Nominate your Favourite Female Detective!

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Who is your favourite?

At this year’s Bodies from the Library Conference (on 18th June at the British Library in London) I will be taking part in a panel on lady sleuths, with Dolores Gordon Smith and Christine Poulson.

So which detectives would you nominate for our discussion? We’re absolutely open to suggestions.

And just to get you started – and to show you which way my mind goes – I have dug out some old blogposts on the topic.

This is my list of young women detectives…

And this is my list of older women detectives….

And this one is called Marple and Silver Fight it Out

And this has the snappy definition of being about Marriageable Single Women Detectives




These posts feature a lot of overlap and many sleuths who are not Golden Age, but I hope you enjoy them. They will help you guess which detectives the pictures are meant to represent. 

And don’t miss out on Bodies – the conference was cancelled in 2020, happened online last year, and is back to being in-person now. Hooray!


Find out more here.

Comments

  1. Johan19 March 2022 at 20:20

    Sarah King from the play version of Appointment with Death.

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    1. Clothes In Books20 March 2022 at 07:36

      Hah! This is a brilliant and unexpected suggestion. I will investigate (yes, deliberate word choice)

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    2. Johan20 March 2022 at 09:54

      Hope you like it, to be honest it was a while since I read it. I know I liked Sarah a lot when I read the novel as a young boy, which probably increased my appreciation for the play.

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    3. Clothes In Books22 March 2022 at 09:49

      I trust your recommendations! I have ordered a copy of the play...

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  2. Margot Kinberg19 March 2022 at 22:37

    Oh, how exciting, Moira! You and Christine are the perfect people to do this! I'm thinking of Dorothy L. Sayers' Harriet Vane, but I'm sure you've already thought of her!

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    1. Clothes In Books20 March 2022 at 07:37

      Oh thank you Margot, how kind. And it promises to be tremendous fun. You have identified one of my favourites already!

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  3. Dame Eleanor Hull20 March 2022 at 00:13

    Something is wrong with the "Marple and Silver" link. The post is here: http://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2018/04/tnc-great-detectives-marple-and-silver.html

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    1. Clothes In Books20 March 2022 at 07:37

      Thank you, I don't know what went wrong there. I hope I have fixed it now.

      Delete
  4. Christine21 March 2022 at 07:22

    Looking forward to it, Moira!

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  5. Susan D21 March 2022 at 15:34

    Your vintage posts refer to Harriet as a sidekick. Really? No no no. Harriet is essentially front and centre in Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night. We are always (nearly always?) in her POV right through those books, and Peter is nowhere in sight for much of them. In Strong Poison, of course, she's the framed suspect in the shadow of the gallows. No sidekick, she. Harriet gets my vote start to finish. :^))

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    1. Clothes In Books22 March 2022 at 09:47

      I admire your firm defence of her! I love HDV, but I think DLS and LPW see her as a sidekick. But I'm sure she will be one of our female sleuths - such a favourite.

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  6. Sue22 March 2022 at 09:32

    Maeve Kerrigan (Jane Casey books) and Sharon McCone (Marcia Muller).

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