Sometimes it seems as if everybody's got a gimmick.
Janet Evanovich has used numbers in her Stephanie Plum novels, starting with One for the Money, although the brand new Fearless Fourteen is actually the seventeenth book in the series. Visions of Sugar Plums, Plum Lovin’ and Plum Lucky got shuffled into the run along the way. Stephanie is a Trenton based bounty hunter.
You make your way through James Patterson’s Women's Murder Club mysteries strictly by the numbers. We meet Club founding members Lindsay Boxer, Cindy Thomas, Claire Washburn and Jill Bernhardt in 1st to Die. In 3rd Degree, a fifth member, Yuki Castellano, joins them. Together, they solve crimes in their home city of San Francisco.
They are up to their seventh title, 7th Heaven.
Check Patterson’s website for a plot synopsis of each title, character profiles of Lindsay and her “partners in crime” and directions for making the perfect “murdertini.” You can also sign up for a newsletter so you will know a.s.a.p. when book number eight is on its way!
We first meet Private eye Kinsey Millhone in 1982 in A is for Alibi. The series continues from there in strict alphabetical order, the most recent being T is for Trespass.
Thrillingdetective.com describes her as “an accident waiting to happen,” adding “This is the private eye Annie Hall-era Diane Keaton was born to play.” Kinsey ‘s turf is southern California's Santa Teresa – a thinly disguised Santa Barbara.
Bookmark author Sue Grafton’s website if you are keeping vigil for “U is for …” and are curious what her after “Z is for …” plans are.
A lesser known, but extremely well received series by Ann Purser takes you through the days of the week.
Lois Meade, cleaner and part-time sleuth in Long Farnden starts her week out with Murder on Monday and wraps it up with Sorrow on Sunday.
Purser’s website promises that Lois and her family will continue in a new series to be published in November 2008. Interestingly enough, it will called Warning at One. I guess Lois will be working her way around the face of the clock this time.
You don’t want to miss these if British cozies are your thing.
I recently discovered the Murder by Month series by Jess Lourey, which begins, oddly enough, with May Day. 
Twenty-something Mira James leaves Minneapolis for a part time library job in rural Minnesota. She's barely settled in there when she finds a dead body in the stacks.
Mira’s has worked her way through the calendar to her fourth adventure, August Moon.
This series may be more for chick-lit fans. Mira congratulates herself on "how much television had prepared me for life" – Charlie's Angels are her inspiration!
