Showing titles in Women Sleuths

Introducing Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope. The Crow Trap is the first book in Ann Cleeves’s Vera Stanhope series – which is now a major ITV detective drama starring Brenda Blethyn, Vera. Everyone has something to hide . . . Three very different women come together at an isolated cottage...

When DCI Lesley Clarke is called upon to investigate a death on the banks of the River Frome in Wareham, she initially suspects a straightforward drowning. But when she discovers that the victim went missing years ago and that his family have a dark past, the mystery deepens. Can Lesley and her team uncover the secrets in this family's past and identify the killer?

Springtime on the Cornish coast and Porthpella’s artistic community are throwing open their doors, welcoming visitors to the annual Arts Trail. And this year, celebrity artist Harrison Loveday is the guest of honour. However, the light mood soon darkens when there’s a dramatic death at the opening-night party, and after threatening messages start appearing around the village, fear takes over. Before long, Porthpella is shocked by a second brutal murder, and whisperings of a ‘serial killer’ start to circulate.

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time on audio. Raymond West's niece is invited by an elderly recluse to help compile her late grandfather's diaries for publication. After only two days at their sprawling home of Greenshaw's Folly, she witnesses a...

Unpacking her belongings in her new hometown of Portland, Oregon, herbalist and reformed alchemist Zoe Faust can't help but notice she's picked up a stowaway. Dorian Robert-Houdin is a living, breathing three-and-half-foot gargoyle - not to mention a master of French cuisine - and he needs Zoe's expertise to decipher a centuries-old text. Zoe, who's trying to put her old life behind her, isn't so sure she wants to reopen her alchemical past... until the dead man on her porch leaves her no choice.

As DCI Matilda Darke unravels a chilling cold case, she discovers some truths are deadly – and someone will stop at nothing to keep the past buried… ‘Matilda Darke is the perfect heroine’ Elly Griffiths RUNNING FROM HER PAST Leaving behind Sheffield, her friends and her job, a grieving...

The top 10 Sunday Times bestseller NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES starring Samantha Bond, Jo Martin, and Cara Horgan. Season 3 coming in 2026! ‘I love the audacity of the Marlow gang, those ladies sure know how to live’ Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Fiendishly clever and a satisfying puzzle to try...

Not everyone who's missing is lost. When two teenage girls go missing along the Irish border, Paula Maguire has to return to the hometown she left years before. Swirling with rumour and secrets, the town is gripped by fear of a serial killer. But the truth could be even darker. Not everyone who's lost wants to be found. Surrounded by people and places she tried to forget, Paula digs into the cases as the truth twists further away. What's the link with two other disappearances from 1985? And why does everything lead back to the town's dark past - including the reasons her own mother went missing years before?

Lymstock is a town with more than its share of shameful secrets—a town where even a sudden outbreak of anonymous hate-mail causes only a minor stir. But all that changes when one of the recipients, Mrs Symmington, commits suicide. Her final note said ‘I can't go on'. Only Miss Marple questions the coroner's verdict of suicide. Was this the work of a poison-pen? Or of a poisoner? 

It's the day of the Christchurch Dog Show. The whole town is aquiver with excitement. The ladies of the Charity Shop Detective Agency are hoping to make lots of new furry friends. After a very dramatic Best Biscuit Catcher competition, Fiona, Sue, and Daisy from the Dogs Need Nice Homes charity shop come across a shocking scene. The dog show's vet is performing CPR on a woman. The ladies rush over, but it's too late. Back at the shop, the ladies learn that the poor woman was murdered. Someone injected Sylvia Steadman with something very nasty indeed.

Kate Kinsella is in her office above Humberstones Funeral Directors, contemplating her first real murder case as a private investigator. Jacky Byfield, a nurse at rundown St. Dymphna's Hospital, was stabbed to death on the grounds while running an errand on her night shift. The police have hit a dead end. Jacky's family are desperate for justice, and it's up to Kate to get results — and catch a killer. Kate decides to go undercover at St. Dymphna's. But three more people die in suspicious circumstances while she's there — including her prime suspect. Will Kate become the fifth victim?

Meet Cordelia Gray: twenty-two, tough, intelligent and now sole inheritor of the Pryde Detective Agency. Her first assignment finds her hired by Sir Ronald Callender to investigate the death of his son Mark, a young Cambridge student found hanged in mysterious circumstances. Required to delve into the hidden secrets of the Callender family, Cordelia soon realises it is not a case of suicide, and that the truth is entirely more sinister.

A heart-pounding psychological thriller guaranteed to keep you reading all night, perfect for fans of All Her Fault and The Surrogate Mother. Hannah sacrificed everything to start a new life with her baby. So when she’s left grieving her little girl, she’s completely distraught. Until she...

It's the end of the roaring twenties, and the exuberant and Honourable Phryne Fisher is dancing and gaming with gay abandon. But she becomes bored with London and the endless round of parties. In search of excitement, she sets her sights on a spot of detective work in Melbourne, Australia. And so mystery and the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse, appear in her life. From then on it's all cocaine and communism until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.

Former Met police officer Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker is working a trial period as an auxiliary Detective Sergeant with the Penstowan police force. But living and working alongside DCI Nathan Withers – while still trying to grow her catering company – brings its own challenges, especially when Jodie’s attention is quickly taken up by the suspicious drowning of a local fisherman.

A murdered clockmaker. A stolen masterpiece. An observatory full of secrets. London, 1889. When elderly clockmaker Horace Whitby is found bludgeoned to death in his workshop at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, suspicion falls on the woman who discovered his body – Charlotte Mellor, who makes...

The first three books in the Irish Village Mystery series are included in this edition: Murder in an Irish Village, Murder at an Irish Wedding, and Murder in an Irish Churchyard.

Cleo knows she should be happy for her brother Mark. He's managed to find someone new after the sudden death of his first wife - but something about Evie just doesn't feel right...When Evie starts having accidents at home, her friends grow concerned. Could Mark be causing her injuries? Called out to their clifftop house one night, Sergeant Stephanie King finds two bodies entangled on blood-drenched sheets. Where does murder begin? When the knife is raised to strike, or before, at the first thought of violence?

How do you stop a killer no one believes exists? DS Kat Ballantyne wants to know why a perfect girl like Rosie Duggan would jump to her death from a multistorey car park. Everyone is saying she took her own life. But Kat is unconvinced. Girls like Rosie—bright, popular, well adjusted, and with her whole life ahead of her—don’t fall from tall buildings. Unless someone pushes them.

Having spent her life watching her father run his East London firm, Zara Ezra has learnt a thing or two about being a gangster, and she’s ready to take over when the time comes. Mike Regan, a blast from Zara’s past, is the head of his own firm, but when his son is kidnapped in the middle of a gangland feud, Mike has no choice but to accept help from the Ezras to get his little boy back alive. With a rival firm playing increasingly dirty, murder moves to the top of the agenda and Zara has some big choices to make.