by Ruth Birmingham (2007)
"Her personal life may be a mess. And no one said her family was sane. But as lead detective at Atlanta's Peachtree Investigations, hard-nosed, fast-talking PI Sunny Childs is always up for cracking the case. And now starring in her sixth mystery, Sunny is in thick. When her cousin Lee-Lee, a documentary filmmaker who's set to interview convicted murderer Dale Weedlow, invites Sunny along for the ride, Sunny knows her very prescence will probably convince her flighty cousin that the sicko's been framed. But sunny ends up going, and to her surprise, things are, indeed, not as they seem." -- Jacket.
Cara Black
Two weeks after Princess Diana's death in Paris in 1997, an illegal Haitian immigrant named Mireille walks into Aimée Leduc's office, claiming that Aimée's late father was also her father. Before Aimée can learn more, Mireille disappears, leaving only a cryptic note with an address in the Latin Quarter where the indomitable Parisian detective finds the corpse of a well-dressed black man with his ear cut off.
Margaret Coel
After a candidate for governor is murdered, and his estranged wife is arrested for first-degree homicide, journalist Catherine McLeod must risk her career--and her life--to find the witness who can identify the candidate's murderer: Detective Ryan Beckman.
Alexander McCall Smith
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective AgencyFor All Confidential Matters and InquiriesSatisfaction Guaranteed for all PartiesUnder Personal ManagementThe phenomenal success of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency continues with the bestselling Kalahari Typing School for Men, the fourth book in the series.Mma Precious Ramotswe is content. Her business is well established with many satisfied customers, and in her mid-thirties ("the finest age to be") she has a house, two adopted children, a fine fiance. But, as always, there are troubles. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni has not set the date for their marriage. Her able assistant, Mma Makutsi, wants a husband. And worse, a rival detective agency has opened in town--an agency that does not have the gentle approach to business that Mma Ramotswe's does. But, of course, Precious will manage these things, as she always does, with her uncanny insight and her good heart.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Madeleine E. Robins
In a Regency London that isn't quite the one we know, young women of family whose reputations have been ruined are known as the Fallen. Young Sarah Tolerance is one such: a daughter of the nobility who ran away with her brother's fencing-master. Now that the fencing-master has died, everyone expects her to earn her living as a whore. But Sarah is unwilling. Instead, she invents a new role for herself, and a new vocation: "investigative agent." For Sarah, with her equivocal position in society, is able to float between social layers, unearth secrets, find things that were lost, and lose things too dangerous to be kept. Her stock in trade is her wits, her discretion, and her expertise with the smallsword -- for her fencing-master taught her that as well. She will need all her skills soon, when she is approached by an agent of the Count Verseillon, for a task that seems routine: reclaim an antique fan he once gave to "a lady with brown eyes." The fan, he tells her, is an heirloom; the lady, his first love. But as Sarah Tolerance unravels the mystery that surrounds the fan, she discovers that she--and the Count--are not the only ones seeking it, and that nothing about this task is what it seems.