Women Sleuth Humor

Auntie Poldi, sassy, brassy, and 60, moves to Sicily for a quiet alcohol-fuelled retirement. A murder spoils her plans. This is the first novel in a charming new mystery series set in Sicily and laced with Italian sensuality and humor. It features an amateur sleuth, the sassy and foul-mouthed Auntie Poldi. Recently widowed Poldi moves to Sicily in order to quietly drink herself to death with a sea view, but fate intervenes. When she finds the corpse of a young man on the beach, his face blown off with a sawn-off shotgun, she becomes a potential suspect in his murder case.

Superspy Davis Way sets sail on a Caribbean cruise aboard the MS Probability with 50 billionaires, a boatload of Louis Vuitton luggage, Anderson Cooper, and her mother. (Her mother?) The weather is perfect, the seas are calm, and suite 704 is spectacular. Until the door slams shut. For good. Obviously it's a system glitch. Surely someone will show up to free Davis, Miss Hawaii, and the creepy staff. But when the minutes turn to hours and the hours stretch into a day, Davis knows it's up to her.

Business is slow at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, so slow in fact that for the first time in her estimable career Precious Ramotswe has reluctantly agreed to take a holiday. The promise of a week of uninterrupted peace is short-lived, however, when she meets a young boy named Samuel, a troublemaker who is himself in some trouble. Once she learns more about Samuel's sad story, Mma Ramotswe feels compelled to step in and help him find his way out of a bad situation.

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.

You've lost your job as a department store lingerie buyer, your car's been repossessed, and most of your furniture and small appliances have been sold off to pay last month's rent. Now the rent is due again. And you live in New Jersey. What do you do? If you're Stephanie Plum, you become a bounty hunter. But not just a nickel-and-dime bounty hunter - you go after the big money. That means a cop gone bad.

Problem number one: Bootsy Howard. Davis Way Cole lives a (relatively) quiet, (somewhat) simple, and (completely) witch-free life with her husband and twin daughters on the 29th floor of the Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. Until Bootsy Howard shows up demanding a million dollars. Problem number two: Princess Smucker. What was marketing thinking when they booked the Southern Canine Association's annual dog show at the Bellissimo? And what was Davis thinking when she agreed to let a dog stay with her? For a week? In her home?

Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series has become a worldwide phenomenon thanks to the appeal of endearing protagonist Precious Ramotswe and the author’s charmingly quirky prose. In this 13th installment, Mma Ramotswe’s attention is focused on a pesky disciplinary problem at her adopted daughter’s school - while Grace Makutsi adjusts to wedded bliss and the famed Clovis Andersen arrives in Botswana looking for more than bush tea.

It's summer in Abbotsville, and Miss Julia has visions of enjoying a life of leisure. But before she can even sip some iced tea on her front porch, a letter from her long-lost cousin Elsie informs her that Elsie's granddaughter is on a bus headed to Abbotsville that very day. Reminding Miss Julia of an old family debt, Elsie proclaims that she is sending Trixie to Miss Julia's to learn to become a lady. The nerve of some people! When the rude and unkempt Trixie arrives, even Sam and Lloyd agree that Miss Julia faces quite a challenge.

Drew thought she was destined to rise above her small New Jersey hometown and make it as a serious journalist in New York City. But now she’s back in Clearfield, pushing thirty, newly single, and living with her father. After a chance encounter at the grocery store, she reconnects with her ex-best friend, Steph, who married young and never left their hometown. But Steph looks … good. She’s tanned, clear-skinned, and glowing. She drives an expensive car and wears only name-brands. What’s her secret?

Between intriguing new cases and troubling personal developments, Precious' hands are full. The four Miss Beauty and Integrity pageant finalists may have questionable moral fiber, and the brother of an important government worker has allegedly been poisoned. On top of all that, Precious' reliable fianci might be hiding something.

On the weather front, category four Hurricane Kevin took a last-minute left and is headed straight for the Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. In breaking news, undercover casino operative Davis Way has one foot out the evacuation door when 50 million dollars disappear, and in its place, a dead body. In other news, if forced to ride out the storm on the hotel's 13th-floor fortress, Davis won't be alone.

Precious Ramotswe's comfortable existence as the only detective in Botswana is suddenly rattled when the Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency opens, and its brochure proclaims, "Don't take any chances! Entrust your enquiries to a MAN!" As if the development isn't enough, Mma Ramotswe has also taken on two difficult cases, one of which hits close to home. But with wisdom on her side, Mma Ramotswe figures to crack both cases and upstage her competition.

Flowers, favors, and a cake with a body in it...what a way to start a wedding! Diana already regrets saying yes to her neighbor's ridiculous wedding flower demands, but when she discovers a body in the middle of the multi-tiered centerpiece...it's really taking the cake! The man in the cake has been murdered. Diana suspects that one of her neighbors may be the killer. And she already knows that some of them are keeping skeletons in their closets. Sometimes literally.

New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith's critically acclaimed No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series continues in this engaging book that won the first ever Saga Award for Wit, given to the wittiest British book of the year.

From internationally best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith comes the seventh novel in the phenomenally popular and endlessly charming series that began with The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Once again Botswana's only female detective, Mma Ramotswe, and her invaluable assistant, Mma Makutsi, puzzle out the mysteries of life while finding comfort in steaming mugs of bush tea.

For Colorado caterer Goldy Schulz, business isn’t just booming—it’s skyrocketing. Her friend Marla is constantly warning her, “Success can kill you.” But Goldy doesn’t take the warning literally until her next booking: a cocktail party for the Westside Mall’s Elite Shoppers Club. While setting up, Goldy is nearly run down by a truck with no intention of stopping. Then she finds an old friend in a pile of sale shoes—stabbed with one of Goldy’s new knives. Goldy must catch the real killer between whipping up Sweethearts’ Swedish Meatballs, Quiche Me Quick, and Diamond Lovers’ Hot Crab Dip.

In the life of Precious Ramotswe, a woman duly proud of her fine traditional build, there is rarely a dull moment, and in the latest installment in the universally beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, there is much happening on Zebra Drive and Tlokweng Road. Mma Ramotswe is experiencing staffing difficulties. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni asks to be put in charge of a case involving an errant husband. But can a man investigate such matters as successfully as the number-one lady detective can?

America's favorite senior citizen takes on thieves who've stolen her jewelry. Although it's not the first time they've targeted her small North Carolina town, Miss Julia vows to make it the last. Soon she and her posse rush to Palm Beach for some sun, sand, and a bizarre stakeout. But how can two elderly ladies, a boy, and a tipsy private eye outfox crafty criminals?

Precious Ramotswe has taken on two puzzling cases. First, she is approached by the lawyer Mma Sheba, who is the executor of a deceased farmer’s estate. Mma Sheba has a feeling that the young man who has stepped forward may be falsely impersonating the farmer’s nephew in order to claim his inheritance. Mma Ramotswe agrees to visit the farm and find out what she can about the self-professed nephew. Then the proprietor of the Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon comes to Mma Ramotswe for advice.

Now engaged to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe must contend with the hostility of her fianci's unscrupulous maid, who quickly begins plotting the disintegration of the arrangement. Then an American woman asks for help to learn the truth behind her son's disappearance in Africa, and Mma Ramotswe has all the troubles she can handle.