Womens Mystery Fiction

Late one moonlit night, Walter Hartright encounters a solitary and terrified woman dressed all in white. He saves her from capture by her pursuers and determines to solve the mystery of her distress and terror. Inspired by an actual criminal case, this gripping tale of murder, intrigue, madness and mistaken identity has never been out of print since its publication and brought Collins great fame and success.

FBI agent Sarah Cole is stunned to receive an invitation to the “Game of Nines,” the most secretive and longest-running murder puzzle in history. Thrust into a mystery that has confounded law enforcement for decades, she proves to be an unexpectedly formidable "player"—and might finally end the deadly game once and for all.

Middlebridge Mysteries follows Violet Wilner (Anna Cathcart) kicking off her first year at Middlebridge University, living her dream of attending her mom’s alma mater. Inspired by watching her dad, a cop, solve crimes in her hometown, she studies criminology under a renowned but demanding Professor Bellows (Eric McCormack). She has her hands full, juggling her coursework, her social life and her insecurities as she embarks on this next chapter.

Our dream home. A fresh start. But the house comes with secrets — and so do the neighbours. The moment we moved in, I knew something was wrong. A cracked stove. Scribbles on the wall. The lights flicking off every evening — always at the same time. Our daughter crying in the night, pointing at the corner of her room. "She has no face." Now the gifts are arriving. Notes through the door. A bottle left in the kitchen with no explanation. And my daughter won't stop screaming in her sleep. Everyone thinks I'm imagining it. But I know what I saw. What I heard.

Eel Marsh house stands alone, surveying the windswept salt marshes beyond Nine Lives Causeway. Mrs Alice Drablow lived here as a recluse. Now Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor with a London firm, is summoned to attend her funeral, unaware of the tragic and terrible secrets which lie behind the house's shuttered windows.

Welcome to Book Club! Emma has it all. Jules knows it all. Rosa's seen it all. Marianne's done it all. Lucy watches it all. And Lydia wants it. All.. The wine flows as freely as the secrets, but this is Book Club and Book Club has its rules. But someone is breaking them. And someone is letting her. She wants your life (And your books recs) and she'll do anything to get it. When Emma gets arrested at Book Club, it leaves everyone around her reeling. The women scramble to protect their friend and restore the peace, and Lydia will do anything it takes.

Jenny sits in the same seat on the same train every week, seeing familiar faces come and go. Until a chance encounter shatters her world. Sixteen years ago, Jenny survived a traumatic ordeal that left her best friend, Susie, missing and presumed dead. The world has its theories about what happened to Susie Patterson, and one of those theories points the finger at Jenny. Now she lives a quiet life, volunteering at a crisis helpline while trying to deal with her own anxiety and the true crime fans obsessed with finding her missing friend.

Dr. Margaret Richter has it all. She’s rich, thanks to her best-selling self-help books. She has a beautiful home in Cape Cod overlooking the beach. And she has a monthly book club that everyone is dying to get invited to. Literally. Because behind the crystal wine glasses, the fine linens and the catered hors d'oeuvres lies a tangled web of secrets, of deceit, of murder. No member of the book club is innocent—and many are guilty. And the person with the most to hide is Margaret Richter herself.

Jane reluctantly agrees to accompany her good friend Cordelia Thorn on a peculiar holiday trip: Cordelia's estranged sister, Broadway star Octavia Thorn, has asked them to attend her wedding. Octavia getting married is no surprise, but her candidate for hubby #4 certainly is. Roland Lester is a reclusive 83-year-old retired Hollywood director. No one can understand how the two met. When the bodies start to drop, Jane realizes it might not be love at all that brought the young diva and the aged director together, but something much deeper, and perhaps more sinister.

The ghosts haunting Alison Kerby's Jersey Shore guesthouse are sad. Maxie wants to know who murdered her ex-husband, and Paul pines for his still-living almost-fiancee. The only one who isn't missing her ex is Alison-because The Swine just arrived on her doorstep...

Alison and her resident gumshoe ghost are on their next case when the deceased Scott MacFarlane floats in worried that he accidentally killed a prominent local woman. Turns out she's still alive...that is, of course, until she's murdered - in Alison's house. Now, between the demands of her guests and the arrival of a reality television crew, Alison must find the killer before she sees reality from the other side.

Aging theater actor Torald Werness' last curtain call is as a corpse. Murdered after his last performance in his last theatrical production, Minneapolis restaurateur-sleuth Jane Lawless finds his body onstage, impaled on a part of the set. Before long, a series of coincidences places Jane in the role of prime suspect. Determined to clear her name, Jane turns to her best friend, Cordelia, for help. Together, their intuition leads them to the dead man's family, a glamorous - and appropriately melodramatic - Midwestern theatrical dynasty. Jane and Cordelia must separate the theatrics from reality before Jane takes the blame for someone else's crime.

First-year detective Kathleen Doyle is a plucky Irish redhead of humble origins and modest means. Chief Inspector Michael Acton is her antithesis: a British lord turned cop. He's tall, handsome, and enigmatic - to a fault. He also has a knack for solving London's most high-profile crimes. Acton selects Doyle out of the newbie squad to partner with him on a series of investigations because she always knows when someone is lying - a trait that comes in handy when interviewing suspects and witnesses.

Melanie West is getting her life back on track after a messy divorce when her grandmother, Liza Harris, asks her to join her in opening a bed-and-breakfast inn. Together, Liza and Melanie purchase a purportedly haunted mansion on the Oregon coast and jump right into clearing out the cobwebs. But while attempting to remove wallpaper in an upstairs bedroom, the new B&B owners stumble upon a very real skeleton in their closet.

Guesthouse owner, single mother, and reluctant ghost whisperer Alison Kerby is about to sit down to movie night with her family and friends when she's struck speechless. Floating before her is the ghost of her musical idol, 1960s English rock star Vance McTiernan. He's in desperate need of help from Alison and her resident ghostly gumshoe, Paul Harrison.

When overwhelmed stay-at-home mom Alexis finds herself at odds with her husband after she’s charged with a DUI, she is given one chance to get her family back: complete AA and admit her faults. The problem is, she’s never had a drinking problem and has no idea what caused the blackout that led to her arrest. Still, she’s committed to working through the program, if that’s what it takes to be reunited with her two young children. But when she connects with a new friend, Farrah, she’s empowered to take a closer look at her husband’s role in her downfall.

After 75 years of high-minded respectability, the Amelia Gower Women's Club is in trouble. One distinguished director has been strangled. Another has taken a fatal plunge down the club's elegant staircase.

As soon as restaurateur-sleuth Jane Lawless begins investigating these murders, wheels within wheels start to turn, meshing private lives with the club's inner workings. Even Jane's new lover, Dorrie, is somehow involved in the diabolical proceedings....

A fashion magazine features editor, Leah McDevitt is haunted by the memory of her cherished younger sister, Melissa, who vanished years ago. Missy, whose extraordinary eyes - one blue, one brown - may have lured her abductor to her. When Leah receives a letter from death-row inmate Raymond Lambert, she eagerly agrees to pay him the long-standing reward for information about Melissa - even if it means coming face-to-face with a notorious serial killer. But before Lambert can impart his secrets, he himself is killed.

Alison Kerby's guesthouse is already crowded with spirits. The last thing she needs is a whole new batch of haunts settling in. As Alison's reputation as "the ghost lady" grows, so does her business - and not always in a way she'd like. Tourists may be flocking to her guesthouse for a chance to glimpse her resident spirits, but her special abilities are also bringing unwanted private investigation cases to her door.

Det. Inspector Kate Carter and her team are assigned to investigate the murder of man found inside the wreckage of a car. A vintage vinyl record from 1964, found next to the body, soon turns out to be an important clue as a second body is discovered. And meanwhile, Det. Inspector Kate, shrewd and smart, and a happy-go-lucky mum to three children, has something very dark to contend with her in her personal life.