Mystery Women
:Mystery Women
:nominated for a 2002 Agatha Award.
nominated for an Edgar Award and an Agatha Award
Look for the favorable review of volume 1 in the May 1, 1998 Library Journal (page 92)!
For more than a century, authors have employs women characters as sleuths or the partners of male heroes or villains. Some have been prominent and lasting, while others have made only a casual appearance or two in an obscure mystery novel long out of print.
Colleen Barnett has rescued those long forgotten women characters from the dusty shelves of the library and chronicled their contributions to the mystery genre in particular and literature in general. She has identified and listed 1,705 titles, 326 characters, and 310 authors contained in this first volume of her epic work.
Library Journal Review of Mystery Women
From The May 1, 1998 Library Journal, p. 92.
Barnett, a lawyer and teacher of political science, has collected mystery fiction with female protagonists for more than 20 years. Here she focuses on those protagonists instead of female mystery writers, as other guides do (e.g. Jean Swanson's By a Woman's Hand, Berkeley, 1996, 2nd ed.).
This book is the first of a proposed three volume work covering female protagonists in detective fiction from the inception of the popular mystery until 1979. Entries are grouped by era (e.g. Victorian, interwar), with an introductory essay describing the political and social background of the era with reference to women.
Each entry describes a female detective (or major female character in a mystery series), the works in which they appear, and the significance of the series or works to the development of the genre. Appendixes list authors with their works and characters, works with their authors and characters, and references sources. A character index to the three volumes would have helped. Nevertheless, Barnett offers a unique and highly subjective approach to the genre.
Recommended where there is an interest in "mystery women" and for readers' advisory services.
Adult Readers
Advisory - Many recommended sites
for book lovers.
BookBrowser - Good subject lists, especially for series.
Clue
Lass - A mystery lover's
notebook.
Genrefluent - A guide to genre fiction.
Mystery Related
Links - All the sites a mystery
reader needs.
What's Next - A
searchable series database from the Kent Co., Michigan library
district. They also maintain a "If
you Like..." listing.