The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

A thrilling story of Christie’s legendary rival Dorothy Sayers, the race to solve a murder, and the power of friendship among women.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

February 2025; St. Martin's Press; 978-1250280756
audio, ebook, print (320 pages); historical fiction

This historical fiction novel is based on 5 female mystery authors in 1930.  Led by Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Baroness Emma Orczy. It's also inspired by a true story in Sayers’ own life.  I was familiar with only two of these mystery authors when I started the book but I learned a lot about all of them by their actions and conversations during this book.  All five were strong women who wanted to be treated equally with the male mystery writers of the time.

A group of mystery writers formed a club called the Detection Club whose goal was to give them a place to discuss their books, their ideas, and mystery writing.  Only two women were invited to join the club despite the fact that there were many popular women mystery writers at the time.  Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie were both in the original group and realized that there needed to be more women accepted into the Detection Club.  So Dorothy and Agatha started their own group with three other women writers and they called themselves the Queens of Crime.  They realize right away that there is very little chance that they'll be accepted by the male group who have little regard for women writers and decide that if they solve a real crime, the men will be more open to allowing all 5 of them into the group.  The crime they work to solve is the unsolved murder of an English nurse who disappeared in France.  When her body was found, she had been strangled but there was a large amount of blood beneath her body.  The French police don't seem to be really worried about solving this crime -- after all, it was just a woman - so the Queens of Crime use the tools of their mystery novels to try to solve the crime.  Their work is noticed by someone and Dorothy Sayers is targeted by a person who wants her to stay quiet and quit investigating.  Will these five female authors be able to solve a crime that the police could not solve?  And if so, will it help them become members of the male-dominated Detection Club?

I really enjoyed this book about five strong and intelligent female writers who wanted to be accepted by their male counterparts at a time when women were not highly regarded.  I enjoyed their relationships with each other and how they fed off of each other's ideas to work on the mystery.  Even though they were all popular writers of their day, there seemed to be very little competition between them and they worked well together on their quest.  If you enjoy books with strong women characters, this one is a must-read for you.

Buy The Queens of Crime at Amazon

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is two hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.   

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