SYKM


Cozy (Traditional) Mysteries
The genre is loosely defined as mysteries which contain no explicit sex or excessive gore or violence;
and usually featuring an amateur detective, a confined setting, and characters who know one another.

The Agatha Awards, presented annually by Malice Domestic, honor the traditional mystery — books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie.


Avery Aames
  • Charlotte Bessette: proprietor of Fromagerie Bessette, in fictional Providence, Ohio, in the Cheese Shop mysteries

Riley Adams (Elizabeth Spann Craig)
  • Lulu Taylor: owner of Aunt Pat’s rib joint, in Memphis, Tennessee, in the Memphis Barbeque mysteries

Susan Wittig Albert
  • China Bayles: herbalist and former attorney, in Pecan Springs, Texas
  • Beatrix Potter: author and illustrator in the Lake District in 1900s England

Laura Alden
  • Beth Kennedy: recently divorced mother of two, running the Children’s Bookshelf bookstore and serving as PTA secretary, in Rynwood, near Madison, Wisconsin

Tasha Alexander
  • Lady Emily Ashton: a young widow in Victorian London, England

Barbara Allan
  • Brandy Borne: recently divorced, now back in her hometown in Iowa, with Sushi, her blind Shih Tzu, in the Trash ’n’ Treasures mysteries

Robin Allen
  • Poppy Markham: former sous chef turned public health inspector, in Austin, Texas, in the Culinary Cop series

Donna Andrews
  • Turing Hopper: Artificial Intelligence Personality (AIP) in Crystal City, outside Washington, DC
  • Meg Langslow: decorative blacksmith in a southern town

Connie Archer
  • Lucky Jamieson, inheriting the By the Spoonful Soup Shop, in fictional Snowflake, Vermont, in the Soup Lover’s mysteries

Nancy Atherton
  • Aunt Dimity: a romantic ghost in England

Donald Bain
  • Jessica Fletcher: mystery writer in Cabot Cove, Maine, in the “Murder, She Wrote” series

Mignon F. Ballard
  • Augusta Goodnight: a Guardian angel
  • Miss Dimple Kilpatrick: a longtime first-grade teacher during World War II, in Elderberry, Georgia

Ella Barrick (Laura DiSilverio)
  • Stacy Graysin: part owner of a ballroom dance studio, in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, in the Ballroom Dance mysteries

Stephanie Barron
  • Jane Austen: the famous author, in England

Lorraine Bartlett
  • Katie Bonner: manager of Artisans Alley and an amateur sleuth, in the Victoria Square mysteries

M.C. Beaton
  • Hamish Macbeth: police constable in Scotland
  • Agatha Raisin: London advertising retiree living in the Cotswolds, England

Jessica Beck (Tim Myers)
  • Victoria and Greg: running The Charming Moose Diner in Jasper Fork, North Carolina, in the Classic Diner mysteries
  • Suzanne Hart: proprietor of a smalltown donut shop, with an ex-husband, wacky friend, and hunky cop, in April Springs, North Carolina, in the Donut Shop mysteries

Alan Beechey
  • Oliver Swithin: children’s book author in England

Josie Belle (Jenn McKinlay)
  • Good Buy Girls: a group of skilled bargain hunters, in St. Stanley, Virginia

Annette Blair
  • Madeira Cutler: proprietor of a vintage clothing store in a former morgue in Mystick Falls, Connecticut, in the Vintage Magic mysteries

Heather Blake (Heather Webber)
  • Carly Bell Hartwell: owner of Little Shop of Potions in Hitching Post, Alabama, in the Magic Potion mysteries
  • Darcy Merriweather, from a long line of witches who can cast spells by making a wish, in the Enchanted Village section of Salem, Massachusetts, in the Wishcraft mysteries

Miranda Bliss
  • Annie Capshaw: recently divorced, and her ex-beauty queen best friend, Eve DeCateur, in Arlington, Virginia, in the Cooking Class mysteries

Janet Bolin
  • Willow Vanderling: who left a corporate job to open a machine embroidery shop in fictional Elderberry Bay, Pennsylvania, in the Threadville mysteries

Gail Bowen
  • Joanne Kilbourn: political science professor in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

Rhys Bowen
  • Evan Evans: village constable in Llanfair, Wales
  • Lady Georgiana: minor royalty in 1930s England
  • Molly Murphy: an Irish immigrant in early 20th-century who wants to be a private investigator, in New York City

Laura Bradford
  • Claire Weatherly: owner of an Amish speciality shop in the fictional Amish town of Heavenly, Pennsylvania

Jacklyn Brady (Sherry Lewis)
  • Rita Lucero: pastry chef in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the Piece of Cake mysteries

Ali Brandon (Diane A.S. Stuckart)
  • Darla Pettistone: owner of a bookstore in Brooklyn, New York, and her cat Hamlet, in the Black Cat Bookshop mysteries

Lilian Jackson Braun
  • Jim Qwilleran: journalist, with cats Koko and Yum Yum in Pickax, northeast central United States

Simon Brett
  • Melita Pargeter: widow of a thief in England
  • Charles Paris: charming alcoholic actor in England
  • Carole Seddon: retiree in Fethering, England, in the Fethering Mysteries

Elizabeth Bright (Tim Myers)
  • Jennifer Shane and her shop, Custom Card Creations, in The Card-Making Mysteries

Duffy Brown
  • Reagan Summerside: running her consignment shop The Prissy Fox with her Aunt KiKi, in Savannah, Georgia, in the Consignment Shop mysteries

Lizbie Brown
  • Elizabeth Blair: American widow quilt shop owner in Bath, England

Maggie Bruce
  • Lili Marino: moving from Brooklyn to Walden Corners, New York, in the Gourd Craft mysteries

Mollie Cox Bryan
  • Annie Chemovitz: former investigative journalist, now a stay-at-home mom involved with a scrapbooking club, in fictional Cumberland Creek, Virginia

Leslie Ann Budewitz
  • Erin Murphy: taking over her family’s century-old general store in Jewel Bay, Montana, in the Food Lovers’ Village series

Lucy Burdette (Roberta Isleib pseudonym)
  • Hayley Snow: 20-something food critic for Key Zest magazine, in Key West, Florida, in the Food Critic mysteries

Alexander Campion
  • Capucine LeTellier, a police detective specializing in white-collar crime, and her husband Alexandre, a portly food critic, in Paris, France, in the Capucine Culinary mysteries

Anne Canadeo
  • Maggie Messina: owner of the Black Sheep Knitting Shop and a circle of knitters, in Plum Harbor, Massachusetts, in the Black Sheep Knitting mysteries

Dorothy Cannell
  • Ellie Haskell, an interior decorator, Ben Haskell, a writer and chef, and occasionally Hyacinth and Primrose Tramwell, a pair of dotty sisters and owners of the Flowers Detection Agenc

JoAnna Carl
  • Lee McKinney: a divorcee who returns to Michigan to work for her aunt's chocolate business, in the Chocaholic mysteries

Alyse Carlson
  • Camellia (Cam) Harris: 30-something public relations guru in Roanoke, Virginia, in the Garden Society mysteries

Elizabeth Lynn Casey (Laura Bradford)
  • Tori Sinclair: a Yankee librarian moving to Sweet Briar, South Carolina, in the Southern Sewing Circle mysteries

Bailey Cates (Cricket McRae)
  • Katie Lightfoot, a novice witch and professional baker working at her aunt and uncle's bakery, in Savannah, Georgia, in the Magical Bakery mysteries

Sarah Caudwell
  • Hilary Tamar: medieval law professor in Oxford, England

C.S. Challinor
  • Rex Graves: Scots barrister specializing in criminal litigation, prosecutor at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, Scotland

Erika Chase
  • Lizzie Turner: tutor and literacy teacher, returning to her old home town, Ashton Corners, Alabama, in the Ashton Corners Book Club mysteries

Laura Childs
  • Carmela Bertrand: owner of a scrapbooking shop in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the Scrapbooking Mysteries
  • Theodosia Browning: owner of the Indigo Teahouse in Charleston, South Carolina, in the Tea Shop Mysteries

Agatha Christie
  • Tuppence and Tommy Beresford: intelligence agents in England
  • Miss Marple: spinster living in St. Mary's Mead, England
  • Hercule Poirot: a Belgian private detective in London, England

Jill Churchill
  • Lily Brewster: socialite and her brother, Robert Brewster, victims of the stock market crash of 1929, in the Grace and Favor mysteries
  • Jane Jeffry: suburban housewife and sleuth in Chicago, Illinois

Blaize Clement
  • Dixie Hemingway: former sheriff’s deputy, now a professional pet sitter, in Sarasota, Florida

Peg Cochran
  • Giovanna (Gigi) Fitzgerald, leaving New York City to run a gourmet shop in Woodstone, Connecticut, in the Gourmet De-Lite mysteries

Jeffrey Cohen
  • Elliot Freed: recently divorced writer and proprietor of an old movie theater, in New Jersey, in the Double Feature mysteries

Nancy J. Cohen
  • Marla Shore: beauty salon owner in south Florida, in the Bad Hair Day Mysteries

Barbara Colley
  • Charlotte Larue: maid in New Orleans, Louisiana

Kate Collins
  • Abby Knight: law school drop-out and the owner of Bloomers Florists in New Chapel, Indiana, in the Flower Shop mysteries

Cleo Coyle (Alice Alfonsi & Marc Cerasini)
  • Clare Cosi: manager of the Village Blend, a landmark coffeehouse in New York City’s Greenwich Village, in the Coffeehouse mysteries

Alisa Craig (Charlotte MacLeod)
  • Dittany Henbit Monk, a garden club member, and her husband Osbert Monk, an author, in Lobelia Falls, Ontario, Canada, in the Grub-and-Stakers series
  • Madoc Rhys, Royal Canadian Mounted Police inspector, and his wife Janet Rhys, in New Brunswick, Canada

Elizabeth Spann Craig
  • Myrtle Clover: 80-something retired English teacher who writes a newspaper column, in fictional Bradley, North Carolina
  • Beatrice Coleman: retired art museum curator and amateur sleuth in the fictional mountain village of Dappled Hills, North Carolina, in the Southern Quilting mysteries [written as Elizabeth Craig]

Deborah Crombie
  • Duncan Kincaid: a Scotland Yard superintendent, and Gemma James, a sergeant, in London, England
Mary Daheim
  • Judith McMonigle Flynn: bed and breakfast owner in Seattle, Washington
  • Emma Lord: small-town newspaper owner and editor in Alpine, Washington

Jeanne M. Dams
  • Hilda Johansson: young immigrant from Sweden working as a servant for the Studebaker family around the turn-of-the-19th century in South Bend, Indiana
  • Dorothy Martin: American schoolteacher retired in England

Shirley Damsgaard
  • Ophelia Jensen: reluctant witch who is a librarian, and her grandmother Abby, in a small town in Iowa

Evelyn David
  • Mac Sullivan: a retired cop, and Whiskey, his Irish Wolfhound partner, along with Rachel Brenner, a 40-something divorcee and mother of a teenaged son, in Washington, DC, in the Sullivan Investigations

Diane Mott Davidson
  • Goldy Bear: single mom and caterer in Aspen Meadow, Colorado

Krista Davis
  • Holly Miller: returning home to run the pet-friendly Sugar Maple Inn, in fictional Wagtail, Virginia, in the Paws and Claws mysteries
  • Sophie Winston: event planner in Alexandria, Virginia, in the Domestic Diva mysteries

Vicki Delany
  • Gemma Doyle: transplanted Englishwoman returning to run her Great Uncle Arthur’s Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, along with Moriarty the cat, in West London on Cape Cod, Massachusetts
  • Fiona MacGillivray: owner of the Savoy dance hall, her 12-year old son Angus, and constable Richard Sterling, in the gold rush of 1898, in Dawson, Yukon Territory, Canada, in the Klondike mysteries
  • Merry Wilkinson: owner of Mrs. Claus's Treasures, in Rudolph, New York, in the Year-Round Christmas mysteries

Jo Dereske
  • Helma Zukas: librarian in Washington state

Denise Dietz
  • Ellie Bernstein: a diet group leader, and homicide Lt. Peter Miller, in Colorado Springs, Colorado

Carola Dunn
  • Daisy Dalrymple: journalist in Hampshire, England
  • Eleanor Trewynn: a plucky widow running a charity shop in the fictional village of Port Mabyn, in 1960s Cornwall, England

Jerrilyn Farmer
  • Madeline Bean: caterer in Hollywood, California

Monica Ferris
  • Betsy Devonshire: needlework shop owner in Excelsior, Minnesota

Sharon Fiffer
  • Jane Wheel: laid off from her advertising job and working as an antique picker to make ends meet, in Chicago, Illinois

Christy Fifield (Christina F. York)
  • Glory Martine, inheriting her great-uncle’s souvenir shop, including ghosts, in Keyhole Bay, Florida, in the Haunted Souvenir Shop mysteries

Amanda Flower
  • India Hayes: artist, and librarian at Martin College in Stripling, Ohio

Joanne Fluke
  • Hannah Swensen: manager of The Cookie Jar in Lake Eden, Minnesota

Earlene Fowler
  • Albenia “Benni” Harper: ex-rancher and folk art museum curator, in San Celina, California

Sara Hoskinson Frommer
  • Joan Spencer: orchestra manager in Oliver, Indiana

Anne George
  • Patricia Anne “Mouse” Hollowell, a retired English teacher, and Mary Alice “Sister” Crane, a country-western bar owner, in Alabama, in the Southern Sisters mysteries

Daryl Wood Gerber
  • Jenna Hart: avid reader, admitted foodie, and owner of a cookbook store in the fictional coastal town of Crystal Cove, California, in the Cookbook Nook mysteries

Dorothy Gilman
  • Mrs. Pollifax: grandmother and CIA agent in New Jersey

Melissa Glazer (Tim Myers)
  • Carolyn Emerson: middle-aged proprietor of a do-your-own-pottery shop, Fire at Will, in fictional Maple Ridge, Vermont, in the Clay and Crime mysteries

Christine Goff
  • Birdwatcher Mysteries set in Rocky Mountain National Park, in Colorado

Sally Goldenbaum
  • Isabel “Izzy” Chambers: lawyer who leaves Boston to open the Seaside Knitting Studio, in Sea Harbor, Massachusetts
  • Po Paltrow: writer and quilter, and the Queen Bees quilting group, in the fictitious college town of Crestwood, Kansas

Barbara Graham
  • Tony Abernathy, the sheriff, and his wife, Theo, a quilt shop owner, in fictional Park County, in eastern Tennessee

Caroline Graham
  • Tom Barnaby: chief inspector in England

Ann Granger
  • Fran Varady: out-of-work actress turned private investigator, in London, England

Sarah Graves
  • Jacobia Tiptree: onetime financial advisor to the Mob, now living in Eastport, Maine, in the Home Repair Is Homicide mysteries

Beth Groundwater
  • Claire Hanover: 40-something proprietor of a gift-basket business, in Colorado Springs, Colorado

Jean Hager
  • Tess Darcy: bed-and-breakfast owner in Victoria Springs, Missouri, in the Iris House mysteries

Carolyn Haines
  • Sarah Booth Delaney: unconventional Southern Belle in Zinnia, Mississippi, in the Southern Belle mysteries

Rebecca M. Hale
  • Rebecca, running an antique shop inherited from her Uncle Oscar, and her cats Rupert and Isabella, in San Francisco, California, in the Cats and Curios mysteries

Victoria Hamilton (Donna Lea Simpson)
  • Jaymie Leighton: a cookware and cookbook collector, living with her sister in an old house in Queensville, Michigan, across the St. Clair river from Ontario, Canada, in the Vintage Kitchen mysteries
  • Merry Wynter: an expert muffin baker who inherits a mansion in fictional Autumn Vale, New York, in the Merry Muffin mysteries

Sherry Harris
  • Sarah Winston: former Air Force wife, now divorced from the police chief in Ellington, Massachusetts, in the Garage Sale mysteries

Janis Harrison
  • Bretta Solomon: 45-year-old owner of the Flower Shop in River City, Missouri, in the Gardening mysteries

Carolyn Hart
  • Annie Laurance: mystery book store owner, and Max Darling, investigator, in Broward’s Rock, South Carolina, in the Death on Demand series

Robin Hathaway
  • Dr. Jo Banks: who leaves New York City after a fatal misdiagnosis of a patient and ends up in Bayfield, New Jersey, as the on-call doctor at a motel
  • Dr. Andrew Fenimore: family physician in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Betty Hechtman
  • Molly Pink: 40-something widow coordinating events in a bookstore, including the Tarzana Hookers, a crochet group in California, in the Crochet mysteries

Hazel Holt
  • Sheila Malory: writer of literary criticism in Taviscombe, England

Mary Ellen Hughes
  • Jo McAllister: proprietor of Jo’s Craft Corner, in the small town of Abbotsville, Maryland, in the Craft Corner mysteries

Sue Ann Jaffarian
  • Odelia Grey: plus-sized, middle-aged paralegal, in southern California

Miranda James (Dean James)
  • Charlie Harris: a widowed librarian, and Diesel, a Maine coon cat, in the college town of Athena, Mississippi, in the Cat in the Stacks series

Linda O. Johnston
  • Lauren Vancouver: head of HotRescues, a no-kill animal shelter, north of Los Angeles, California, in the Pet Rescue mysteries
Brian Kavanagh
  • Belinda Lawrence: young Australian who inherits a cottage near Bath, England

Sofie Kelly
  • Kathleen Paulson, a librarian from Boston, and two stray cats with special powers, Owen and Hercules, in fictional Mayville Heights, Minnesota, in the Magical Cats mysteries

Mary Kennedy
  • Maggie Walsh: Manhattan psychologist who takes a job as a radio talk show host on WYME in the fictional south Florida town of Cypress Grove, in the Talk Radio mysteries

Rebecca Kent (Kate Kingsbury)
  • Meredith Llewellyn: the headmistress of Bellehaven House, a finishing school in the Cotswolds, and her two cohorts, no-nonsense Felicity Cross and timid ex-socialite Esmerelda Pickard, in Edwardian England

Diana Killian
  • Grace Hollister: an American schoolteacher and literary scholar visiting her favorite poets’ old haunts in England’s Lake District, in the Poetic Death mysteries

Alice Kimberly (Alice Alfonsi & Marc Cerasini)
  • Penelope Thornton-McClure: a bookshop owner, and Jack Shepard, the store’s resident ghost-sleuth, in Quindicott, Rhode Island, in the Haunted Bookshop mysteries

Kate Kingsbury
  • Lady Elizabeth Hartleigh Compton: in Sitting Marsh, England during WWII, in the Manor House mysteries
  • Cecily Sinclair: Edwardian hotel owner in Badger’s End, England, in the Pennyfoot Hotel mysteries

Mary Kruger
  • Ariadne “Ari” Evans: 29-year-old owner of Ariadne’s Web, a knitting shop in Freeport, Massachusetts, in the Knitting Mysteries

Rita Lakin
  • Gladdy Gold: Florida’s Oldest Private Eye and her gang of retirees, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

John J. Lamb
  • Brad Lyon: retired San Francisco homicide inspector, and his wife Ashleigh, teddy bear creator and collector, in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, in the Bear Collector’s mysteries

Virginia Lanier
  • Jo Beth Sidden: bloodhound trainer and tracker in Georgia

Lucy Lawrence (Jenn McKinlay)
  • Brenna Miller: decoupage teacher in Morse Point, a small town in New England, in the Decoupage Murder mysteries

Amanda Lee (Gayle Trent)
  • Marcy Singer: owner of an embroidery shop, The Seven-Year Stitch, in fictional Tallulah Falls, Oregon, in the Embroidery mysteries

Laura Levine
  • Jaine Austin: freelance writer in Los Angeles, California

Liz Lipperman
  • Jordan McAllister: substitute culinary reporter in the fictional small town of Ranchero, Texas, in the Clueless Cook mysteries

Kylie Logan (Constance Laux)
  • Josie Giancola: leading expert on buttons with a button shop in Chicago, Illinois, in the Button Box mysteries

Meg London (Peg Cochran)
  • Emma Taylor: moving back home to help run her aunt’s lingerie boutique, in Paris, Tennessee, in the Sweet Nothings Lingerie mysteries

Virginia Lowell
  • Olivia Greyson: owner of the Gingerbread House in her Victorian home in fictional Chatterley Heights, on the outskirts of Baltimore, Maryland, in the Cookie Cutter Shop series

Ed Lynskey
  • Alma and Isabel Trumbo: elderly sisters in Quiet Anchorage, Virginia

Marianne MacDonald
  • Dido Hoare: bookseller in London, England

Karen MacInerney
  • Natalie Barnes: inn proprietor on Cranberry Island, Maine, in the Gray Whale Inn mysteries

Anna Maclean
  • Louisa May Alcott: amateur sleuth before becoming a famous author, in pre-Civil War Boston, Massachusetts

Charlotte MacLeod
  • Max Bittersohn: art detective, and his socially connected wife, Sarah Kelling, in Boston, Massachusetts
  • Peter Shandy: college botany professor, and Helen Marsh Shandy, a librarian, in Balaclava County, Massachusetts

Rett MacPherson
  • Victory (Torie) O’Shea: genealogist in New Kassel, Missouri

Molly MacRae
  • Kath Rutledge: a textile preservationist, inheriting her grandmother’s wool shop, along with a depressed ghost, in fictional Blue Plum, Tennessee, in the Haunted Yarn Shop series

G.M. Malliet
  • Detective Chief Inspector Arthur St. Just: of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary and Sergeant Fear, in England
  • Max Tudor: former MI-5 agent, now vicar at St. Edwold’s in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip, England

Annette Mahon
  • Maggie Browne: widow, and the St. Rose Quilting Bee, in Scottsdale, Arizona

Margaret Maron
  • Deborah Knott: district judge in North Carolina

Casey Mayes (Tim Myers)
  • Savannah Stone, a math puzzle creator, and her husband Zach, a retired Charlotte police chief, in rural North Carolina, in the Mystery by the Numbers series

Alexander McCall Smith
  • Mma Precious Ramotswe: owner of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, in Botswana

G.A. McKevett
  • Savannah Reid: plus-sized private investigator in southern California

Jenn McKinlay
  • Melanie Cooper and Angie DeLaura, operators of a cupcake bakery, Fairy Tale Cupcakes, in Old Town Scottsdale, Arizona
  • Lindsey Norris: director of the Briar Creek Public Library, in New York, in the Library Lover’s mysteries

Catriona McPherson
  • Dandy Gilver: well-to-do woman in 1920s Scotland

Cricket McRae
  • Sophie Mae Reynolds: 30-something soapmaker and amateur sleuth, in the Pacific Northwest, in the Home Crafting mysteries

Amy Patricia Meade
  • Stella Thornton Buckley: moving from Manhattan with her husband, Nick, to small-town Vermont, in the Pret’ Near Perfect mysteries

Leslie Meier
  • Lucy Stone: sleuthing wife and mother of four, in Tinker’s Cove, Maine

Terrie Farley Moran
  • Mary “Sassy” Cabot and Bridget Mayfield, owners of Read ’Em and Eat, a bookstore and café in Fort Myers Beach, in the barrier islands of the Florida Gulf Coast

Shirley Rousseau Murphy
  • Joe Grey: a cat and a private investigator

Tamar Myers
  • Abigail Timberlake: owner of an antique shop in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the Den of Antiquity series
  • Magdalena Yoder: owner and manager of a Mennonite Inn in Hernia, Pennsylvania, in the Pennsylvania-Dutch mysteries

Tim Myers
  • Harrison Black: inheritor of At Wick’s End candle shop from his great aunt, in the Candlemaking Mysteries
  • Benjamin Perkins: working in his family’s specialty soap store Where There’s Soap, in the Soapmaking Mysteries
  • Alex Winston: owner of the Hatteras West Inn and Lighthouse in the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills in North Carolina

Susan O’Brien
  • Nicki Valentine, a widow with two kids training to be a private investigator in suburban Washington, DC

T. Lynn Ocean
  • Jersey Barnes: fomer marine anti-terrorist specialist turned private security investigator and bar owner, in Wilmington, North Carolina

Clare O’Donohue
  • Nell Fitzgerald: former Manhattan publishing professional now helping her grandmother, Eleanor Cassidy, run a quilting store in the Hudson River town of Archer’s Rest, New York, in the Someday Quilts mysteries

Diana Orgain
  • Kate Connolly: office manager, private investigator, and new mother, in San Francisco, California, in the Maternal Instincts series

Gail Oust
  • Piper Prescott: transplanted Yankee running a spice shop, in fictional Brandywine Creek, Georgia, in the Spice Shop mysteries
Katherine Hall Page
  • Faith Fairchild: who marries a clergyman and leaves New York City for a small town in New England

Robin Paige (Susan Wittig Albert & Bill Albert)
  • Kathryn Ardleigh: American author who moves to Victorian Dedham, England, and Sir Charles Sheridan, a landed peer and amateur scientist

Linda Palmer
  • Morgan Tyler: 30-year-old widow, the head writer of the daytime drama “Love of My Life” in New York City

Joanne Pence
  • Angelina Amalfi: food columnist and restaurant reviewer, in San Francisco, California

Louise Penny
  • Armand Gamache: Chief Inspector of the Sûreté du Québec, in the village of Three Pines, in southern Quebec, Canada

Elizabeth Peters
  • Vicky Bliss: American art historian in Bavaria, Germany
  • Jacqueline Kirby: middle-aged librarian
  • Amelia Peabody: Victorian feminist Egyptologist from Kent, England

Nancy Pickard
  • Jenny Cain: foundation director in Port Frederick, Massachusetts

Cathy Pickens
  • Avery Andrews: 30-something lawyer in South Carolina

Deanna Raybourn
  • Lady Julia Grey: young widow in 1880s London, England

Hannah Reed (Deb Baker)
  • Story Fischer: beekeeper in the fictional small town of Moraine, Wisconsin, in the Queen Bee mysteries

Virginia Rich
  • Eugenia Potter: widowed chef in Maine and Arizona

Cynthia Riggs
  • Victoria Trumbull: an astute 92-year old Vineyard native and deputy police officer, in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

Ann Ripley
  • Louise Eldridge: organic gardener and TV host in Northern Virginia, in the Gardening mysteries

Fran Rizer
  • Calamine “Callie” Parrish: mortuary cosmetologist in South Carolina

P.B. Ryan
  • Nell Sweeney: governess in post-Civil-War Boston, Massachusetts, in the Guilded Age mysteries

Arlene Sachitano
  • Harriet Truman, widowed and taking over her aunt’s quilting business and home, in fictional Foggy Point, Washington, in the Loose Threads mysteries

Corinne Holt Sawyer
  • Angela Benbow and Caledonia Wingate: 70-something admirals’ widows, in southern California

Elise Sax
  • Gladie Burger: a matchmaker-in-training, and her eccentric Grandma Zelda, in fictional Cannes, California, in the Matchmaker series

Michele Scott
  • Michaela Bancroft: in the Horse Lover’s mysteries
  • Nikki Sands: in the Wine Lovers mysteries set in the Napa Valley, California

Maggie Sefton
  • Kelly Flynn: corporate accountant from Washington DC, who has relocated to Ft. Connor, Colorado and is learning to knit at the House of Lambspun

Paige Shelton
  • Becca Robins, who makes jam on her farm to sell at her twin sister Alison’s farmers market in rural South Carolina, in the Farmer’s Market mysteries
  • Isabelle “Betts” Winston and her grandmother (Gram) who runs a cooking school in the fictional town Broken Rope, in southern Missouri, in the Country Cooking School mysteries

Joanna Campbell Slan
  • Kiki Lowenstein: newly widowed mother of a young daughter, working in a scrapbooking store, Time in a Bottle, in St. Louis, Missouri, in the Scrap-N-Craft series

Patricia Sprinkle
  • Katharine Murray: who finds strange events in the past in the Family Tree mysteries
  • MacLaren Yarbrough: business-owner turned magistrate in Hopemore, Georgia, in the Thoroughly Southern mysteries

J.B. Stanley
  • James “Professor Puff” Henry: divorced librarian, in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, in the Supper Club mysteries

Rosemary Stevens
  • Beau Brummell: the arbiter of fashion in the Regency era of Great Britain

Dorothy St. James
  • Casey Calhoun: organic gardener in Washington, DC, in the White House Gardener mysteries

Denise Swanson
  • Skye Denison: school psychologist in Scumble River, Illinois
  • Dev Sinclair: the new owner of an old-fashioned shop in a small town in Missouri, in the Devereaux Dime Store series

Pari Noskin Taichert
  • Sasha Solomon: public relations director in New Mexico

Sarah Stewart Taylor
  • Sweeney St. George: art history professor specializing in representations of death, in Byzantium, Vermont

Jane Tesh
  • David Randall: private detective, and his psychic friend Camden, in Parkland, North Carolina, in the Grace Street mysteries

Terri Thayer
  • Dewey Pellicano: who inherits her mother’s quilt shop Quilter Paradiso, in San Jose, California, in the Quilting mysteries

Victoria Thompson
  • Sarah Brandt: midwife in turn-of-the-19th-century New York City, in the Gaslight Mysteries

Charles Todd
  • Bess Crawford: British army nurse in WWI

Kari Lee Townsend
  • Sunny Meadows: fortune teller leaving New York City for rural Divinity in upstate New York, in the Fortune Teller mysteries

Gayle Trent
  • Myrtle Crumb: 60-something sleuth, in southwest Virginia
  • Daphne Martin: cake decorator back in her home town in southern Virginia

Elaine Viets
  • Helen Hawthorne: who gave up her affluent lifestyle for a series of minimum-wage jobs in Florida, in the Dead End Job series

Clarissa Watson
  • Persis Willum: artist and art gallery assistant, in Long Island, New York, and France

Wendy Lyn Watson
  • Tallulah “Tally” Jones: recently divorced and running an ice cream shop (Remember the A La Mode) in Dalliance, Texas, in the Mystery a la Mode series

Tracy Weber
  • Kate Davidson: yoga instructor in Seattle, Washington, and her German shepherd sidekick Bella, in the Downward Dog mysteries

Heather Webber
  • Nina Quinn: owner of Taken By Surprise, a landscaping firm specializing in surprise garden makeovers, in Ohio

Patricia Wentworth
  • Miss Maud Silver: retired governess and teacher who becomes a professional private detective, in London, England

Jacqueline Winspear
  • Maisie Dobbs: psychologist and investigator based in 1920s and 1930s London, England

Valerie Wolzien
  • Susan Henshaw: a suburban housewife sleuth in Connecticut
  • Josie Pigeon: owner of an all-woman construction firm in the Northeast USA

Barbara Workinger
  • Hannah Miller (Granny Hanny): mystery reader and quilt-making enthusiast, in Pennsylvania, in the Amish Country mysteries

Richard Yancey
  • Teddy Ruzak: who failed police academy and wants to be a private investigator, in Knoxville, Tennessee

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