10 Best Female Detective Books to Celebrate International Women’s Day

Ellingham Academy is a well-known private school in Vermont that attracts the greatest thinkers, inventors, and artists.
Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth-century tycoon, founded it intending to create a magical area filled with puzzles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.”

His wife and daughter were kidnapped shortly after the school first opened. The sole actual clue was a sarcastic puzzle outlining techniques of murder written with the terrifying alias “Truly, Devious.” It became one of the most significant unsolved crimes in American history.

Stevie Bell, a true-crime enthusiast, is about to start her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has a big plan: solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the crime once she has a handle on her demanding new school life and her housemates, who include the inventor, novelist, actor, artist, and jokester. But something unusual is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprising comeback, and Death returns to Ellingham Academy. The past has emerged from its grave. Someone got away with murder.

The case is closed. Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it. Everyone in town knows he did it.
But having grown up in the same small town that was consumed by the crime, Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn’t so sure. When she chooses the case as the topic for her final project, she starts to uncover secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden. And if the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth … ?

Someone’s been read their last rites…
1915, London: Working in the dusty bookshop that her Aunt Violet mysteriously inherited, Hannah Merrill is accustomed to finding twists in every tale. But discovering her beloved best friend Lily-Anne – with a paperknife through her heart – in the middle of the bookshop, is not a plotline she saw coming.

The case is anything but textbook. With the discovery of a coded German message and Hannah’s instinct that Lily-Anne’s husband is keeping secrets, she is determined to get to the bottom of it.
She can’t do it alone though. To crack this case, Hannah will need the enlist the help of her outrageous, opinionated, only-occasionally-objectionable Aunt Violet.

They think they’re making progress until one of their chief suspects is found dead. And Hannah realises that she is herself now in the murderer’s sights. Will the final chapter be the ending of a killer… or just a killer ending?

If you’ve got a problem, Charlie Kingsley probably has a tea that’ll help make it right.

EXCEPT when it comes to love. She does NOT do love potions.

Not even for Courtney, her pregnant new client who showed up three weeks before Christmas seeking a love potion because her husband was cheating on her.

So, Courtney asked about poison, instead.

She said she was joking. That’s what happens between wives and husbands. They get angry and talk about killing each other. They don’t really mean it.

It seems to make sense … until Courtney’s husband turns up dead on Christmas Eve.

He was poisoned, of course.

And who is the number one suspect? Courtney. Of course.

But did she actually do it? Or is she being set up?

It’s up to Charlie to sort through all the twists and turns in a case that gets more complicated the deeper she digs.

The one where it all begins

Mma Ramotswe is the proud proprietor of the finest ladies’ detective agency in all of Botswana (also the only one). She spends her time, with a cup of redbush tea beneath the acacia tree, waiting for clients. When they come along, whether it is to enquire after a missing spouse or check the identity of a long-lost father, it is not The Principles of Private Detection that helps her to solve cases but old-fashioned common sense and a warm-hearted understanding of the fallibility of human nature – especially that of men.

Join Mae West and the Laundry Club Ladies as they cha cha and twirl their way around Happy Trails Campground as they put on some sleuthing dance shoes to bring closure to this southern and fun cosy Valentine’s mystery.

When I begged Hank Sharp to take dance lessons to celebrate Valentine’s Day, I knew I was getting more than I had bargained for. But when a dancer’s dead body shows up at the height of the competition and Hank is hired to investigate the murder, I had no idea what we were in store for when he had Dottie Swaggert and Henry Bryant go undercover as a dance competition couple to get insider information.

After a little snooping around, we discovered there were deep-running feuds and passions behind those sequins and smiles that gave motive and opportunity to kill for the desire to win the most coveted dancing title.

Time is running out and we fear Dottie’s life is in danger. Let’s face it, she has a hard time keeping her mouth shut. And NO ONE puts Dottie in the corner.

Deadly pies, a clever cat, and an ex-flame!
Things heat up in Maple Falls when Madeline Flynn discovers her friend’s body. Accused of the death, not only does Maddie want answers, but she must also find a way to clear her name.

As the timer ticks down in the race to find the murderer before Maddie’s put in jail, or the body count climbs, she enlists the help of her friends—one of the furry variety.

Then there’s the sheriff. Her ex is just as confused as she is when the mystery heats up with another batch of clues. Does he really believe she’s innocent, or is he trying to trap her?

If only solving murder were as easy as apple pie!

If you loved Murder, She Wrote, you’ll enjoy Maddie’s style because she’s not leaving a crime unsolved either.

The Maple Lane Mysteries are light, cosy mysteries featuring a quirky cat-loving bakery owner who discovers she’s a talented amateur sleuth.

Each book contains an easy recipe or two!

Deborah Jenkins pulls her coat around her for the short walk home in the pouring rain. But she never makes it home that night. And she is never seen again…

Four years later, an abandoned baby girl is found wrapped in dirty rags on a doorstep. An anonymous phone call urges the police to run a DNA test on the baby. But nobody is prepared for the results.

The newborn belongs to Deborah. She’s still alive… THE GRIPPING THRILLER EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT – if you like Lisa Gardner, Robert Bryndza or Clare Mackintosh, you will absolutely love this. A completely unputdownable page-turner with an ending that will blow your mind.

A quiet English village
A shocking murder
An unlikely detective
Nobody liked Colonel Protheroe.
So when he’s found dead in the vicarage study, there’s no absence of suspects in the seemingly peaceful village of St Mary Mead.
In fact, Jane Marple can think of at least seven.
As gossip abounds in the parlours and kitchens of the parish, everyone becomes an amateur detective.
The police dismiss her as a prying busybody, but only the ingenious Miss Marple can uncover the truth . . .
Never underestimate Miss Marple.

Claudia is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she’s just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online dating detective agency. 
 
A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she’s landed her ideal job. But when a client vanishes, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit. Part literary mystery, part family story, The Verifiers is a clever and incisive examination of how technology shapes our choices, and the nature of romantic love in the digital age.