As winter closes in at the time of this writing, I highly recommend Nevada Barr and her Anna Pigeon mysteries for some gritty armchair adventure. Anna Pigeon is a National Park Services employee (she advances through the ranks as the series progresses) who tends to stumble on suspicious deaths in the great outdoors. Barr is a master of physical description, to say nothing of the oft-tortured psyche of Pigeon. While it is not sequentially the first Anna Pigeon book, The Rope tells of her first adventure as a seasonal employee of the Parks Service, and might be a good place to start. There are 18 books in the series, starting with Track of the Cat and the latest being Destroyer Angel. I will caution you: after reading these books, you may be planning your next vacation in a National Park.
Nellie Bly is not as well remembered as perhaps she ought to be. She was one of the first American "girl reporters" and one of the muckrakers who exposed the seamy underbelly of the Gilded Age. Carol McCleary brings her to glorious life in her Nellie Bly mysteries. Authentic yet lively with a touch of grit, if you like your female protagonists smart and believable, this is the series for you. The first, The Alchemy of Murder, finds Bly at the Paris World's fair, where a mysterious plague stalks the populace. Oscar Wilde and Jules Verne have supporting roles as Bly uses her reporter's skills and force of will to find the cause. In The Illusion of Murder, Bly is in Port Said, Egypt, when she witnesses a murder while trying to beat a female competitor at proving that the world can be circumnavigated in under 80 days. Others try to convince her that the murdered man was not who she thought he was, but death is on Bly's heels as she continues her journey. The Formula for Murder finds Bly in England tying up the affairs of a protégé who has apparently committed suicide. Bly finds things suspicious, and ends up investigating a spa peddling rejuvenation techniques. Oscar Wilde and H.G. Wells assist.
Back in the present, Kathleen Mallory is introduced in Carol O'Connell's Mallory's Oracle. Mallory is initially a hacker for the NYPD, but when her adoptive father is murdered, she takes leave to pursue her own justice. Mallory is a piece of work: a feral child of the streets, her adoptive parents managed to give her only the veneer of sociability. Incredibly intelligent, she really doesn't have much use for her fellow human beings. You root for her anyway. As she cuts a swathe through crime in this fast-paced series, you get to meet other characters that are almost as well drawn. Before Stieg Larsen's Liz Salander, there was Mallory, and, fortunately, there are 11 books (and counting) in the series.
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