The past few years have shown an increase in the number of mysteries featuring a woman sleuth. She may be a police officer, a private detective, an office worker, a professor, an attorney, a nun, or even a librarian, but she is always tenacious and self-reliant. She may occasionally use her physical strength or a weapon in the course of her crime-solving; more often, she uses her intelligence, her expertise in a specific area, and her understanding of human nature to reach a solution. See also Retired Women Sleuths.
Titles are listed in the order in which they were published, through April 2006
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China Bayless is a Pecan Springs, Texas herb store owner (and former attorney). Herb lore and a portrait of a modern small town being reshaped by big city refugees are important features of this series.
Em Hansen is an unemployed professional geologist, sometime FBI consultant, and part-time master's student.
Pauline Sokol leaves the nursing profession to become a fraud investigator for the Scarpello & Tonelli Insurance Company.
Single mother Brodie Ferrell starts her own search service, "Looking for Something?," in Dimmock, England.
This series follows Frank Shapiro, Cal Donovan and Liz Graham, three police officers in Castlemere, England.
Six-foot-one red-head Carlotta Carlyle, former Boston cop and sometimes cabbie, sets herself up as an independent private investigator ready to deal with anything from lost pets to grand larceny.
Anna Pigeon is a National Park Service Ranger. In each book, she has been assigned to a different national park, including one in Texas and one on Lake Superior.
Stephanie Barron is the pseudonym of former C.I.A. intelligence analyst Francine Mathews. This mystery series features Jane Austen as detective in Regency England.
Writing as Francine Mathews (her real name) this author introduced us to Meredith (Merry) Folger. Merry is a police detective in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Melanie Travis is a special education teacher, divorced mother, and new owner of a standard poodle. Aided by her Aunt Peg, Melanie enters the dog show world. These lighthearted adventures will charm dog fanciers and cozy fans.
Sonny Childs is the sharp-tongued lead private investigator for Peachtree Investigations in Atlanta, Georgia
Marti MacAlister, mystery fiction's first black woman homicide detective, is a former Chicago cop who joins the suburban Lincoln Prairie police force after her husband dies.
In this early 20th-century series, Molly Murphy travels to New York, running away from Ireland and the accidental murder of a man who tried to rape her. In New York, Molly sets herself up as an apprentice to a private detective.
Merry Minor Herristeen (Harry), postmistress of Crizel, Virginia, is helped in investigations by Mrs. Murphy (her cat), Tee Tucker (her dog) and Pewter (a neighbor's cat).
Set in 16th Century England these mysteries feature Ursula Blanchard, a young widow who is one Elizabeth I's Ladies of the Presence Chamber. An eye for suspicious dealings has gained her an additional income as a spy for the Queen.
Irene Kelly is a news reporter in southern California and can't stay away from solving crimes. Detective Frank Harriman, Irene's on-again, off-again love interest has become an integral part of the series.
Martine "Marty" Hopkins is the deputy sheriff of quiet Nichols County in southern Indiana. She tries to find a balance between the demands of her job and her home life, which includes her husband and young daughter.
Miss Jane Marple, one of the finest women detectives, lives in St. Mary Mead. Her knowledge of the village and of human nature gives her the insight necessary to solve crimes. Tricky plots with dazzling solutions.
Her earlier series features Jane Jeffrey, a young suburban "Jane Marple" with kids, a dog and a busy life as a single mother.
Churchill's new series is set in the Hudson River Valley in the 1930's and stars a sister and brother team of inn owners, Lily and Robert Brewster.
29-year-old Stella Crown runs a dairy farm in rural Pennsylvania. In her spare time, she rides Harley-Davidson motorcycles and solves the mysteries that arise in her small community.
Coel's Arapaho Indian Mystery series takes place on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and features a Jesuit missionary named John Aloysius O'Malley and an Arapaho attorney named Vicky Holden.
30-year-old Holly Winter is a feisty columnist for Dog's Life Magazine, living in Cambridge, MA. She stumbles across murder in the course of training and showing her Alaskan Malamute dogs.
Susan Conant has teamed up with her daughter, Jessica Conant-Park, to write a new culinary mystery series set in Brighton, MA, and featuring twenty-something Chloe Carter. Carter is a food connoisseur, looking for the perfect dish and the perfect date, but finding murder along the way
Dr. Lindsay Chamberlain is a renowned forensic archaeologist and a professor at the University of Georgia who specializes in bone identification.
Connor released the first book of a brand new series featuring forensic anthropologist Diane Fallon. As the new director of the River Trail Museum of Natural History in Georgia, Diane thought she had left forensics behind her until plot twists bring her back into the field.
Amateur sleuth Willow King leads a double life. Tues.-Thurs. she's a civil service administrator in the Dept. of Old Age Pensions, the rest of the week she works as romance author Cressida Woodruffe. Set in London.
As an offshoot of the King series, Cooper began a series with a slightly darker edge, featuring barrister Trish Maguire.
Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner in Virginia, is able to sort out answers from available forensic evidence.
Andy Brazil, a young reporter-turned-rookie, police chief Judy Hammer and her deputy, Virginia West battle the bad guys in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Detective Sergeant Gemma James and Superintendent Duncan Kincaid are English police detectives. Gemma is a young divorced single mother and she develops a complicated relationship with Duncan.
Kate Fansler, professor of literature at a New York City university, is well-to-do, well-dressed, and well-educated. The ultimate clue for this sleuth is often a literary one.
Former journalist Mary Daheim writes two mystery series, the first of which focuses on a Seattle bed and breakfast run by Judith McMonigle Flynn.
Ms. Daheim's other star is Emma Lord, a small-town newspaper owner-editor in Alpine, Washington.
In a new series Suze Figueroa is partnered with Norm Bennis in the Chicago Police Department.
Widowed American Dorothy Martin stumbles over a dead canon in Dams' first mystery. Her adventures escalate from there.
Hilda Johansson is a turn-of-the-century Swedish housemaid in South Bend, Indiana.
Gertrude "Goldy" Bear is a caterer in Aspen Meadow, Colorado. Mouth-watering recipes and food descriptions are liberally mixed into the plot. She works closely with officer Tom Schulz; eventually they marry.
These 1920's mysteries are a cozy look at post World War I Britain. The Honourable Daisy Dalrymple writes magazine features that frequently get her involved in murder.
Mali Anderson is a 31-year-old ex-cop from Harlem. She lives with her jazz musician father, who is helping her raise her orphaned nephew.
Set in the 16th century these historical mysteries feature Lady Susanna Appleton, an herbalist.
Emerson began a new series featuring Diana Spaulding, a descendant of Lady Susanna Appleton. Independence, stubbornness, and a taste for solving mysteries have remained through the generations. Set in the late 1800s, widowed Spaulding works as a journalist in New York City.
Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum tracks down bail jumpers in Trenton, New Jersey. Her bounty hunter pal Ranger often steps in to advise her and vice-cop Joe Morelli also joins in her cases.
Evanovich's new series follows Alexandra Barnaby, a tough, working-class woman from Baltimore who grew up helping her mechanic father and has never lost her passion for cars even though she now works as an insurance clerk.
Written under one of Mary Monica Pulver's many pseudonyms, this series features Betsy Devonshire, owner of a needle and yarn store in Excelsior, Minnesota. Needlework enthusiasts will enjoy these handcraft-inspired cozies.
Under the name Margaret Frazer, Pulver writes about a medieval nun in Oxfordshire, England, named Sister Frevisse.
Benni Harper is director of a folk art museum in mythical San Celina on California's central coast. Benni often clashes with police chief Gabe Ortiz, with whom she is also involved with romantically.
In 12th-century London, the Bishop of Winchester has made a most unusual pact with Magdalene la Batarde, a widow who rents from him the church's Old Priory Guesthouse next door. There she runs a quiet, elegant whorehouse.
Mrs. Emily Pollifax has been a widow for eight years; her grown children and grandchildren live far away. Bored with her garden club meetings, she concludes that it's time to do what she's always wanted to do: become a spy. Pragmatic and curious, with an unshakable knowledge of human nature, Mrs. Pollifax is a surprisingly successful secret agent.
Countess Madame Karitska, with the powerful gift of clairvoyance, works with Detective Lieutenant Pruden to solve mysteries
Kate Jasper owns Jest Gifts, a company that makes humorous mail order gifts. Kate lives in Marin County and finds crime among California's New Age populace.
Writing as Claire Daniels - Girdner has started a new series featuring Cally Lazar, an intuitive energy worker and recovering attorney.
April Woo, a NYPD detective has an easier time dealing with the stresses of the job then she does dealing with her mother, Skinny Dragon.
Kinsey Millhone, 32, twice divorced, ex-cop and ex-investigator for California Fidelity Insurance Company, is now a private investigator in Santa Rosa.
Set in the 1920s, this series follows Phryne Fisher, a woman who leaves London, England, for Melbourne, Australia to try and establish herself as a detective.
Sarah Booth Delaney is a Southern belle living in Zinnia, Mississippi, who unexpectedly finds herself in the position of private investigator.
Eve Diamond is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, who uncovers crime as she covers the news
These archaeological mysteries feature Toronto antiquities dealer, Lara McClintock. Each book takes her to a different area of the world.
Many books feature an Elizabethan setting, only this one features Elizabeth I as the investigator.
Harris' first series features 20-something librarian Aurora (Roe) Teagarden and are set in Georgia.
The second series by this author has a slightly darker tone and features rape survivor, Lily Bard who moved to Shakespeare, Arkansas and runs a cleaning business.
Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic southern waitress and her Vampire boyfriend, Bill, battle the supernatural as they solve mysteries.
Annie Laurance, owner of a mystery bookstore called Death on Demand, and Max Darling, independently wealthy private detective, join forces to solve murders on the island community of Browards Rock.
Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins (Henri O), a retired journalist, is more than content to confine her energies to writing mysteries instead of solving them. She has been called the Miss Marple of the nineties.
Jane Lawless is a Minneapolis restaurant owner and her friend is theatrical director Cordelia Thorn. Books include religious and psychological themes.
Sophie Greenway also lives and works in Minneapolis. She's a magazine editor, food critic and hotel owner.
Alex Shanahan is an airline manager who finds herself becoming an impromptu investigator when mystery crosses her way.
London sculptor Sam Jones is described as the reprobate hero's female counterpart, one who's capable of eating him for breakfast.
Arly Hanks is the first woman sheriff of her hometown, Maggody, Arkansas (population 852). Maggody seemed like a quiet place to recuperate from a disastrous marriage in New York City.
Claire Malloy is the owner of the Book Depot near Farber College. Claire and her teenage daughter Caron solve crimes in a lively and entertaining manner.
Sonora Blair is a homicide detective in Cincinnati, Ohio and a single mother.
Lena Padget is a private investigator from Kentucky whose specialty is assisting women and children lost in the complications of the legal system.
Lewellyn Ferris, a fly fishing wonder and the Chief of Police in Loon Lake, Wisconsin is featured in these mysteries.
This Wisconsin author writes the "Passport to Peril" mysteries featuring Emily Andrew.
Cassie Burdette is a professional golfer who uncovers mysteries as she drives her way to the top.
Sheriff Joanna Brady, elected sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona after her husband is killed, is a single parent and an inexperienced police officer who learns on the job.
Rina Lazarus, a widow and a member of an orthodoc Jewish community, assists police detective Peter Decker in solving crimes.
Kate Martinelli finds herself with a promotion to detective in the San Francisco Police Department and needs to prove herself..
Mary Russell, first a teenage student of Sherlock Holmes and later his partner in solving crimes, reports on cases that the retired beekeeper Holmes takes on.
Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels is a lieutenant on the Chicago Police Department, investigating homicides with her partner, Herb. A hard-boiled detective series with a humorous twist.
Wollie Shelley struggles to keep her "Good Gollie Miss Wollies" greeting card line afloat and finds herself caring for her mentally ill brother, participating in extreme dating adventures, and solving murder mysteries along the way.
Jesse Drake is a L.A.P.D homicide detective who deals with cases that frequently straddle moral boundaries, such as abortion and the Holocaust.
Krich's new series features Molly Blume, a true-crime writer in Los Angeles, California
Tess Monaghan is a newspaper reporter turned P.I. in Baltimore, Maryland.
Claire Watkins, a former Minneapolis police detective, is a widow trying to care for her ten-year-old daughter and act as deputy sheriff for the Pepin County Police Department in Fort St. Anoine, Wisconsin.
Sigrid Harald is a New York police officer in a series of police procedurals.
Lawyer and eventually Judge Deborah Knott lives in the tobacco country of Colleton County, North Carolina. She is part of a large Southern family and is at home with the rich landscape and people of the New South.
Set in Philadelphia, this series follows three sisters, Nora, Emma, and Libby Blackbird, who are left with a two million dollar tax debt when their parents leave town. In need of money, Nora finds work at a Philadelphia newspaper and finds herself stumbling across mysterious murders.
Melanie Vargas is a young federal prosecutor in Manhattan, New York, who is trying to advance her career and spend time with her baby daughter.
These mysteries set in modern Japan feature the first-person voice of 27-year-old Rei Shimura, a California raised Japanese American English teacher and antiques dealer.
Elizabeth MacPherson is an amateur sleuth and student of forensic science. Ingeneous plots, vivid and hilarious characters mark these stories.
This Southern California series stars Detective Sergeant Savannah Reid, dropped from the San Carmelita Police Dept. for being overweight. The Georgia-born karate expert promptly sets up the Moonlight Detective Agency.
Narcissa Power, a young widow and Judah Daniel, a freedwoman who is also the local herbalist work together at the time of the Civil War in Virginia.
Smith and Wetzon are headhunters. That's Leslie Wetzon and Xenia Smith and they do their hunting on Wall Street.
The setting for the second series by this author is 1920's Greenwich Village where poet and private-eye-in-training Olivia Brown lives and works.
Maureen O'Donnell lives in Glasgow, Scotland, and can't seem to find anything but trouble as she struggles with alcohol, relationships, memories of her abusive childhood, and murder.
Gloria Lamerino is a 50-something Italian-American physicist in Revere Beach, Massachusetts. Now retired from her position as a professor in Berkeley, she finds her time taken up with murder.
Lydia Strong, a true crime author in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is featured.
Glynis Tryon is a librarian in the city of Seneca Falls, NY in the nineteenth century. Her budding feminist ideas get her involved with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other famous historical figures of that era.
Bronwen and Kathryn Llyr, Glynis Tryon's nieces, are featured in this fast-moving trilogy based in Seneca Falls. Both women are feminists, and their headstrong qualities lead them through mystery and romance during the Civil War era.
Paris Murphy is a homicide detective in St. Paul, Minnesota, who finds herself tangled in messy relationships and harrowing murder cases.
Sharon McCone is a female private eye who bears little resemblance to Miss Jane Marple. This extensive series follows her through many changes in her life and work.
These 12th century mysteries are set in France and follow a Saxon noblewoman, Catherine LeVendeur, who has a secret in her past.
Bo Bradley is an investigator for Child Protection Services in San Diego. Bo suffers from manic depression and struggles to control her mental illness and the demands of her job.
Blue McCarron is a lesbian social psychologist working in San Diego.
Faith Sibley Fairchild is a minister's wife, a mother and an amateur sleuth. These are light but well-written mysteries.
V. I. Warshawski is a lone wolf operator whose specialty is financial investigation, but whose cases all involve murder.
Charlotte Ellison Pitt and her husband, Inspector Thomas Pitt of Scotland Yard, solve crimes in Victorian England using their special combination of observation and intuition.
Wealthy Victorian Englishwoman Amelia Peabody and her husband, archeologist Radcliffe Emerson, solve murders with a plot full of accurate Egyptian lore and history.
Vicky Bliss an American art historian in Bavaria, Germany stars in Peters' contemporary series.
Like her fictional heroine, Dr. Temperance Brennan, Reichs serves as forensic anthropologist for the province of Quebec and commutes between Montreal and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Robb (pseudonym of Nora Roberts) introduces readers to New York City in the near future, 2058 to be exact, as seen through the eyes of Eve Dallas, a detective with the New York City Police and Safety Department.
Amanda Pepper is a Philadelphia English teacher at Philly Prep. She has something going (she's never exactly sure what) with the reticent C. K. MacKenzie, a Philadelphia cop.
50-year-old no-nonsense Marin County private investigator, Emma Howe, and her new associate, 28-year-old, single mother, Billie August, form an uneasy relationship to solve cases.
Irish immigrant Nell Sweeney is a governess to the wealthy Hewitt family in post-Civil War Boston
Alex Bernier, a Gen-X reporter, in Upstate New York navigates the difficult politics of a liberal college town.
Writing as Elizabeth Bloom, this new series features Isabelle Leonard, who is hired to work for a popular decorating Magazine after being left at the altar.
See Isabelle Run
Munch Mancini is a 1970s ex-drug addict and jailbird in Los Angeles, California. Working as a mechanic, she does what she can to keep out of trouble.
Rebecca Moore is a Washington D.C. reporter with a passion for classic cars. Her investigative journalism experience and knowledge of automotives help her solve murders in this series.
Dr. Sara Linton is a pediatrician and the coroner in Grant County, Georgia in these dark mysteries.
Mma (Precious) Ramotswe, owner of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Botswana stars in this international mystery series.
Rebecca Schwartz is a professional attorney and an amateur sleuth in San Francisco. The daughter of a famous criminal lawyer, she is trying to make it on her own merit.
Skip Langdon is a 6-ft. tall police detective in New Orleans, Louisiana
In 2001, Ms. Smith spun off a character introduced in 82 Desire. Talba Wallis is an African-American poet whose day job has her working as an apprentice private investigator.
Clare Fergusson, newly-ordained Episcopal priest helps Russ Van Alystyne, Chief of Police in Millers Kill, New York.
Kate Shugak is a former investigator for the Anchorage district attorney's office and now lives in the Alaska bush. The series resonates with the exotic Alaskan landscape and the fiercely independent people who live there.
Meet Lehigh, Pennsylvania's own Bubbles Yablonsky - a tube-top-wearing, gum-snapping hairdresser-turned-gun-toting gumshoe.
Scumble River Mysteries featuring School Psychologist Skye Denison in Scumble River, Indiana.
Sally Adler is a tough-talking singer who comes home after 17 years to be a scholar of women's studies at the University of Wyoming.
These culinary mysteries, complete with recipes, feature chef and Kansas City caf owner, Heaven Lee.
Temple's new culinary mystery series features Bridget Heaney, an Irish immigrant working as an assistant cook in Civil War era New York City.
These Gaslight Mysteries star Sarah Brandt, a midwife in the turn-of-the-century New York City.
Navajo F.B.I. agent Ella Clah returns to the Navajo Nation after the murder of her minister father to find her brother the medicine man the prime suspect.
Sister Agatha, a member of New Mexico's Our Lady of Home Monastery, relies on her past experiences as an investigative journalist to solve a murder within her cloistered community.
P. J. Tracy is the pseudonym for a mother-daughter team, who write this series featuring Grace MacBride. MacBride is the founder of a software company called Monkeewrench in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Sister Fidelma is a 7th century Celtic sister and legal advocate in Kildare, Ireland.
Julia Callahan Garrity, an ex-cop, and her mother Edna Mae own House Mouse, a cleaning service. They and their employees simultaneously clean houses and solve crimes in Atlanta.
Writing as Mary Kay Andrews, this humorous series features Eloise "Weezie" Foley, who forms her own antique business after a bitter divorce.
Francesca Vierling is a 6-ft. newspaper columnist in St. Louis, Missouri.
Helen Hawthorne traded a lavish lifestyle to work in a boutique at minimum wage in Florida and is featured in the Dead End Job mysteries.
Viets' most recent series follows Josie Marcus, single mother and mystery shopper.
Bay Tanner, a former financial consultant, sets up a detective agency in Hilton Head, South Carolina.