Staff Picks
Women in Blue
- Chantal W.
- Wednesday, October 09, 2019
Collection
Looking for mysteries or thrillers that have a strong female lead who carries a badge and solves the crime? Then try these books and authors!
City of the Lost
Published in 2016
"Casey Duncan is a homicide detective with a secret: when she was in college, she killed a man. She was never caught, but he was the grandson of a mobster and she knows this crime will catch up to her. Casey's best friend, Diana, is on the run from a violent, abusive ex-husband. When Diana's husband finds her, and Casey herself is attacked shortly after, Casey knows it's time for the two of them to disappear again. Diana has heard of a domestic violence support town made for people like her, a town that takes in people on the run who want to shed their old lives. You must apply to live in Rockton and if you're accepted, it means walking away entirely from your old life, living off the grid in the wilds of Canada: no cell phones, no Internet, no mail, no computers, very little electricity, and no way of getting in or out without the town council's approval. As a murderer, Casey isn't a good candidate, but she has something they want; she's a homicide detective, and Rockton has just had its first real murder. She and Diana are in. However, soon after arriving, Casey realizes that the identity of a murderer isn't the only secret Rockton is hiding - in fact, she starts to wonder if she and Diana might be in even more danger in Rockton than they were in their old lives. An edgy, gripping crime novel from a bestselling urban fantasy writer, City of the Lost boldly announces a major new player in the crime fiction world"-- Provided by publisher.
Where the Bodies Are Buried
Published in 2011
"When small-time heroin dealer Jai McDiarmid turns up dead one fine Glasgow morning, no one is that surprised. A heroin dealer openly sleeping with a big-time drug trafficker's girlfriend, Jai had made a lot of enemies in a city with little patience for those stirring up trouble. As a result, Detective Superintendent Catherine McLeod has no shortage of early leads on the case when she is assigned to investigate it. Meanwhile, out-of-work actress Jasmine Sharp is facing more pressing problems. She's agreed to help out her "Uncle" Jim with his private investigation work, but is having trouble learning the ropes. As a former actress, lying to people comes naturally to Jasmine, but she's less adept at tailing her targets and remaining undercover. She's facing a steep learning curve-and is thrown in at the deep end when Uncle Jim goes missing and she realizes that it's going to be up to her to find him."--Publisher's website.
Sworn to Silence
Published in 2009
Kate Burkholder, a former Amish resident of Painters Mill, is returning as police chief sixteen years after a series of brutal murders took place there, but when a new victim is found on her watch, she struggles with a secret that could hurt both her and her family.
The Late Show
Published in 2017
"Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none as each morning she turns her cases over to day shift detectives. A once up-and-coming detective, she's been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor. But one night she catches two cases she doesn't want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her own partner's wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night. As the cases entwine they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won't give up her job no matter what the department throws at her."-- from author website.
A Share in Death
Published in 2003
"A week's holiday in a luxurious Yorkshire time-share is just what Scotland Yard's Superintendent Duncan Kincaid needs. But the discovery of a body floating in the whirlpool bath ends Kincaid's vacation before it's begun. One of his new acquaintances at Followdale House is dead; another is a killer. Despite a distinct lack of cooperation from the local constabulary, Kincaid's keen sense of duty won't allow him to ignore the heinous crime, impelling him to send for his enthusiastic young assistant, Sergeant Gemma James. But the stakes are raised dramatically when a second murder occurs, and Kincaid and James find themselves in a determined hunt for a fiendish felon who enjoys homicide a bit too much."--BOOK COVER.
Splinter in the Blood
A Novel
Published in 2018
After months of hunting a cold-blooded murderer that the press has dubbed the Thorn Killer, Detective Greg Carver is shot in his own home. His trusted partner, Ruth Lake, is alone with him. Yet instead of calling for help, she's rearranged the crime scene and wiped the room clean of prints. But Carver isn't dead. Ruth is now leading the Thorn Killer investigation while Carver recuperates. She is keeping a deadly secret, and she'll cross every line--sacrificing her colleagues, her career, and maybe even her own life--to keep it from surfacing.
The Body Reader
Published in 2016
For three years, Detective Jude Fontaine was kept from the outside world. Held in an underground cell, her only contact was with her sadistic captor, and reading his face was her entire existence. Learning his every line, every movement, and every flicker of thought is what kept her alive. After her experience with isolation and torture, she is left with a fierce desire for justice--and a heightened ability to interpret the body language of both the living and the dead. Despite colleagues' doubts about her mental state, she resumes her role at Homicide. Her new partner, Detective Uriah Ashby, doesn't trust her sanity, and he has a story of his own he'd rather keep hidden. But a killer is on the loose, murdering young women, so the detectives have no choice: they must work together to catch the madman before he strikes again. And no one knows madmen like Jude Fontaine.
The Secret Place
Published in 2014
"The photo on the card shows a boy who was found murdered, a year ago, on the grounds of a girls' boarding school in the leafy suburbs of Dublin. The caption says I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM. Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to get a foot in the door of Dublin's Murder Squad--and one morning, sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey brings him this photo. "The Secret Place," a board where the girls at St. Kilda's School can pin up their secrets anonymously, is normally a mishmash of gossip and covert cruelty, but today someone has used it to reignite the stalled investigation into the murder of handsome, popular Chris Harper. Stephen joins forces with the abrasive Detective Antoinette Conway to find out who and why. But everything they discover leads them back to Holly's close-knit group of friends and their fierce enemies, a rival clique--and to the tangled web of relationships that bound all the girls to Chris Harper. Every step in their direction turns up the pressure. Antoinette Conway is already suspicious of Stephen's links to the Mackey family. St. Kilda's will go a long way to keep murder outside their walls. Holly's father, Detective Frank Mackey, is circling, ready to pounce if any of the new evidence points toward his daughter. And the private underworld of teenage girls can be more mysterious and more dangerous than either of the detectives imagined." -- from publisher's web site.
Unsub
A Novel
Published in 2017
"A riveting psychological thriller inspired by the never-caught Zodiac Killer, about a young detective determined to apprehend the serial murderer who destroyed her family and terrorized a city twenty years earlier. Caitlin Hendrix has been a Narcotics detective for six months when the killer at the heart of all her childhood nightmares reemerges: the Prophet. An UNSUB--what the FBI calls an unknown subject--the Prophet terrorized the Bay Area in the 1990s and nearly destroyed her father, the lead investigator on the case. The Prophet's cryptic messages and mind games drove Detective Mack Hendrix to the brink of madness, and Mack's failure to solve the series of ritualized murders--eleven seemingly unconnected victims left with the ancient sign for Mercury etched into their flesh--was the final nail in the coffin for a once promising career. Twenty years later, two bodies are found bearing the haunting signature of the Prophet. Caitlin Hendrix has never escaped the shadow of her father's failure to protect their city. But now the ruthless madman is killing again and has set his sights on her, threatening to undermine the fragile barriershe rigidly maintains for her own protection, between relentless pursuit and dangerous obsession. Determined to decipher his twisted messages and stop the carnage, Caitlin ignores her father's warnings as she draws closer to the killer with each new gruesome murder. Is it a copycat, or can this really be the same Prophet who haunted her childhood? Will Caitlin avoid repeating her father's mistakes and redeem her family name, or will chasing the Prophet drag her and everyone she loves into the depths of the abyss?"-- Provided by publisher.
Alone
Published in 2006
An elite sniper is forced to question his instincts when he is accused of shooting the wrong man.
The Surgeon
Published in 2002
Dr. Catherine Cordell, recovering from a brutal attack and hiding her fear behind a mask of professionalism, is the only one that can stop a psychotic killer known as "The Surgeon," due to his horrific methods of murder, before he kills again.
Land of Shadows
Published in 2014
A skeptical Lou Norton of the Los Angeles police department investigates increasingly compelling parallels between the suspicious suicide of a teenage girl and the unsolved murder of Lou's sister.
Someone Else's Skin
Published in 2014
DI Marnie Rome and her partner DS Noah Jake investigate a case in which a woman at a domestic violence shelter stabs her husband, but none of the witnesses is telling quite the same story about it.
Desert Heat
Published in 2009
Joanna Brady dedicates herself to finding out the truth when her husband Andy, a Cochise County police officer, is shot in what is passed off by the police brass as a suicide attempt, and then implicated in a drug smuggling operation.
A Perfect Evil
Published in 2012
The brutal murders of three young boys paralyze the citizens of Platte City, Nebraska. What's worse is the grim realization that the man recently executed for the crimes was a copycat. When Sheriff Nick Morrelli is called to the scene of another grisly murder, it becomes clear that the real predator is still at large, waiting to kill again.Morrelli understands the urgency of the case terrorizing his community, but it's the experienced eye of FBI criminal profiler Maggie O'Dell that pinpoints the true nature of the evil behind the killings—a revelation made all the more horrific when Morrelli's own nephew goes missing.Maggie understands something else: the killer is enjoying himself, relishing his ability to stay one step ahead of her, making this case more personal by the hour. Because out there, watching, is a killer with a heart of pure and perfect evil.
Too Close to Breathe
Published in 2018
"Olivia Kiernan's tautly written debut novel immerses readers in a chilling murder case and the tantalizing, enigmatic victim at the center of it all. In a quiet Dublin suburb, within her pristine home, Eleanor Costello is found hanging from a rope. Detective Chief Superintendent Frankie Sheehan would be more than happy to declare it a suicide. Four months ago, Frankie's pursuit of a killer almost ended her life and she isn't keen on investigating another homicide. But the autopsy reveals poorly healed bones and old stab wounds, absent from medical records. A new cut is carefully, deliberately covered in paint. Eleanor's husband, Peter, is unreachable, missing. A search of the couple's home reveals only two signs of personality: a much-loved book on art and a laptop with access to the Dark Web. With the suspect pool growing, the carefully crafted profile of the victim crumbling with each new lead, and mysterious calls to Frankie's phone implying that the killer is closer than anyone would like, all Frankie knows is that Eleanor guarded her secrets as closely in life as she does in death. As the investigation grows more challenging, Frankie can't help but feel that something doesn't fit. And when another woman is found murdered, the same paint on her corpse, Frankie knows that unraveling Eleanor's life is the only way to find the murderer before he claims another victim or finishes the fate Frankie only just managed to escape. Engrossing, complex, and atmospheric, Olivia Kiernan's debut novel will leave readers breathless"-- Provided by publisher.
A Grave Talent
Published in 2014
Assigned, along with her new partner, to investigate the murders of three little girls, homicide detective Casey Martinelli closes in on a colony of mismatched people living in the wooded hills near San Francisco.
Still Midnight
A Novel
Published in 2010
When three armed men invade a quiet Glasgow home and demand audience with a person who does not live there, Alex Morrow investigates their apparent mistake, a situation that escalates as violent acts are committed against the hostages.
Naked in Death
Published in 2011
Three young women have been brutally murdered. After 10 years on the New York City police force, Lieutenant Eve Dallas knows better than to become emotionally involved with her work. But the prime suspect is a suave, sophisticated Irish billionaire with a mysterious past and she finds herself powerless to resist his charm.
Girl Waits with Gun
Published in 2015
Living in virtual isolation years after the revelation of a painful family secret, Constance Kopp is terrorized by a belligerent silk factory owner and fights back in ways outside the norm for early twentieth-century women.