Burnt river

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edited and with an introduction by Otto Penzler

"Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler's new anthology brings together the most cunning, resourceful, and brilliant female sleuths in mystery fiction ... For the first time ever, Otto Penzler gathers the most iconic women of the detective canon over the past 150 years, captivating and surprising readers in equal measure. The 74 handpicked stories in this collection introduce us to the most determined of gumshoe gals, from debutant detectives like Anna Katharine Green's Violet Strange to spinster sleuths like Mary Roberts Rinehart's Hilda Adams, from groundbreaking female cops like Baroness Orczy's Lady Molly to contemporary crime-fighting P.I.s like Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, and include indelible tales from Agatha Christie, Carolyn Wells, Edgar Wallace, L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace, Sara Paretsky, Nevada Barr, Linda Barnes, Laura Lippman, and many more. Meet determined law-enforcing ladies and captivating criminal masterminds of all kinds, including a brilliant scientist who solves a murder using a single tea leaf ; a master thief who leaves a calling card at the scene of the crime lest the servants be wrongly accused ; a powerful woman who oversees a rogue band of vigilantes ; a nosy detective best known for her outrageous hats who solves a murder using tropical fish ; an X-rated sleuth who gets shanghaied by an unsavory character ; a puritanical villainess hell-bent on avenging a perceived wrong ; and, last but not least, a crime-solving nun who unravels a complicated poisoning plot" --

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Cathy Ace

Henry Twyst, eighteenth Duke of Chellingworth, is convinced his mother is losing her marbles. She claims to have seen a corpse on the dining-room floor, but all she has to prove it is a bloodied bobble hat. Worried enough to retain the women of the WISE Enquiries Agency -- one is Welsh, one Irish, one Scottish and one English -- Henry wants the strange matter explained away. But the truth of what happened at the Chellingworth Estate, set in the rolling Welsh countryside near the quaint village of Anwen by Wye, is more complex, dangerous, and deadly, than anyone could have foreseen.

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Erica Spindler

Detective MC Riggio is about to get married. In her late twenties, she is at a crossroads in her life. After a lot of knocks, it seems as though everything is on track for her. But then MC's cousin Tommy is brutally murdered and suddenly nothing will be the same again. A cold, emotionless serial killer is on the loose; some one who kills cleanly and without leaving ay trace. A killer who has the potential to rip apart MC's family - and to leave her dreams torn to shreds. -- back cover.

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Erica Spindler

A decade after being acquitted for her beloved sister's murder, Katherine McCall receives chilling anonymous letters that compel her to return to her hostile hometown and team up with Detective Luke Tanner to learn the truth about what happened.