My mother likes to read when she has time, but almost exclusively within that genre, and she sometimes finds it difficult to find good books/authors that are available in the library and that she hasn't read yet.

She likes but has already read most of the books by classic detective authors like Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie and the like. She's also read and enjoyed pretty much everything by Mary Higgins Clark, and currently she's reading everything by German author Charlotte Link.

So I'm looking for recommendations of good detectives or psychological thrillers, not too gruesome (i.e. no Karin Slaughter and all), not too gloomy (which rules out most of the Swedes ), and if possible with some romance thrown in. I tried suggesting Nicci French (not that I've ever read those, so I might be mistaken about what they're like), but she didn't seem too enthusiastic about those. I would've suggested Millennium, which for the most part would've been a good fit I think, but I'm a bit hesitant about a few of the more gruesome aspects, in the first book particularly.

And if anyone knows good contemporary romance, family chronicles, and the like, not Harlequin-like but not too literary either (i.e. no Byatt), that'd be good too.