Southern Women Sleuth

Series is finished! When scandal is afoot and Vicki leaps in to solve a murder, you know it’s gonna be big. ‘Cause this here’s Texas. Don’t you dare call Victoria Bohanan a debutante. That cozy life is firmly in her rearview mirror after striking out on her own. Nowadays she’ll earn every penny of that twenty dollar tip by guessing your favorite drink faster than you can belly up to the bar. Sharp wits have gotten her out of more than one disastrous affair. Until the mouth sinks her right into another. When an old high school flame returns to town with a pastorate position lodged ...

What is it about Halloween that makes people get a little nutty? Like, murderously nutty? All I wanted to do was set up a booth at the Halloween bazaar and help out my community. Proceeds go to local charities. But instead, I practically fell over the event coordinator. The very dead event coordinator. Then the new detective in town showed up and things went downhill from there. Until they went uphill. If you date a detective, he won’t suspect you of murder, will he? Who killed Diana Bowen? My best friend Lucy Gray and I decided to do a little detective work of our own. Can we catch a ...

Romaine Wilder, big-city medical examiner with a small-town past, has been downsized and evicted. With few other options, she’s forced to return to her hometown of Roble in East Texas, leaving behind the man she’s dating and the life she’s worked hard to build. Suzanne Babet Derbinay, Romaine’s Auntie Zanne and proprietor of the Ball Funeral Home, has long since traded her French Creole upbringing for Big Texas attitude. She’s a member in a number of ladies’ auxiliaries and clubs, including being in charge of the Tri-County Annual Crawfish Boil and Music Festival. Hanging on to ...

Three sassy retirees. One dead developer. Zero patience for nonsense. Welcome to Conch Key, where the sun is hot, the gossip is hotter, and the local beach just coughed up a corpse in Gucci loafers. Daisy Picklesworth wanted nothing more than a quiet morning, a strong cup of tea, and to finish her mystery novel on the porch of The Barnacle. What she got instead was a bloated real estate mogul dead in the surf, a jellyfish charm that doesn’t belong, and the strong suspicion that someone in their sleepy seaside town just committed the most stylish murder Florida’s ever seen. With her ...

Readers will flock to NYT bestselling author Donna Andrews' latest installment in the award-winning Meg Langslow series. Two of Meg’s cousins, members of Mother’s vast Hollingsworth clan, are getting married, and both have chosen Caerphilly for their Christmas destination wedding . . on the...

Series is finished! Vicki Bohanan is back and sporting a whole new mystery. Blackmail lands at her feet on the eve of preseason football. And for a woman with an attitude the size of Texas, it’s gonna take more than a pigskin to plug her pie hole. A Texas Ranger, an undercover boss, and a hunky radio personality walk into the bar and keep Vicki’s head spinning like a ride at the state fair. The only score she wants to settle is with her renovated residence. But when a certain Aussie model invites her to San Antonio for a romantic Alamo shootout – cameras this time, folks – Vicki ...

Getting married is stressful. Solving a murder during your wedding week? That's just bad timing. Bea Whitman has nine days until her dream Christmas wedding at a historic Charleston plantation. Then her wedding coordinator vanishes, leaving behind her shoes and a shredded blouse beside an alligator-infested pond. The police call it suicide. Bea's French Bulldog Max calls it suspicious. Max is usually right. When the coordinator's husband turns up shot dead in his kitchen, Bea discovers a two-million-dollar insurance policy and a trail of secrets that won't stay buried. With her fiancé ...

Ten years ago, Ryan Comeaux was convicted of killing his girlfriend and was sentenced to life in prison. Now a witness has come forward who claims she was with Ryan the entire night and it’s not possible that he was the killer. But the local police assume she’s mistaken and aren’t interested in reopening what they view as an open-and-shut case. The witness, Kelsey Spalding, has her own reasons for wanting Ryan’s conviction overturned and hires Swamp Team 3 to prove him innocent.

Verity’s family tree has deep roots… and deadly secrets. Some families pass down antiques or china. Verity’s family? They can’t seem to pass up a good mystery. So when Verity’s dearly departed grandmother drops by unexpectedly, Verity is overjoyed—until she learns Grandma Didi is back with a chilling request tied to a cherished family heirloom.

All aboard for murder! A cozy mystery that's criminally entertaining! A vintage train. A federal witness. A French Bulldog detective. And a corpse. When dog trainer Bea Whitman and veterinarian James Crawford board the luxurious Turkey Day Express for a romantic Thanksgiving getaway, they expect nothing more dangerous than wedding planning discussions. What they don't expect is to find themselves trapped on a moving train with a murdered passenger and a car full of suspects. Dennis Crabb was the kind of man who made enemies everywhere he went—loud, obnoxious, and with a shady past. When ...

With her extended maternity leave at its end, Melanie Trenholm is less than thrilled to leave her new husband and beautiful twins to return to work, especially when she’s awoken by a phone call with no voice on the other end—and the uneasy feeling that the ghostly apparitions that have stayed silent for more than a year are about to invade her life once more. But her return to the realty office goes better than she could have hoped, with a new client eager to sell the home she recently inherited on South Battery.

Dog trainer Bea Whitman's French Bulldog Max has solved more crimes than he's learned actual commands—which isn't saying much, but it's still impressive. When beloved farmers market coordinator Rosalind Fletcher drops dead after sampling Pete's pesto, Bea's peaceful Saturday shopping turns into a murder investigation. The cyanide in the basil confirms this wasn't an unfortunate case of food poisoning, and suddenly everyone at the Palm Harbor Farmers Market looks suspicious. There's Pete, whose hands shake so badly he can barely hold his own herb bundles. Mac, the cantankerous farmer who's...

Halloween in Palm Harbor is about to get deadly... Dog trainer Bea Whitman thought her biggest Halloween worry would be judging the children's costume contest—until fortune teller Cordelia Ashworth is found dead among scattered tarot cards with her venomous snake missing from its cage. With her wedding to veterinarian James Crawford just weeks away and their photographer having mysteriously canceled, Bea has enough on her plate without adding murder to the mix. But when her investigation reveals the snake bite was staged and a dangerous killer is on the loose, Bea can't resist putting her...

In her ninth adventure, Sookie has just tied on her cocktail waitress apron for a night's work when a special report comes on the television. The time has come. The wereanimals have revealed themselves.

A grand hotel opening. A French Bulldog doppelgänger. And a mystery that proves you can't judge a suspect by their country club membership. Dog trainer Bea Crawford just wanted a simple morning at Palm Harbor's newest luxury pet hotel—help a nervous concierge, admire the ridiculously expensive dog beds, maybe snag a bacon hors d'oeuvre. What she got instead? Her French Bulldog Max meeting his more sophisticated twin from actual France, a ballroom full of people with motives for murder, and the hotel's imperious owner nearly killed by a mystery assailant. When Vivian Hartley is found ...

Wedding fever has come to Bon Temps, Louisiana! Unfortunately, buxom, blonde, beautiful, and telepathic cocktail waitress Sookie is not the bride-to-be, so she takes the opportunity to travel to New Orleans on family business. As heir to the estate of her newly dead cousin Hadley, Sookie unearths a big secret. Soon it becomes clear that more than a few people will do anything to stop Sookie from looking into Hadley's past.

New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Charlaine Harris has won an Anthony Award for her one-of-a-kind Sookie Stackhouse mystery series. Sookie, a Louisiana cocktail waitress, skilled telepath, and friend to vampires, has a dedicated fan base that grows larger every day.

In this entry from Anthony Award winner Charlaine Harris' New York Times best-selling series, the gorgeous and feisty telepath hits the road to find her missing boyfriend, who may have run off with his former lover - a notorious vamp.

The holidays in Magnolia Ridge are supposed to be merry and bright—until the Christmas play ends in murder. When the town’s eccentric director is pushed from the balcony mid-rehearsal, chaos erupts in the community center. Witnesses swear they saw Santa himself do the deed, but Emma Richardson knows better. With the snow falling, the doors locked, and the whole cast stuck inside, it’s up to Emma, her mischievous boxer Max, and her best friend Charlie to untangle the tinsel of secrets before the killer unwraps another victim. Filled with small-town charm, laugh-out-loud moments, and ...

Nevada Barr's award-winning mystery series captivates fans with vividly drawn wilderness settings and the resourceful sleuth, middle-aged park ranger Anna Pigeon. Deep South portrays Anna boldly confronting hostile teenagers, suspicious locals, and a resentful "old-boy" network as she struggles to solve a gruesome murder. Anna leaves behind her beloved Mesa Verde to take on a position as district park ranger of the Mississippi Natchez Trace Parkway.