Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Meet Bailey Weggins, the thirty-something, single-again true crime writer for a leading Manhattan woman's magazine. Smart and savvy, she's got a sixth sense when it comes to seeing the truth in a story-especially if it's murder. Bailey's in bed with her commitment-challenged lover K.C. when she gets a frantic call from her high-maintenance boss at Gloss magazine. Grabbing coffee and a cab outside her Greenwich... (more)

Dead Connection

by Alafair Burke

In this electrifying thriller, a rookie detective goes undercover on the Internet dating scene to draw out a serial killer targeting single women in Manhattan When two young women are murdered on the streets of New York, exactly one year apart, Detective Ellie Hatcher is called up for a special assignment on the homicide task force. The killer has left behind a clue connecting the two cases to First Date,... (more)

The Magician's Tale

by David Hunt

"A strange, seductive story...as eerie as a midnight walk in the fog. David Hunt starts the fog machine by introducing us to the bleak world that a San Francisco photographer named Kay Farrow sees...with the starkness of a reverse negative, it shows us light and dark, truth and deception, reality and illusion, even good and evil, in ways we never imagined." --New York Times Book Review * A national... (more)

City of Masks: A Cree Black Novel

by Daniel Hecht

In City of Masks , the first Cree Black novel, parapsychologist Cree and her partner take a case in New Orleans's Garden District that leaves them fearing for their own lives. The 150-year-old Beauforte House has long stood empty, until Lila Beauforte resumes residence and starts to see some of the house's secrets literally come to life. Tormented by an insidious and violent presence, Lila finds herself trapped... (more)

Judgment Calls: A Mystery

by Alafair Burke

After three years on the job in Portland's Drug and Vice Division, Deputy DA Samantha Kincaid gets what she wants: her first case with the Major Crimes Team. Kendra Martin, a 13-year-old runaway, has been found drugged, viciously assaulted, and left for dead in the Columbia River Gorge. Despite pressures to kick the case to assault, Samantha goes for attempted murder. Unfortunately the girl's story isn't gelling.... (more)

Close Case (Samantha Kincaid)

by Alafair Burke

Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid likes to be where the action is: at the scene of a crime, at the arrest of a suspect, with the cops on the Major Crimes Team. But when street smart, plugged-in reporter Percy Crenshaw is brutally murdered in the midst of pursuing a major story, she knows the stakes are high… Within days, cops have a suspect; then a confession. Yet Samantha suspects that something is... (more)

Missing Justice : A Samantha Kincaid Mystery

Missing Justice : A Samantha Kincaid Mystery

by Alafair Burke

Newly promoted Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid's first assignment back after a much-needed vacation is a hot one: Judge Clarissa Easterbrook has gone missing from a wealthy Portland neighborhood, and Sam has to make the DA look good until the prodigal judge returns. Yet it soon becomes clear that the woman didn't vanish voluntarily-and it's no surprise when her bludgeoned body turns up at a local... (more)

Blanche Passes Go

by Barbara Neely

Praise the Ancestors! After three years of housekeeping for Boston's haughty elite, Blanche White is finally coming home to North Carolina for an entire summer. And like a sign from above that she's headed in the right direction, Blanche has already lined up a date with the handsome train conductor she met somewhere between Boston and Baltimore. The summer holds lots of promise, including helping her best friend,... (more)

'Til Death Do Us Part

by Kate White

When "Gloss" magazine writer and sometime-sleuth Bailey Weggins receives a call from Ashley Hanes on a frigid January night, it isn't about fashion tips. It's about the recent marriage of Peyton Cross, a Martha Stewart wannabe at whose wedding both Bailey and Ashley served as bridesmaids. Now, two of their fellow brides-maids have recently met with untimely deaths, and Ashley wants Bailey to investigate. When... (more)

Bloody Mary (Jack Daniels Mysteries (Paperback))

Bloody Mary (Jack Daniels Mysteries (Paperback))

by J. A. Konrath

tart with a tough but vulnerable Chicago cop. Add a hyperactive cat, an ailing mother, a jealous boyfriend, a high-maintenance ex-husband, and a partner in the throes of a mid-life crisis.

No Hiding Place: A Tamara Hayle Mystery

by Valerie Wilson Wesley

When Newark lowlife Shawn Raymond is found murdered, private eye Tamara Hayle is asked to look into his death, and a reluctant Tamara soon discovers that his death is tied to corruption within the city's elite. 40,000 first printing. Tour."

Blackwater

by Kerstin Ekman

On Midsummer's Eve, 1974, Annie Raft arrives with her daughter Mia in the remote Swedish village of Blackwater to join her lover Dan on a nearby commune. On her journey through the deep forest, she sumbles upon the site of a grisly double murder--a crime that will remain unsolved for nearly twenty years, until the day Annie sees her grown daughter in the arms of one man she glimpsed in the forest that eerie... (more)

Death At Bishop's Keep

by Robin Paige

Kate Adrleigh is everything the Victorian English gentlewoman is not--outspoken, free-thinking, American...and a writer of the frowned upon "penny-dreadfuls." Soon after her arrival in Essex, England, a body is unearthed in a nearby archeological dig--and Kate has the chance to not only research her latest story...but to begin her first case with amateur detective Sir Charles Sheridan.

Dying in the Dark: A Tamara Hayle Mystery

Dying in the Dark: A Tamara Hayle Mystery

by Valerie Wilson Wesley

Valerie Wilson Wesley’s Tamara Hayle mystery series featuring Newark, New Jersey’s number one private investigator are loved for their smart, sexy protagonist who “has a way with a wisecrack that is positively lethal” ( Washington Post ). Now in Dying in the Dark , Hayle is entrenched in a sinister investigation that will demand her best detective work yet. Tamara Hayle’s past has come back to haunt... (more)

A Darker Shade Of Crimson (Ivy League Mysteries)

A Darker Shade Of Crimson (Ivy League Mysteries)

by Pamela Thomas-Graham

Being young, gifted, and black at Harvard has never been easy. For Ella Fisher, outspoken and controversial Dean of Students at Harvard Law School, it was murder. After Nikki Chase -- a smart, ambitious, attractive black economics professor -- stumbles over her friend Ella's body during a blackout in a classroom building, she finds herself plunged into the investigation of her death. In the process she uncovers... (more)

Standing in the Shadows (A Laura Principal Investigation)

Standing in the Shadows (A Laura Principal Investigation)

by Michelle Spring

The shocking murder lingered in the tabloids for weeks. A sweet elderly lady bludgeoned to death in a quiet corner of Cambridge by her eleven-year-old foster child, Daryll Flatt. Hideous as the crime was, the case was closed when the boy confessed to the murder. Now, two years later, Daryll's older brother hires private investigator Laura Principal to revisit the case--and to answer the baffling question: Why?... (more)

In The Midnight Hour (A Laura Principal Investigation)

In The Midnight Hour (A Laura Principal Investigation)

by Michelle Spring

Michelle Spring's acclaimed novels of psychological are invariable winners in the white-knuckle sweepstakes. Richly-drawn characters with unsavory motives. Secret sins of the past that snake their way into the unsuspecting present. Atmosphere a reader can step into and feel. Michelle Spring is a master at weaving grand themes into compelling plots. Now, in her astonishing new novel, she ices our veins with a North... (more)

The Last Defense

by Christopher Darden

Prosecutor Christopher Darden and award-winning author Dick Lochte return with a novel about a troubled lawyer with one chance to defend his career-and his life.

Do or Die

by Grace F. Edwards

A songbird is silenced ... by murder. With her soulful voice and delicate beauty, Starr Hendrix seemed destined to live up to her name and hit it big as a jazz singer. But her career ended before it began, and Mali's father offered Starr a second chance by giving her top billing as singer for his popular jazz band's latest show. Mali isn't surprised when Starr doesn't show — but everyone is shocked when the... (more)

A Toast Before Dying (Mali Anderson Mystery)

A Toast Before Dying (Mali Anderson Mystery)

by Grace F. Edwards

com, and "Mostly Murder" and nominated for an Anthony Award for Best First Mystery, "If I Should Die" won countless fans for private eye Mali Anderson. In Mali's highly-anticipated second outing, she sets out to clear a friend's name, in a glamorous puzzler that leads her through Harlem's jazz clubs and bars, beauty shops and barbershops, back alleys and tony brownstones.

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: mystery with female lead

by Kate White

by Alafair Burke

by David Hunt

by Daniel Hecht

by Alafair Burke

by Alafair Burke

by Alafair Burke

by Barbara Neely

by Kate White

by J. A. Konrath

by Valerie Wilson Wesley

by Kerstin Ekman

by Robin Paige

by Valerie Wilson Wesley

by Pamela Thomas-Graham

by Michelle Spring

by Michelle Spring

by Christopher Darden

by Grace F. Edwards

by Grace F. Edwards