Female Mystery Authors to Read Right Now: 10 Writers Worth a Whole Series

Sisters in Crime’s own history says that in 1986, twenty-six women crime writers met at the Bouchercon convention in Baltimore because they were “frustrated with the obstacles they faced in publishing.” They formally established the group in May 1987, with Sara Paretsky as its first president, and an early project called Review Monitoring “documented the imbalance in reviews.”

Forty years on, the names below are the ones that come up whenever someone asks me for a mystery author they haven’t tried.

I write crime thrillers set on the Fire Island beaches where I spent my childhood summers. Here are ten female mystery authors to read right now:

The Short Version

• If you want a police officer the island stopped listening to, start with The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest: Fire Island, hurricane season, and a serial killer who hides his kills inside the storms.
• If you want bones instead of bodies, start with The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths: a forensic archaeologist, a lonely beach, and a girl missing ten years.
• If you want a village you’ll want to move to, start with Still Life by Louise Penny: Chief Inspector Armand Gamache’s first case.

What to Look For in Female Mystery Writers

Three things I check before an author goes on a list like this:

Is There a Series to Keep Going With?

A series lets me stay with one investigator for five or ten books, and most of the women mystery writers here have one waiting for you.

Can You Picture Where It Happens?

I want to come out of the book able to describe the main street, who drinks where, and what the weather does to people’s tempers.

Did She Earn the Details?

The procedure should read as lived rather than researched, which is easier when the writer had a first career somewhere near it.

Female Mystery Authors at a Glance

Author and book	Ideal for	What you get	What to consider
The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest	Readers who want weather in the plot	Hurricane-season whodunit on Fire Island, told by police officer Violet Crisp	Storms as weather and as menace, with a lot of sky and tide.
The Founders by Stacy M. Jones	History buffs who like a procedural	A Boston serial killer and an FBI agent descended from a signer	Per the author’s site, the killer has a centuries-old political agenda.
In the Woods by Tana French	Readers who like a damaged narrator	Dublin Murder Squad, book one	The 1984 disappearance hangs over every chapter, so it runs darker than a standard procedural.
Still Life by Louise Penny	Village-mystery readers	Chief Inspector Gamache’s first case, in Three Pines, Quebec	The murder weapon is an arrow, so the clue work runs on archery rather than ballistics.
Raven Black by Ann Cleeves	Cold-weather atmosphere	Jimmy Perez in the Shetland Islands	Darker than the setting suggests: the victim is a strangled teenager.
Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke	Readers who want the politics on the page	Texas Ranger Darren Mathews in East Texas	A Texas Ranger answers to the state, not the town.
The Dry by Jane Harper	Readers who like heat over fog	Federal agent Aaron Falk at a funeral in his hometown	Opens on a family killing, so the first chapters are heavy.
Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala	Cozy readers	A Filipino restaurant and an amateur sleuth	Lila is a suspect as well as the sleuth.
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite	Dark-comedy fans	A Lagos nurse and her murderous sister	The humor is about dead boyfriends, so it won’t suit every reader.
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths	Readers who like forensics	Archaeologist Ruth Galloway on the saltmarsh	DCI Nelson runs the case; Ruth reads the bones.

Who Are the Best Female Mystery Writers Today?

1. The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest (2026)

Read this if: If you want a police officer the whole island wrote off ten years ago. If you like your mystery with real coastal folklore underneath it.

What you’re getting: Kristen Van Nest grew up spending summers on Fire Island, and the Violet Crisp series is set there. Violet is a police officer on a barrier island half a mile wide, with no cars, one ferry, and a four-desk police department. She has believed since she was sixteen that a serial killer uses the hurricanes to wash away the evidence. The book is built on the Gray Man legend, real American coastal folklore in which the ghost appears before hurricanes to warn the living.

Why mystery readers will like her: She came to thrillers through comedy, performing stand-up and improv four to five nights a week, first in Shanghai, then in LA, and the jokes came with her into the books. Violet lives on her boat in the Whale Watch Point marina with her cat, Purrmaid, and swims the basin every morning.

What readers say:

What a wonderful book, linking past events to present day investigations.

Danielle, Goodreads Reviewer

The characters were vivid and realistic.

Harriet Flowers, Goodreads Reviewer

Riveting. And so descriptive. A must read.

Gene, Amazon Reviewer, Verified Purchase

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2. The Founders by Stacy M. Jones (2021)

Read this if: you want an FBI procedural written by someone who worked alongside the people she writes about.

What you’re getting: Stacy M. Jones describes herself as “a criminologist turned crime novelist” with “decades working with law enforcement,” and she “holds master’s degrees in forensic psychology and journalism.” In The Founders, one of her FBI Agent Kate Walsh thrillers, a serial killer is “leaving bodies at markers on the city’s historic Freedom Trail” in Boston, “killing with antique Revolutionary War weapons,” and “[a]s a descendant of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Agent Walsh is in the killer’s crosshairs.”

Why mystery readers will like her: She writes four series, including the Connor Fitzgerald thrillers and the PI Riley Sullivan mysteries, so a reader who likes one has plenty more to work through.

Fair warning: The Founders is independently published, which is why there’s no trade review quoted here.

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3. In the Woods by Tana French (2007)

Read this if: you want the detective’s own past to be part of the case.

What you’re getting: In Kirkus’s summary, a body is found at an archaeological dig in Knocknaree, a Dublin suburb, and Detective Adam Ryan, who survived a 1984 disappearance in those same woods as a child, takes the case with his partner Cassie Maddox. Kirkus found it “a readable, non-formulaic police procedural with a twist.”

Why mystery readers will like her: French’s site notes her novels have “won numerous awards, including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards.”

Fair warning: the detective’s own childhood case stays open at the end.

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4. Still Life by Louise Penny (2006)

Read this if: you want a village so warm you forget someone has been murdered in it.

What you’re getting: Kirkus sets it up with schoolteacher Jane Neal found shot with an arrow in the Quebec village of Three Pines, and Chief Inspector Armand Gamache coming in to investigate. Kirkus’s verdict: “Cerebral, wise and compassionate, Gamache is destined for stardom. Don’t miss this stellar debut.”

Why mystery readers will like her: Penny’s site lists eight Agatha Awards, and in 2013 she was given the Order of Canada. She has written that she “was well into my forties before STILL LIFE, the first Gamache novel, was published.”

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Read next: more towns with secrets over at the best small-town mystery series.

5. Raven Black by Ann Cleeves (2007)

Read this if: you want a murder in a Shetland winter.

What you’re getting: Publishers Weekly describes it as “[s]et in the remote Scottish Shetland Islands,” where “Det. Insp. Jimmy Perez investigates the murder of teenage Catherine Ross,” who is “found strangled on a snowy hillside shortly after New Year’s.” Suspicion falls on “local eccentric Magnus Tait.”

Why mystery readers will like her: The Crime Writers’ Association gave Cleeves its Diamond Dagger in 2017. Kirkus describes Raven Black as the first of “a quartette of Shetland thrillers.”

Fair warning: Publishers Weekly promises that when “the shocking identity of the murderer is revealed, readers will be as chilled as the harsh winds.”

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6. Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke (2017)

Read this if: you want a highway town where race decides who gets blamed.

What you’re getting: The Kirkus review follows Texas Ranger Darren Mathews into Lark, East Texas, where two people have been murdered: a Black lawyer from Chicago and a white local woman. Kirkus praised a “deftly plotted whodunit whose writing pulses throughout with a raw, blues-inflected lyricism.”

Why mystery readers will like her: The Mystery Writers of America named it Best Novel at the 2018 Edgar Awards, and Kirkus calls it the first in a series, so Mathews comes back.

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7. The Dry by Jane Harper (2017)

Read this if: you want a mystery in drought country.

What you’re getting: Kirkus describes federal agent Aaron Falk returning to his drought-hit hometown of Kiewarra for the funeral of his friend Luke, who apparently killed his family and himself. Kirkus’s verdict: “[a] chilling story set under a blistering sun.”

Why mystery readers will like her: The Crime Writers’ Association gave The Dry its Gold Dagger in 2017. Falk left Kiewarra and comes back as a federal agent, so he’s working a case among people who knew him before he was police.

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8. Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala (2021)

Read this if: you want a mystery that makes you hungry.

What you’re getting: Per Kirkus, Lila Macapagal works at her family’s Filipino restaurant, Tita Rosie’s, in Shady Palms, where her ex-boyfriend, a food critic, dies and Detective Park suspects her. Kirkus called it “[a] debut that embraces its lightness.”

Why mystery readers will like her: Penguin Random House announced that “Mia P. Manansala’s Berkley debut, ARSENIC AND ADOBO, won this year’s Agatha Award for Best First Novel,” and it opens the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series.

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9. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (2018)

Read this if: you want the murderer to be family.

What you’re getting: In Kirkus’s telling, Korede is a Lagos nurse who cleans up after her beautiful sister Ayoola, who kills the men she dates, and the trouble starts when Ayoola dates Tade, a doctor Korede likes. Kirkus found it a “dryly funny and wickedly crafty exercise in psychological suspense.”

Why mystery readers will like her: It was longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize.

Fair warning: it’s a standalone, so there’s no series to follow.

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10. The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths (2010)

Read this if: you want the expert on the case to be a forensic archaeologist.

What you’re getting: In Kirkus’s summary, forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway dates bones found on a lonely beach for DCI Harry Nelson, who is still hunting for Lucy Downey, a girl who vanished ten years earlier, and who has been receiving taunting letters. Kirkus says “the first-rate characters and chilling story are entrancing from start to finish.”

Why mystery readers will like her: Griffiths wrote on her site that she “was delighted to win the CWA Dagger in the Library award in October 2016,” and The Stranger Diaries won the 2020 Edgar for Best Novel.

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How to Choose Between These Mystery Novel Authors

Start with the free chapters of The Storm Reaper if you want a small town and a storm. For a series, take Bluebird, Bluebird, which Mulholland Books published in 2017; for earned details, take The Founders, which came out in February 2021.

Why Mystery Readers Choose the Violet Crisp Series

Nine of the ten authors here put a professional on the case: a ranger, an inspector, an agent, a forensic archaeologist.

Violet is the island’s cautionary tale: the chief said she was confused by grief, and her own father said she was making it up.

Kristen Van Nest writes her in first person, present tense, with a corkboard of a decade of suspicious storm deaths that nobody else will look at. The big storm hits over Labor Day weekend, one of Fire Island’s most profitable weekends of the season, so the town has every reason to keep the beaches open.

Calley, Goodreads Reviewer, wrote that “the descriptions of the surroundings to Fire Island paint beautiful pictures of what we are seeing.”

Read next: more women leading the investigation in the best female detective series.

FAQ About Female Mystery Authors

Who Are the Best Female Mystery Authors Right Now?

Start with The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest, a Fire Island murder mystery about a police officer with a ten-year-old theory, then Stacy M. Jones for FBI procedurals and Ann Cleeves for Shetland. Harriet Flowers, Goodreads Reviewer, wrote: “A must read for fans of mystery/suspense/ police procedural fiction!!”

Which Women Mystery Writers Set Their Books in Small Towns?

The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest is a Fire Island murder mystery set in a beach village, and The Dry by Jane Harper is set in drought-hit Kiewarra; Flatiron published it in January 2017. Falk grew up in Kiewarra, and Violet grew up on Fire Island.

Is The Storm Reaper Part of a Series?

Yes. The Storm Reaper by Kristen Van Nest is book one of the Violet Crisp series, the way In the Woods started Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad with Viking in 2007. Danielle, Goodreads Reviewer, wrote: “You will be hooked from the start.”

Which of These Detective Fiction Authors Are Newest?

Among the detective fiction authors here, Manansala’s Arsenic and Adobo came out from Berkley in May 2021, and Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer from Doubleday in November 2018. Kirkus called the first “[a] debut that embraces its lightness” and the second a “skillful, sardonic debut.”

Which of These Authors Has a Law Enforcement Background?

Stacy M. Jones, who calls Louisville, Kentucky home and worked with law enforcement for decades as a criminologist before she wrote crime fiction. Her FBI books are the ones to pick for procedure.

Some links in this post are affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you.

Disclosure: Kristen Van Nest, who writes this blog, is the author of The Storm Reaper, Perfect Modern Wife and Where to Nest.