Female detective cliches US style,
Addicted to junk food and spend half the novel talking about the food they are eating even though it's usually McDs, hotdogs, donuts, coffee, grandmas pineapple upside down cake and therefore hardly the stuff of Nigel Slater's dreams.
Yet slim, athletic and hot to trot.
Despite wearing clothes along the lines of "turtlenecks", "my one good skirt" or "sweatpants and a scrunchy"
Big hair.
Lives alone, with an eccentric animal.
Torn between two men, one's a hurt but rugged cop with Mother Issues and a needy ex wife, the other is a mysterious criminal with dark but not too dark skin. Both are HOT!
No female friends. Unless they are hugely overweight / unattractive and Sassy! With a capital S.
Often has to pretend to be a prostitute to secure information. Or visit an Irish bar where her good looks and streetwise mien will elicit a hint or two from the twinkly barkeep.
Occasionally drinks a Chardonnay. Or a Miller Light if in the Irish bar. For show.
Hates smoking. Loves animals. And jogging. And old people. There must be a wise yet crazy oldster.
See Stephanie Plum, Kinsey Millhone, Temperance Brennan, Carlotta Carlyle etc.