The Rise of the Strong Female Detective

Crime fiction is one of the most popular genres amongst readers with over twenty thousand searches a month on Amazon on this phrase alone. Few fans would not recognise the names of Hercule Poirot, Inspector Morse, Sam Spade, Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown, and Inspector Dalgliesh. A quick search of the internet for the top ten best books in crime fiction of the twentieth century will quickly give you a plethora of lists reflecting the author’s preferences, but the one thing any of these lists will have in common is a marked absence of strong female detectives. On my basic mathematics, female detectives formed only about 10% at most of the main characters on any of these lists.

Generally, this disparity would likely reflect the societal attitudes and career opportunities available to females in the early to mid-twentieth century. Or one might suppose that it was merely the product of males writing about males, but this is not necessarily the case, as many female authors also chose males for their main investigators … think Elizabeth George who wrote the Inspector Lynley series; Ruth Rendell, who created the popular character, Chief Inspector Wexford, and who could forget Aggy’s Poirot? Was this because at the time they wrote their stories a male detective was more credible? More than likely this was the case.

Not that strong female detectives didn’t exist, they did – the young female investigator, Cordelia Gray who appeared first in PD James’ 1972 book, An Unsuitable Job For A Woman  (doesn’t the title say it all!), and Sara Paretsky’s tough, cynical Private Detective,  V.I. Warshawski, come to mind – but few would argue that crime fiction in the twentieth century was a male-dominated genre.

Where female protagonists entered into the investigative picture, they generally fell into one of four categories:

1. The supporting role, or off-sider to the lead male detective. Often the junior in a crime-fighting duo - think Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers in the Inspector Linley series, or Amelia Sachs to Jeffrey Deavers’ Alex Cross in The Bone Collector.

2. The young, tough but beautiful, femme fatale investigators. This type of character is much more obvious in the TV detectives. If you’re old enough you will recall Sergeant "Pepper" Anderson, played by Angie Dickinson, an undercover police officer working for the LA Police Department. Or Charlie’s Angels, the iconic crime-busting trio. A hugely popular series in the late 70s, so popular, it was revamped for the 2000s. The girls mixed their detecting with a strong hit of sexiness. The 70s and 80s brought us a wave of these new crime-fighting beauties (in stark contrast to the well-lived-in visages of Karl Malden of the Streets of San Francisco fame, Peter Falk as Columbo and Kojak, played by Telly Savalas, in the same era!

3. The amateur sleuths, who operated in a completely unofficial capacity, either intentionally, or merely by being in the wrong place at the right time. The most well-known of course, is the queen of crime, Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, a brilliant investigator, disguised as the interfering old lady from the village of St. Mary Mead. Then there were Nancy Drew and Jessica Fletcher solving crimes aplenty in their hometowns.

4. And last but not least, the private investigators. This category includes one of my favourite characters who made her first appearance in 1998, Mma Precious Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. A wonderful series developed by Alexander McCall Smith, set in Botswana. Another gem: the Honourable Miss Phrynee Fischer, the late Kerry Greenwood’s fascinating private investigator of the roaring twenties.

   
   

Looking back, it seemed that the 1990’s brought a changing tide to the male-dominated genre of crime fiction. In 1991, Lynda La Plante unveiled Prime Suspect, her outstanding novel, that introduced us to Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison. Epitomised in the TV series by Helen Mirren, Tennison was tough, smart, and complex. This book cut through the glass ceiling, as Tennison fought to nail her killer and battled against the endemic sexism that sought to undermine her.  

The close of the century brought another outstanding and strong female detective, in the form of Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope, developed by author, Ann Cleeves.

Vera Stanhope and Jane Tennison were finally the real deal. They were not ‘barbie dolls’ nor amateurs, and certainly not just reincarnations of the hard-boiled male detectives of earlier years. The era of the strong female detective had dawned.

The lead character in my novel, The Old Town, is Detective Inspector Anna Farrow. A strong female and a great detective. You might think I chose her in some way to address the gender imbalance that still persists, but that’s not the case. She chose me. Fully formed and ready to inhabit the world. Perhaps because I grew up on a steady diet of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden – young, feisty investigators, albeit with a slightly USA flavour – creating the character of Anna, for me, was instinctive. I feel that women bring a different set of skills to detecting, which I am excited to foster and explore.

We still have a long way to go to even the scales, but it is incredibly exciting to see the pendulum swing and the growing number of fascinating and strong female detectives coming to crime fiction.