Book #7 |
Book: The Queens of Crime | Author: Marie Benedict | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 310 | Duration: 01/23/26 – 01/25/26 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: historical fiction, mystery, crime, women, writers | ||
| 📕10-word summary: 5 famous female crime writers collaborate to solve a murder. 🖌6-word review: 5 powerful protagonists. Creative, fun story. |
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| 💭A memorable quote: “Very few of us are what we seem.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: pantheon, ignominy, skullduggery, morass | |||
| Description:* London, 1930. The 5 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.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This is my third book by this author, having read in 2022 The Only Woman in the Room (about Hedy Lamarr) and The Personal Librarian (about Belle da Costa Greene — personal librarian to famous financier and investment banker J.P. Morgan), and it’s a departure from her regular kind of storytelling, which is typically a fictionalized version of a woman in history who’s been overlooked or under-appreciated. In this story, instead of 1 woman, she writes about 5 women — who are actual, famous crime writers: Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Baroness Emma Orczy — and she has them all collaborating to solve one unsolved, real-life murder. Benedict incorporates each writer’s strengths, both as writers and of their main characters, such as Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey who stars in 11 of her novels, and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, appearing in 33 of her novels and Miss Marple, who appears in 12. I found it to be an interesting, creative, and fun premise and would definitely recommend it, especially if you’re a fan of the mystery genre. Oh, bonus! There were at least 3 uses of one of Moira Rose’s vocabulary words: chin-wag. | |||
See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2026 and previous years: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.
