Stunning Stories of Fabulous Female Detectives
From the ancient corners of Egypt to sprawling cityscapes, uncover the mysteries hidden deep within these sweeping suspense stories.
Amelia Peabody, that indomitable product of the Victorian age, embarks on her debut Egyptian adventure armed with unshakable self-confidence, a journal to record her thoughts, and, of course, a sturdy umbrella. On her way to Cairo, Amelia rescues young Evelyn Barton-Forbes, who has been abandoned by her scoundrel lover. Together the two women sail up the Nile to an archeological site run by the Emerson brothers-the irascible but dashing Radcliffe and the amiable Walter. Soon their little party is increased by one-one mummy that is, and a singularly lively example of the species.
Strange visitations, suspicious accidents, and a botched kidnapping convince Amelia that there is a plot afoot to harm Evelyn. Now Amelia finds herself up against an unknown enemy-and perilous forces that threaten to make her first Egyptian trip also her last . . .
But first she has one last lecture to deliver. She tells a story that upends everything her students ever thought they knew about two of their peers, and sets in motion a diabolical plot for revenge.
Narrated in alternating voices, with twists you’ll never see coming, Confessions probes the limits of punishment, despair, and tragic love, culminating in a harrowing confrontation between teacher and student that will place the occupants of an entire school in danger. You’ll never look at a classroom the same way again.
The next morning Paddy sees the lead news story: The blonde woman has been murdered, and far from the spoiled trophy wife Paddy assumed her to be, the victim turns out to be a prosecution lawyer with a social conscience.
Bewildered why the woman didn’t take the chance to leave the house when she could, Paddy begins to make connections no one else has seen. When she witnesses the body of a suicide victim being pulled from the river shortly afterward, Paddy suspects links between the two deaths and follows her idea to its shocking—and deadly—conclusion.
When the body of a brutally beaten woman is found on the beach in Jeddah, the city’s detectives are ready to dismiss the case as another unsolvable murder-chillingly common in a city where the veils of conservative Islam keep women as anonymous in life as this victim is in death. If this is another housemaid killed by her employer, finding the culprit will be all but impossible.
Only Katya is convinced that the victim can be identified and her killer found. She calls upon her friend Nayir for help, and soon discovers that the dead girl was a young filmmaker named Leila, whose controversial documentaries earned her many enemies.
With only the woman’s clandestine footage as a guide, Katya and Nayir must confront the dark side of Jeddah that Leila struggled to expose: an underworld of prostitution, violence, exploitation, and jealously guarded secrets. Along the way, they form an unlikely alliance with an American woman whose husband has disappeared. Their growing search takes them from the city’s car-clogged streets to the deadly vastness of the desert beyond.
Stephen Lloyd Jones’s debut novel is a sweeping thriller that extends from the present day, to Oxford in the 1970s, to Hungary at the turn of the 19th century, all tracing back to a man from an ancient royal family with a consuming passion—a boy who can change his shape, insert himself into the intimate lives of his victims, and destroy them.
If Hannah fails to end the chase now, her daughter is next in line. Only Hannah can decide how much she is willing to sacrifice to finally put a centuries-old curse to rest.
Life in Miami isn’t complicated for ex-army medic Camaro Espinoza: Piloting charter fishing trips, fighting at the gym, drinking at the bar. Simple doesn’t mean stable, though, and two complicating factors—okay, people—are about to disrupt Camaro’s relative peace.
Faith Glazer, an accountant with no way to defend herself, begs Camaro’s help to stop a stalker who follows her every move. While Ignacio Montellano, a detective on the homicide beat, wants to be her guardian angel and all too deftly finds ways to insert himself in her path.
When Faith’s stalker takes his obsession to a new, frightening level, Camaro might find reason to appreciate Montellano after all. The deeper they look, the more trouble they find: federal agents, money-launderers, crooked security contractors, and paramilitary killers. Every one of them with a reason to come after Faith, and to put Camaro down. But Camaro—the “female Jack Reacher” (The Toronto Star)—doesn’t flinch when violence comes her way. And she has a singular talent for making her enemies sorry they ever heard her name.
Bailey doesn’t have to look far for her next story: she finds her boss, Mona Hodges, gasping her last breath after being bludgeoned with a blunt object. A raging tyrant, Mona made Buzz a top ‘zine but racked up an impressive list of enemies along the way. Everyone from a chubby singer she dubbed “Fat Chance” to a mail guy she once reamed out would be glad to see Mona six feet under. And Bailey Weggins intends to get the scoop on whodunit even though one of her closest friends is at the top of the suspects list.
With her strappy sandals in one hand and her cell phone in the other, Bailey’s out hunting for clues everywhere from the mean streets of Brooklyn’s Little Odessa to a posh company picnic in the Hamptons. In just about a New York minute she’s got a crush on a sexy filmmaker-and some scary insight into her boss’s murder. The first can give her the hot summer fling she’s itching to have. The second can get her killed…
Prosecutor Dani Fox has handled some gruesome homicide cases, but her investigation into the brutal murder of a local Mafia capo’s daughter goes from tricky to downright dangerous. Although the victim has ties to the New Jersey Mafia, she was also secretly engaged in an affair with someone from a rival New York crime family. As if squaring off against two powerful crime families weren’t enough, Dani suspects that the murder is more than a simple crime of passion, and getting to the bottom of this grisly homicide puts Dani and her long-term boyfriend, Will, in harm’s way. Clever Fox has you rooting for Dani in this deadly fight between the ace prosecutor and an elusive and dangerous killer.
This time around she’s called in to investigate what appears to be a locked-room mystery: A wealthy woman is murdered in the penthouse suite of a luxurious, high-security building. The building’s intricate surveillance system didn’t pick up anything, the entrance wasn’t forced, and the victim’s husband has an airtight alibi. Cases like this, Evelyn knows, can turn on the most microscopic piece of evidence—if she can find any. Things look even trickier when another victim turns up in another penthouse suite. Then Evelyn’s best friend is attacked–and things get personal. And when a third person is found dead, Evelyn realizes that the killer’s choice of victim is anything but random. . .
Waning celebrities, all stunning actresses, each one a shining star turned has-been now struggling to get off the D-List and back into the limelight, meet with a bloody stage exit . . . murder! Hailey’s archenemy, Lieutenant Ethan Kolker, the NYPD cop who hunted Hailey down for the murders of her own patients, now wants the past forgotten and reaches out for Hailey’s help to solve the murders. In a race against the clock, Hailey has no idea that TV can be murder!
In best-selling author, attorney, and TV personality Nancy Grace’s second Hailey Dean thriller, life on television is no less dangerous than life in the courtroom!
Beautifully written, and with a sure grip on the tensions and social mores of small towns in the South, Sweet Jiminy will captivate its readers, and fans of Kristin Gore’s earlier novels will be intrigued and compelled by this new direction for her fiction.
A nationally recognized Shoshone artist, Elwood had been visiting Sharon for the holidays, browsing for gifts in San Francisco’s exclusive Marina district when he was set upon by a mob of angry young men. Now he lies in a coma, hovering between life and death.
With little progress on the investigation from the overworked, short-handed police, Sharon resolves to track down Elwood’s attackers herself. But when Sharon begins receiving hate-filled, racist threats from a shadowy group, it becomes clear that her pursuit of justice may be putting her own life in jeopardy…
Who would kill a woman on her deathbed? Was it an act of mercy, or murder?
Soon Deborah and Dwight realize that the key to solving this case is hidden in Rachel’s mysterious final words. Her mixed-up memories harbored a dark secret-a secret that someone close to them is determined to bury forever.
A hundred years ago, a tiny town on the Puget Sound attracted a passel of bachelors desperate to marry. Thanks to the miracle of mail order, they did, and Weddingville was born. Hollywood costumer Daryl Anne Blessing knows that story all too well, and she hasn’t missed it, or much else about her hometown – except for hunky photographer Seth Quinlan. Now Daryl Anne returns to Weddingville to see her best friend say I do . . . and witnesses a whole lot of something hitting the fan-and it’s not rice.
As the maid of honor, Daryl Anne must keep the bride calm, no matter what. But last time she checked, “what” didn’t include the bride’s estranged mother turning up, scandalizing the locals – and getting herself murdered. Nor did it include digging for clues with Seth, while trying to remember exactly why she left him behind. It’s quite a juggling act, even for a seasoned multi-tasker like Daryl Anne. She soon attracts lusty glances from Seth-and the attention of a killer who’s determined to take this town out of business . . .
When stylish Hillary Whitney dies alone in a locked, windowless conference room at the offices of RAGE Fashion Book, her death is initially ruled an unfortunate side effect of the unrelenting pressure to be thin. But Hillary’s best friend and fellow RAGE editor Catherine Ono knows her friend’s dieting wasn’t a capital P problem. If beauty could kill, it’d take more than that.
When two months later, a cryptic note in Hillary’s handwriting ends up in the office of the NYPD and the case is reopened, Det. Mark Hutton is led straight into the glamorous world of RAGE and into the life of hot-headed and fiercely fabulous Cat, who insists on joining the investigation. Surrounded by a supporting cast of party girls, Type A narcissists and half- dead socialites, Cat and her colleague Bess Bonner are determined to solve the case and achieve sartorial perfection. But their amateur detective work has disastrous results, and the two ingenues are caught in a web of drugs, sex, lies and moisturizer that changes their lives forever.
Viciously funny, this sharp and satirical take on the politics of women’s bodies and women’s work is an addictive debut novel that dazzles with style and savoire faire.
Honors student Sarie Holland is busted by the local police while doing a favor for her boyfriend. Unwilling to betray him but desperate to avoid destroying her future, Sarie has no choice but to become a “CI”—a confidential informant.
Philly narcotics cop Ben Wildey is hungry for a career-making bust. The detective thinks he’s found the key in Sarie: her boyfriend scores from a mid-level dealer with alleged ties to the major drug gangs.
Sarie turns out to be the perfect CI: a quick study with a shockingly keen understanding of the criminal mind. But Wildey, desperate for results, pushes too hard and inadvertently sends the nineteen-year-old into a death trap, leaving Sarie hunted by crooked cops and killers alike with nothing to save her — except what she’s learned during her harrowing weeks as an informant.
Which is bad news for the police and the underworld. Because when it comes to payback, CI #1373 turns out to be a very quick study…
Infused with Mina’s unique blend of dark humor, personal insights and social injustice, the story grips the reader while challenging our perceptions of childhood innocence, crime and punishment, and right or wrong.
Against her better judgment, Tess is drawn to Cambodia and to the killing fields. Keeping her relationship to Luke a closely guarded secret, Tess joins his team of mine clearers, who are shaken to the core by Luke’s sudden death. Even in their grief, the group remains a tightly knit and tightly wound community in which almost everyone has something to hide.
At the same time, the circle of death begins to expand. Teenage mothers are disappearing from villages around the minefields, while others are being found mutilated and murdered, their babies abandoned. Everywhere there are whispers about the White Crocodile, a mythical beast that brings death to all who meet it. Caught in a web of secrets and lies, Tess must unravel the truth, and quickly. The crocodile is watching, and Tess may be its next victim.
Combining the technical expertise of military suspense with a richly drawn sense of place, White Crocodile forges new ground in the thriller genre. Medina’s internationally acclaimed debut announces the arrival of a prodigiously talented novelist whom readers will be discussing for years to come.
