Books Like Happy Valley: 9 Novels With a Female Cop Who Won’t Let It Go

Did you know that nearly four in ten murders in America aren’t cleared? According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, about six in ten murder offenses were cleared in 2019, which leaves the rest open. And “cleared” is doing some work in that sentence: it means an arrest or a case closed by other means, not a conviction.

So most of these books start from a real place. Somewhere there is a file with a verdict on it that somebody signed off, and one officer who keeps opening it anyway. No genius deduction required. She just keeps turning up at a desk where a decision has already been made, and asks again. Here are the books like Happy Valley where she won’t let it go:

The Short Version

• For the one where the whole island wrote her off, read The Storm Reaper: a Fire Island police officer saw a murder at sixteen, was told she imagined it, and has spent ten years watching the disappearances get ruled storm-related deaths.
• For the most literal version of the premise, read The Forgotten Girls: a Copenhagen detective identifies a woman’s body in a forest, her new boss tells her to mark the case closed, and she carries on anyway.
• For the one where the deaths were already filed as suicides, read Dead Scared: a detective goes undercover as a student at Cambridge, where the suicide rate is so far above normal that Scotland Yard has planted officers.
• For the ones where the obstacle is her own colleagues, read The Trespasser or Cop Town: the only woman on a Dublin murder squad catches a case the squad wants closed as a domestic, and a rookie in 1970s Atlanta joins a force that does not want women in it.

How I Picked These

Having written a female detective who spent ten years being told she imagined it, here’s my criteria for a book like Happy Valley:

1. I have to believe she is a real woman: What I want most in a female detective book is that I can really truly relate to the person in it. I want her to feel like a real woman and like I can relate to her and the struggle that she’s going through. For me that’s one of the core things that I look for in a female detective, and you can tell within a chapter whether anybody checked.
2. Somebody above her has already decided: A verdict, a filing, a superior who wants it to go away. Without that, she’s just doing her job well, and doing your job well is not a plot. You want to feel the cost of disagreeing in writing with your own boss.
3. Her own life has to be inside the case: A sister, a brother on the force, a childhood thing that happened in the same woods. Give her a personal stake and the refusal turns into a person. That’s the one you’ll still be thinking about on the bus.

At a Glance

Nine woman detective novels, and what each one is doing differently.

What Are the Best Books Like Happy Valley?

Nine, in three groups. One to four are the ones where everyone else has already reached a verdict. Five to seven are about the force itself, the colleagues and the politics and who gets handed what. Eight and nine are the ones where she can’t let go because the case is personal. They’re grouped, not ranked.

Group one: the verdict everyone else has already reached.

1. The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest (2024)

Read this if: If the verdict she’s arguing with is ten years old and everyone she knows agreed with it. If you like a female lead who is vivid and realistic rather than invincible.

What you’re getting: Fire Island, hurricane season: a claustrophobic, slow-burn crime thriller about the only police officer who believes a serial killer is using the storms for cover. Detective Violet Crisp saw a murder when she was sixteen. Nobody believed her. She joined the force anyway, and every storm season since, the deaths have been written up as accidents.

Why Happy Valley fans will like it: the thing that makes a woman like this readable rather than merely stubborn is that her refusal costs her something every day, and on a barrier island it costs her socially as well as professionally. Everyone already knows the story about what she claimed at sixteen. Next to The Forgotten Girls, where one boss wants one case closed, this is the one where an entire island wrote her off.

What readers say: “I love that Violet was such a strong character, didn’t give up on what she felt was right, even though she was talked down to and made fun of.” — Nikki B., Goodreads Reviewer.

“Violet sees her friends father murdered when she is 16 year old and no one believes her. She becomes a police officer and continues the search for the killer.” — Danielle, Goodreads Reviewer.

“It combined folklore, serial killer mystery, police procedural, and had an urgency to solve the murders before a major hurricane.” — Lisa Ellis, Goodreads Reviewer.

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2. The Forgotten Girls by Sara Blaedel (2015)

Read this if: it’s here because her own boss wants the case marked closed, in so many words, and she keeps working it. You want the most literal version of this premise anywhere.

What you’re getting: A woman’s body in the forest outside Copenhagen. Louise Rick, who Publishers Weekly describes as “the former Copenhagen homicide detective” now heading “the fledgling Special Search Agency,” identifies her. Then, according to Kirkus, her new boss “wants her to mark the case closed now that she’s identified” the dead woman. The same review has her instead “dogging the surviving staff at Eliselund until she uncovers long-buried secrets.”

Why Happy Valley fans will like it: I have not found a cleaner statement of this premise in any other book. Louise Rick is handed a Copenhagen case and told it is finished. The boss says close it, in those words, in the review. She doesn’t. Everything after that is her choosing, every day, to keep going on a case that is officially finished, in the same stretch of woods where her own teenage tragedy happened. Publishers Weekly says “it starts to look as if the past could prove key to catching a present-day monster.”

Fair warning: Publishers Weekly says Blaedel’s “swiftly moving plot and engaging core characters help make up for serviceable prose and a hard-to-swallow denouement.” Content: an institution for people with disabilities and the abuses buried inside it, and a rapist who may have been preying on women in the area since 1991. It’s translated from Danish, and Kirkus calls it the first installment of a new trilogy, so it works as a starting point.

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3. Dead Scared by S.J. Bolton (2012)

Read this if: it’s here because the deaths are already on file as suicides and her superior wants her to watch rather than investigate. You want the most frightening one.

What you’re getting: Cambridge. Kirkus says the student suicide rate there “so exceeds the statistical norm that Scotland Yard has placed undercover agents at Cambridge University.” Kirkus has DC Lacey Flint “billeted as Laura Farrow” among the students. Publishers Weekly describes what happens next: “Though Joesbury wants Flint to simply observe student life, she takes the investigation much deeper.”

Why Happy Valley fans will like it: the file here isn’t one verdict, it’s a stack of them, and every one says suicide. Bolton makes the official record itself the thing standing in the way, which is the version of this premise with the highest body count and the least help available. Publishers Weekly says Bolton “never eases up the tension.” Kirkus is blunter: “Menacing and then some.”

Fair warning: this is the heaviest content on the page and it needs saying plainly. What Bolton puts at Cambridge is a sustained run of student suicides, described in detail, including a student who set herself on fire, plus victims reporting dreams of being assaulted, and sadistic hazing. Kirkus also notes that “when the goose bumps recede, there are several major plot holes.” If suicide is a subject you need to avoid right now, skip this one and take The Burning instead.

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4. Someone Else’s Skin by Sarah Hilary (2014)

Read this if: it’s here because the case reads as open and shut to everyone except her. You want the one with the most going on under the surface.

What you’re getting: DI Marnie Rome walks into a women’s refuge in North London and finds a woman standing over her stabbed husband. Publishers Weekly describes how it looks: “the case seems an open and shut example of another possessive, violent husband finally pushing his wife too far.” Hilary spends the book taking that reading apart. Kirkus notes that Marnie is still dealing with “the ongoing effects of her parents’ murders five years ago.”

Why Happy Valley fans will like it: the verdict Marnie is arguing with is the sympathetic one, which is harder and more interesting than arguing with a lazy one. Everybody wants this to be the story where the battered wife finally snapped, and Hilary makes refusing that reading feel like a betrayal until it doesn’t. Kirkus says Rome’s “determination to help the abuse victims create a strong center.”

Fair warning: Publishers Weekly calls this North London debut a “promising if uneven first novel” and says she “can be heavy-handed” in establishing her detective’s backstory; Kirkus says the plot “drops threads along the way.” Content: domestic abuse throughout, honour violence, and a woman held captive for a year. This one is a trade paperback in the US rather than a hardcover.

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Group two: the force itself. Three books where the thing in her way wears the same uniform she does.

5. The Trespasser by Tana French (2016)

Read this if: it’s here because the obstruction is coming from inside her own squad. You want the best prose on the page.

What you’re getting: Det. Antoinette Conway, whom Publishers Weekly calls “the only woman on the squad,” catches what looks like a straightforward domestic: a young woman “found in her picture-perfect apartment with the back of her head smashed in,” and a new boyfriend who was due for dinner that night. Publishers Weekly describes the turn as “too easy for the suspicious Conway, whose hackles are raised when a more experienced detective takes an interest in the case and wants Rory charged.”

Why Happy Valley fans will like it: French puts the pressure where it actually sits in a story like this. Kirkus says plainly that the investigation “is impeded by their own murder squad,” so Conway is not fighting a conspiracy or a cover-up, she is fighting colleagues who want the easy charge and have decided she is difficult. Anyone who has been the only woman in a room will recognise the specific exhaustion. Take French over Cop Town if you want the interrogation scenes rather than the street.

Fair warning: both reviews rank this below French’s best. Publishers Weekly calls it “sharp but shakily paced” and says she is “less adept than usual, however, in weaving in her main characters’ backstories”; Kirkus says “the magic of previous installments is missing.” It’s the sixth Dublin Murder Squad book and reads fine alone.

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6. Cop Town by Karin Slaughter (2014)

Read this if: it’s here because she’s been kept to writing tickets and investigates anyway. You want the angriest one.

What you’re getting: 1970s Atlanta. Kirkus says the streets there “are just as dangerous for cops as for criminals” in a city “bubbling over with racial and political unrest.” Kirkus has Maggie Lawson with “five years’ experience under her heavy utility belt” and duties that “involve writing tickets and generally keeping out of the way.” Her brother Jimmy is in uniform, her uncle Terry is top brass, and then Jimmy’s partner is killed. Kirkus describes what she and rookie Kate Murphy do next: “the pair conducts their own investigation.”

Why Happy Valley fans will like it: Slaughter writes the sidelining as the crime, not the context. The same review has her able to “stay peripherally involved in the manhunt” and no more, which makes every scene with her family a scene about the case. Publishers Weekly calls it a “scintillating standalone” where “Violent crime, police politics, and race relations all figure.”

Fair warning: Publishers Weekly says readers of Slaughter “should be prepared for plenty of gore,” and Kirkus agrees “her books are not for the squeamish.” The period racism and misogyny are on the page, in the characters’ mouths, deliberately.

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7. The Burning by Jane Casey (2010)

Read this if: it’s here because she’s the only woman on the operation and gets handed the fifth victim. You want the best series opener here.

What you’re getting: A serial killer in South London is setting bodies on fire in parks. DC Maeve Kerrigan is, as Kirkus puts it, “the only lass assigned to Operation Mandrake,” and Kirkus has her “tasked with following up on the murder of a fifth victim, Rebecca Haworth.” So she goes into Rebecca’s life instead, while, in Publishers Weekly‘s words, “the relationship with her banker boyfriend unravels at home.”

Why Happy Valley fans will like it: the assignment is the insult and the opportunity at once. Casey gives her detective the follow-up on the fifth victim, which is exactly how a woman at the bottom of a murder investigation gets handed the thing that turns out to matter. Publishers Weekly notes that “Maeve grapples at work with sexual harassment and prejudice against her Irish background,” so the obstruction is daily rather than dramatic.

Fair warning: Kirkus says Casey is “less surefooted at winding up her plot, resorting to a major and unlikely confession.” If a tidy confession at the end annoys you, know that going in.

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Group three: the one she can’t put down. Two books where the case is personal: a sister on the street, a cottage she knew as a child.

8. Long Bright River by Liz Moore (2020)

Read this if: it’s here because the person she’s looking for is her sister and she breaks the rules to keep looking. You want the saddest one.

What you’re getting: Kirkus gives the premise in a line: “A young Philadelphia policewoman searches for her addicted sister on the streets.” The streets are Kensington, which Publishers Weekly calls “a neighborhood devastated by opioid addiction.” Mickey Fitzpatrick patrols it, raises her son alone, and women keep turning up dead.

Why Happy Valley fans will like it: Moore writes the version where the refusal isn’t heroic, it’s compulsive, and it damages her. Kirkus notes she breaches protocol and makes impulsive decisions that get her into trouble, which is a braver choice than making her right about everything. Publishers Weekly says Moore “weaves a police procedural and a family drama into a captivating novel.”

Fair warning: the two reviews disagree about Moore, and sharply. Kirkus says “The pace is frustratingly slow for most of the book,” that the reader “may find her no easier to bond with than the other characters do,” and faults the “flat, staccato tone and mournful mood.” Publishers Weekly is far warmer, though it concedes “seasoned readers may guess the culprit long before the reveal.” Content: opioid overdose deaths throughout.

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9. The Crow Trap by Ann Cleeves (1999)

Read this if: it’s here because a hanging and a murder land on the same environmental survey and she won’t take either at face value. You want to meet Vera Stanhope.

What you’re getting: Three women are running an environmental survey in the Northumberland hills when, as Kirkus has it, “A British environmental survey suddenly turns dangerous when several deaths occur.” Kirkus has one of them finding her friend Bella “hanged in the shed along with a suicide note,” and sends in “Inspector Vera Stanhope, who often visited the cottage years ago with her father.” Publishers Weekly calls it the book that “introduced the Northumberland detective inspector.”

Why Happy Valley fans will like it: Vera is the least decorative detective in crime fiction. Kirkus describes her as “physically unattractive but extremely clever,” and Publishers Weekly has her hiding “a fierce intelligence and razor sharp instincts under garish clothing.” She pulls at the detail because the detail is wrong. Read Cleeves if what you want is competence written without flattery.

Fair warning: Vera arrives well into the book. Publishers Weekly is explicit that “Though it offers a fine mystery, the story nevertheless belongs to its women,” meaning the three surveyors, so if you came for the detective you will wait for her. This is a trade paperback in the US rather than a hardcover.

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Which One to Read Tonight

Three moods, three books, depending on how much you can take this evening.

• For the cleanest version of the premise: The Forgotten Girls, where the instruction to close the case is on the page and she just carries on.
• For the one you’ll stay up for: Dead Scared, as long as the content note above isn’t a problem for you tonight.
• When you want to be in excellent hands: The Trespasser, and read the interrogation chapters in one go rather than in bed over three nights.

FAQ: Books Like Happy Valley

What Are the Best Books Like Happy Valley?

These nine, in the order above: The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest, The Forgotten Girls, Dead Scared, Someone Else’s Skin, The Trespasser, Cop Town, The Burning, Long Bright River and The Crow Trap. They’re grouped by the verdict everyone else reached, the force itself and the personal case, not ranked.

What Are the Best British Police Procedural Books With a Female Lead?

The Burning, Someone Else’s Skin and The Crow Trap, which between them give you London, a women’s refuge and the Northumberland hills. Kirkus calls Maeve Kerrigan “the only lass assigned to Operation Mandrake,” which tells you the register. Among British police procedural books, Casey’s is the one I’d hand someone first because it’s a series opener.

What Are the Best Woman Detective Novels Where the Force Is Against Her?

The Trespasser and Cop Town. Kirkus says of the first that the investigation “is impeded by their own murder squad,” and in the second the detective is formally kept off the manhunt and works it anyway. If what you want from woman detective novels is the politics of the squad room rather than the chase, those are the two. The Storm Reaper puts the same wall in front of Violet: her own father was the chief who did not believe her.

What Should I Read If I Want Books Like Vera?

Start at the beginning: The Crow Trap is the novel Publishers Weekly says “introduced the Northumberland detective inspector.” For books like Vera with the same unglamorous competence somewhere else, The Forgotten Girls moves it to Denmark and The Burning moves it to London. If what you want from Vera is the weather doing half the work, The Storm Reaper gives it a hurricane season.

What Should I Read If I Want Books Like Unforgotten?

The Forgotten Girls, because the present-day body leads straight back into what an institution did decades ago. Publishers Weekly says “it starts to look as if the past could prove key to catching a present-day monster.” For books like Unforgotten where the old case and the new one are the same case, The Crow Trap is the other one.

Which One Has the Heaviest Content?

Dead Scared, which is built on a run of student suicides described in detail. If that’s a subject to avoid right now, The Burning gives you the same squad-room dynamic without it. Cop Town is the most violent, and Publishers Weekly warns readers to be “prepared for plenty of gore.”

Can I Start These Without Reading a Whole Series?

Yes, all of them. The Burning, Someone Else’s Skin and The Crow Trap are series openers; Cop Town and Long Bright River are standalones; and Kirkus calls The Forgotten Girls the first installment of a new trilogy even though it follows earlier books.

Which One Is Set Somewhere a Storm Can Close the Road?

One. The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest puts the same closed-case premise on a barrier island in hurricane season, so the storm itself is in her way, which is a pressure none of the mainland books on this page can apply. As Goodreads reviewer Nikki B. put it: “I love that Violet was such a strong character, didn’t give up on what she felt was right, even though she was talked down to and made fun of.”

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