The Queens of Crime

By Marie Benedict

Book Overview

INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER AND INDIE BESTSELLER

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie--a thrilling story of the five greatest women writers of the Golden Age of Mystery and their bid to solve a real-life murder.

London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.

May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they're stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.

Inspired by a true story in Sayers' own life, New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250280753
• ISBN13: 9781250280756
• Release Date: February 2025
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.6" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Go Queens of Crime!

This was an entertaining romp into the historical fiction of some famous authors who come together to solve a murder and show the men of the Detection club that they are just as good mystery writers that also belong in the club. With fashion and detective skills sharpened by the books they have written, they bring justice to the disappearance of one May Daniels who was maligned in the news by police only doing a cursory job in solving her murder. It is sad that it was true about how women were treated back then, both as writers, or when they choose to do something other than the norm. So it was nice to have the Queens of Crime do this for her. It was a nice blend of true history and fiction and it flowed well to the end when all is revealed and everyone (minus the ones that were part of the murdering and threats to May and the other women) gets what they worked so hard for. Go Queens of Crime!