Genre: Historical Fiction & Mystery

Imagine one of your favorite contemporary writers writing about some of your favorite historical writers - what a dream, right? So it is with Marie Benedict’s The Queens of Crime - a mystery reader’s delight. Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Baroness Emma Orczy, and Ngaio Marsh are treated as “less than” in an exclusive club for mystery writers because they are women. With Dorothy in the lead, they decide that solving the murder of young nurse May Daniels that has baffled police for some time will gain them the notoriety they need to break that glass ceiling. Along the way they must challenge that ceiling in more ways than they can initially fathom.

Dorothy Sayers is a force with which to be reckoned. She will use her journalist husband’s sources, travel, rally the ladies, and take on some powerful British men and the police to solve the story of May Daniels. Throughout their journey, she of all the queens has, perhaps, the most to lose. She has protected her own secrets for quite a long time. The mistreatment of another woman spurs to risk even those. Women have been battling to be heard at a number of levels for a very long time. Benedict captures that battle while crafting a fascinating mystery that would have made the queens proud. She also captures the spirit of friendship in a beautiful way. Each of the queens comes to the table with her own quirks - one prefers pants, another is well used to her wealth, more than Dorothy has a secret. Rather than allowing these quirks to divide them, they use them to work together. Because of this effort, beautiful friendships develop - again speaking to the power of women working together. May never gets to benefit from their work, but what they gain is incalculable, professionally and personally. We get the sense that these queens have only just begun.

Benedict does not disappoint. I love how through her commitment to women and to detailed research, she continues to bring the lives of unsung women in history to life. I can easily become discouraged as in many ways the fight to be heard as women continues. And really, how dare I, who has more privileges than even my mother, and certainly more than my grandmothers, be discouraged? In The Queens of Crime, Marie Benedict provides mystery, history, amazing women, and, of course, inspiration. Publishing on February 11, you will love this book. Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.