone Star state complicated, to say the least. Throw in the fact that Betty plays by her own rules, and you’ll find she’s making more than a few enemies along the way. Over the course of these three thrillers by Kathleen Kent, readers get to know Detective Betty’s fiery backstory, lament her complicated love life, and watch her try to acclimate to the culture shock of Texas.
It’s 1920, and young Laurel Plummer is hoping for a fresh start in Foley, Texas. Her dream quickly turns into tragedy. Gritty and determined, she must forge her own path in order to avoid a life of destitution. Meanwhile, War-weary soldier Thatcher Hutton accidentally lands in Foley and steps into unexpected trouble right away. When he arrives at Laurel’s ranch, there is an instant connection between the two.
Set before the backdrop of Prohibition and the lawless West, Blind Tiger delves into the risky business of the moonshine wars. Brown adds in layers of suspense, along with her signature romantic tension, to build a thriller that will take readers through the back-doors of a speakeasy and into the ruthlessness of this time in history.
Claudia is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she's just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency.
A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she's landed her ideal job. But when a client vanishes, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit. Part literary mystery, part family story, The Verifiers is a clever and incisive examination of how technology shapes our choices, and the nature of romantic love in the digital age.
This tale of domestic suspense revolves around the mysterious story of Jade Thompson, a Caribbean woman who is also a rising social media influencer. Recently engaged to Greg, she’s trying to acclimate to a very new, very different, life in suburban Connecticut. When a horrific home invasion leaves Greg with a traumatic brain injury and unable to leave the house, he begins relying on live feeds from his security cameras for information about the outside world.
As the police investigation into the invasion drags on, Greg begins to suspect that Jade isn’t telling him everything. Her public, private, and secret lives slowly begin to bleed together, as Greg’s paranoia steadily grows. Readers will keep questioning the truth behind what Jade is (and isn’t) sharing as they untangle the web of Her Three Lives. What secrets are being kept, and who can you ever really trust?
Flora Zhang knew her husband Adam had secrets but chose to keep her suspicions to herself. Kirsten North’s husband Henry was away on a business trip, trying to turn around his recent bad luck. Two women with nothing in common, except for the fact that their husbands were found murdered in an empty Austin warehouse.
Joined together by unspeakable tragedy, Flora and Kirsten must work together to solve the mystery of what happened—and who is behind it. But what if one of them isn’t telling the whole truth? The lies are building up, relationships are tested, and Flora and Kirsten aren’t sure if they should be allies or adversaries. An Ambush of Widows explores their uneasy alliance as they delve into a dangerous world they didn’t know existed.
Every song tells a story.
She’s a star on the rise, singing about the hard life behind her.
She’s also on the run. Find a future, lose a past.
Nashville is where she’s come to claim her destiny. It’s also where the darkness she’s fled might find her. And destroy her.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner, a thrilling new novel that sends missing persons expert Frankie Elkin into a national forest in Wyoming looking for a young man who disappeared without a trace. But when the search team encounters immediate threats to their survival, Frankie realizes she’s up against something very dark—and she’s running out of time.
Florence Darrow is trudging through her mundane life, working a boring job in a publishing house and wondering if anything exciting will ever happen to her. She dreams of being a famous author, but instead keeps getting knocked down again and again. When it looks like Florence has finally hit rock-bottom, an unexpected opportunity presents itself and she decides to take the leap.
Renowned writer Maud Dixon hires Helen as her new assistant and offers to bring her along on a research trip to Morocco. While things start out idyllic, they quickly go south and Helen’s life begins to upend. She’s suddenly faced with making a dangerous decision that could change everything. Readers of this psychological thriller will be kept in suspense, wondering Who Is Maud Dixon? until the very end.
Related: Psychological and Domestic Thrillers Coming This Year
SFPD Sergeant Lindsay Boxer has guns on her mind.
There’s buzz of a last-ditch shipment of drugs and weapons crossing the Mexican border ahead of new restrictive gun laws. Before Lindsay can act, her top informant tips her to a case that hits disturbingly close to home.
Former cops. Professional hits. All with the same warning scrawled on their bodies:
You talk, you die.
Now it’s Lindsay’s turn to choose.
Related: The 10 Best Women's Murder Club Books by James Patterson
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