Eight titles about small-town woman detectives

Sophie Stein is an intern at Electric Literature. She was born in Chicago and is currently an MFA candidate at Indiana University, where she is the Fiction Editor of the Indiana Review. Her short fiction has won awards from The Hypertext Review and december magazine; her work has also appeared in The Briar Cliff Review, The Tangerine, and elsewhere.

At Electric Lit Stein tagged eight books about small-town woman detectives, including:

Whispers in the Dark by Eleanor Taylor Bland

Detective Marti MacAlister has been tasked with a seemingly unsolvable case: all that’s left of the murder victim is an unidentifiable arm. Marti and her partner delve into the exclusive artistic community of Lincoln Prairie, Illinois to tackle the mystery. Meanwhile, Marti’s best friend is embroiled in a dangerous journey of her own as a suitor spirits her away to the Bahamas. As the case in Lincoln Prairie starts to crack, Marti must also rescue her friend in this dramatic whirlwind of a novel.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue