Tangled Web UK Review September 2007
Mystery Women: An Encyclopedia of Leading Women Characters by
Colleen Barnett
pbk out December 07
(Poisoned Pen Press)
at £11.95
This is the third edition of the first in a remarkable series of books. Colleen Barnett opted to
undertake the massive task of producing an encyclopaedia of the leading women characters in
mystery fiction. This book covers the period from 1860 to 1979 – it says a great deal for the
rapid growth in importance of female detectives that the two follow-up books cover a mere
twenty years between them. There are innumerable entries concerning characters who would
otherwise be unknown to the modern reader – examples taken at random are Margaret
Turnbull's Juliet Jackson (aka 'The Female Ferret'), James Yardley's Kiss Darling (who
acquired a PhD by the time she was twenty) and Sax Rohmer's Eastern superwoman Sumuru.
Barnett's reading is wide, and her approach open-minded: the entry for Harriet Vane devotes
almost as much space to her appearances in the modern novels by Jill Paton Walsh as to the
famous books which Dorothy L. Sayers wrote about her. For such a chunky volume, the price
is modest, a matter for which the publishers deserve congratulation. A great book to dip into,
full of unexpected pleasures.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
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