There are several websites you can visit to get a listing of mysteries with a Thanksgiving theme. One of them is the Cozy mystery website: http://www.cozy-mystery.com/thanksgiving-mystery-book-list.html. As with most of our posts, we are only going to list those of female authors with female detectives in them. Some we have already read but a few of them we will be putting on our future reading list. So, without future ado, here are our picks of the Top Ten Female Detective Thanksgiving Mysteries but in author alphabetical order:
1. Laura Alden – Foul Play at the PTA – PTA meetings at Tarver Elementary School can get pretty heated. But after parent Sam Helmstetter is strangled in his car following a meeting, mom and PTA secretary Beth Kennedy and her best friend Marina fear there may be a cold-blooded killer in the group.
2. Kate Borden – Death of a Turkey – It’s Thanksgiving–and it’s not just the turkey who’s in danger. As tourists arrive at Cobb’s Landing to enjoy an authentic Colonial-style Thanksgiving, mayor Peggy Turner would be thankful for nothing more than a clue as to who killed her neighbor–a clue that didn’t point to her.
3. Jessie Crockett – Drizzled with Death – The annual pre-Thanksgiving pancake-eating contest is a big event in Sugar Grove, New Hampshire. It’s sponsored by the Sap Bucket Brigade, aka the firefighters auxiliary, and the Greene family farm provides the syrup. But when obnoxious outsider Alanza Speedwell flops face first into a stack of flapjacks during the contest, Greener Pastures’ syrup falls under suspicion. Dani knows the police—including her ex-boyfriend—are barking up the wrong tree, and she’s determined to pull her loved ones out of a very sticky situation. The odds may be stacked against her, but she’s got to tap the real killer before some poor sap in her own family ends up trading the sugar house for the Big House
4. Kathi Daley – Turkeys, Tuxes, and Tabbies – When the cat lady of Ashton Falls is found dead in her home just days before Thanksgiving, Zoe must track down a killer while dealing with a house full of socialites who have come to Ashton Falls to bid on Zak in a high-class bachelor auction.
5. J. A. Jance – Shoot Don’t Shoot – A prisoner languishes in a Phoenix jail cell, accused of brutally slaying his estranged wife. No one believes the man is innocent, except the new female sheriff of Cochise County, in town for a crash course in police training. Joanna Brady is out of her jurisdiction—and possibly in over her head. For a human monster is on the prowl, hiding the grisly evidence of his horrific crimes in the vast emptiness of the Arizona desert. And an impromptu investigation, with no official sanction and no backup, is drawing a cold, ingenious serial killer much too close to Brady for comfort—and, worse still, closer to her little girl.
6. Madison Johns – The Great Turkey Caper – As Thanksgiving approaches, the holiday is not the only thing on everyone’s mind in Tawas. Bagging the huge, yet elusive, tom turkey is—with a prize of five thousand dollars. That is until the body of a meter reader turns up on Bernice’s property shot with an arrow! Agnes is flabbergasted. Not at the murder, but at Bernice trying to drag the body off her property. When Bernice’s reputation as the cat lady is finally unveiled, she joins forces with Agnes and Eleanor to solve The Great Turkey Caper
7. Alex Kava – Black Friday – On the busiest shopping day of the year, a group of idealistic college students believes they’re about to carry out an elaborate media stunt at the largest mall in America. They think the equipment in their backpacks will disrupt stores’ computer systems, causing delays and chaos, disrupting capitalism, if only for a moment. What they don’t realize is that instead of jamming devices, their backpacks contain explosives. And they’re about to become unwitting suicide bombers. FBI profiler Maggie O’Dell must put her own political troubles aside to work with Nick Morrelli and figure out who’s behind this terrorist plot—a massacre that’s all the more frightening when a tip reveals that Maggie’s brother is one of the doomed protesters.
8. Leslie Meier -Turkey Day Murder – Once again, Leslie Meier gives mystery fans a reason to give thanks for the eccentric charms of Tinker’s Cove and the intriguing exploits of its resident amateur sleuth, Lucy Stone.
9. Ann Ripley – Harvest of Murder – A dog-walking professor friend of series sleuth and PBS-TV garden show host Louise Eldridge (The Garden Tour Affair) regales her with tales of his younger days in the Brazilian jungles. Just before his murder, however, he tells her of a good health-and-longevity plant he discovered there and has begun propagating for eventual commercial sale. Louise later works in his lab where various greedy suspects come trooping along so police actually ask for her “observations.” Louise’s subsequent sleuthing is tempered by plenty of familial banter, plant genetics information, and villainous machinations.
10. Livia J. Washburn -The Pumpkin Muffin Murder – It’s Thanksgiving in Weatherford, Texas, and Phyllis is taking her grandson, Bobby, to the first annual Harvest Festival with hopes of winning the baking contest now that her friendly competitor, Carolyn, is judging and not competing. But when a decorative scarecrow turns out to be a dead body in disguise, Phyllis must dish out some justice.
