The Cozy Mystery List Blog

This mystery book theme features stay-at-home moms and/or housewives. I’m not sure if the term “housewife” is “P.C.”…. but it’s a term I grew up with and don’t find offensive… so I hope I don’t offend anyone…. since that is what I think of myself as being these days. With both of my children grown up now… I can hardly call myself a stay-at-home mom ….. They don’t require me to lovingly adhere band-aids anymore!

Stay-at-Home Moms:

Nancy Atherton: Aunt Dimity Mystery Series…

Mollie Cox Bryan: Cumberland Creek Mystery Series has a stay-at-home scrap booking mom as its sleuth.

Jill Churchill: The Jane Jeffry Mystery Series features a Chicago housewife who along with having three children, also has time to sleuth.

Susan Rogers Cooper: The E. J. Pugh Mystery Series features a romance novelist housewife who solves crimes when not taking care of her family and home.

Anne George: The Southern Sisters Mystery Series is set in Alabama and features “Mouse,” the housewife part of the sister duo and her wildly different lovable sister “Sister”.

Dorothy Gilman: The Mrs. Pollifax Mystery Series features a “mature” woman who, upon finding that she  is simply tired of the types of activities that are relegated to women of her age, becomes a globe-trotting spy.

Heather Horrocks: The Bad Mothers Club Mystery Series stars a stay-at-home mom in Denver, Colorado.

Josi S. Kilpack: The Culinary Mystery Series features a stay-at-home mom/sleuth. This series is also on the “No Profanity” list…

Leslie Meier: The Lucy Stone Mysteries Series is a series which features a housewife, mother of three, along with different holidays… Christmas, Halloween, Fourth of July, etc.

Diana Orgain: Maternal Instincts Mystery Series features a new mom/sleuth…

Emilie Richards: Ministry is Murder Mystery Series features the wife of a minister…

Sara Rosett: The Mom Zone Mystery Series has an Air Force mom as the main sleuth…

Ayelet Waldman: The Mommy Track Mystery Series features a lawyer who becomes a stay-at-home mom after the birth of her daughter, and who is able to put her legal background to work while solving crimes.

Valerie Wolzien: The Susie Henshaw Mystery Series is full of crimes that need to be solved during different holiday seasons.

Motherhood is Murder: Four Mysteries by Mary Daheim, Carolyn Hart, Jane Isenberg, & Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Stay-at-Home Dads:

Jeffrey Allen: Stay at Home Dad Mystery Series

Stay-at-Home Dad: Jeffrey Cohen (aka E. J. Copperman) writes the Aaron Tucker Mystery Series which features a Stay-at-Home Dad as its sleuth.

PS >>> I just added a few more sleuths to this list on my Mothers as Sleuths. They clearly overlap, although Kate Borden, Diane Mott Davidson, and Joan Hess all have working-outside-the-home mothers as their sleuths…

♦To access more Cozy Mysteries by Theme click on this link.♦

This is the fifth and final installment of the “PERIOD MYSTERIES” or MYSTERY SERIES THAT TAKE PLACE IN DIFFERENT PERIODS OF TIME or “HISTORICAL MYSTERIES” theme. This list is comprised of the Cozy Mystery Site’s authors whose last names begin with R-W:

Deanna Raybourn: Raybourn writes the Lady Julia Grey Mystery Series which is set in Victorian England.

Fay Risner: Risner’s Amazing Gracie Mystery Series is set in early 1900s Iowa…

Candace Robb: Robb has used her graduate work in Medieval Studies to write both the Owen Archer Mystery Series and the Margaret Kerr Mystery Series, both set in the Great Britain of many years ago.

David Roberts: The Lord Edward Corinth Mystery Series takes place in London and teams an aristocrat with a journalist who solve their way through more than one 1930’s mystery.

Caroline Roe (aka Medora Sale): Roe holds her PhD in Medieval Studies and writes the Isaac from Girona Mystery Series which features a blind doctor in mid 1300s Spain.

Elliot Roosevelt: Both of Roosevelt’s series take place in Washington, DC. The Eleanor Roosevelt Mystery Series takes place during the 1940s and the Blackjack Endicott Mystery Series takes place during the 1930s.

Kate Ross: 1820s London is the setting for the Julian Kestrel Mystery Series.

P. B. Ryan: Ryan’s Gilded Age Mystery Series has a governess from Ireland who sleuths in post-Civil War Boston.

C. J. Sansom: 16th century England is the setting for his Matthew Shardlake Mystery Series.

Walter Satterthwait: The Pinkerton Mystery Series takes place during the 1920s. The main sleuth is Detective Phil Beaumont of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency .

Sandra Scoppettone: The Faye Quick Mystery Series takes place in New York during the 1940s. Faye is a tough private investigator in a (1940s) world not quite ready for women in tough roles.

Kate Sedley: Sedley writes the Roger the Chapman Mystery Series which features a Chapman (peddler) who lives in Medieval England.

Maggie Sefton: Sefton writes the Widow and the Rogue Mystery Series. It takes place in 1890s Washington, D.C. and features a young widow who is also a clairvoyant and an English investor.

Sarah R. Shaber: Shaber writes the Louise Pearlie Mystery Series which is set during the 1940s in Washington, DC. The sleuth works for the agency which eventually led to the CIA.

Catherine Shaw: Shaw writes the Vanessa Duncan Cambridge Mystery Series which features a teacher in Cambridge during the late 1800s.

Nicola Slade: Slade writes a British, historical series: the Charlotte Richmond Investigates Mystery Series which is set during Victorian times.

Joanna Campbell Slan: Slan writes the Jane Eyre Chronicles Mystery Series, which features Charlotte Brontë’s Jane in mid 1800s England.

Rosemary Stevens (aka Rosemary Martin): The Beau Brummel Mystery Series takes place during the Regency period (1790-1820) in London, with Beau being a fashion expert, and also a sleuth.

Diane A. S. Stuckart: Leonardo da Vincy Mystery Series takes place during the late 1400s in Italy.

Shirley Tallman (aka Erin Ross): Sarah Woolson Mystery Series – Sarah Woolson is an attorney in 1880s San Francisco.

Robert Tanenbaum: His Butch Karp & Marlene Ciampi Mystery Series takes place in New York during the far-out 1970s…

Sarah Stewart Taylor: Taylor writes the Sweeney St. George Mystery Series which features a professor of history… with a special emphasis on funerary art.

Lou Jane Temple: The Spice Box Historical Mystery Series has its first book set in New York during the Civil and the second book of the series is set France during the Revolution…

Victoria Thompson: The Gaslight Mystery Series is set in the early 1900s in New York and features Sarah Brandt, a midwife.

Charles Todd: A mother & son writing duo (Caroline and Charles Todd) write the Ian Reuledge Mystery Series which features a WW I shell-shocked veteran working at Scotland Yard…

Marilyn Todd: The Roman Murder Mystery Series is set in Ancient Rome and features Claudia Seferius, a vineyard owner who happens to be a very strong woman.

Peter Tremayne: The Sister Fidelma Mystery Series features a 7th century nun in Ireland.

Christine Trent: Florence Nightingale Mystery Series – Florence is a nurse in England during the 1850s.

Nicola Upson: The Josephine Tey Mystery Series is based on the “real life” author Scotland Yard’s Alan Grant Mystery Series, set in the 1930s.

Radha Vatsal: Kitty Weeks Mystery Series – Kitty is a journalist in New York during the 1910s.

S. S. Van Dine: The Philo Vance Mystery Series takes place during the early 1900s…

Robert (Hans) van Gulik: The Judge Dee Mystery Series is a series that features a judge magistrate in China during the 7th century…

Ashley Weaver: The Amory Ames Mystery Series features a wealthy, young woman in 1930s Britain.

Lauren Willig: Pink Carnation Mystery Series – Eloise Kelly is a Cambridge (Massachusetts)  Ph.D. candidate, writing her dissertation on Napoleonic era spies.

Jacqueline Winspear: The Maisie Dobbs Mystery Series features Maisie, an early 20th century psychologist/sleuth in England.

Nancy Means Wright: The Mary Wollstonecraft Mystery Series features Mary, an English governess in 18th Century Ireland. (Mary was a real person.)

Patricia Wynn: The Blue Satan Mystery Series is set in England during the 1700s. The Blue Satan is an aristocratic highwayman, and the series also features a lady-in-waiting.

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