Book Review for The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict

 

The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict

 Published: February 11, 2025 by St. Martin’s Press

Genre:  Historical Fiction

Taken from Goodreads:  The New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie returns with a thrilling story of Christie’s legendary rival Dorothy Sayers, the race to solve a murder, and the power of friendship among women.

London, 1930. The five 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.

May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they’re stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.

Inspired by a true story in Sayers’ own life, New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels.

My Thoughts:  This book is perfect!  So very perfect.  I love the setting, the storyline, the characters…I love it all.  I love that the five women authors join a secret society and then go about proving that they deserve to be there.   Their spunk, their determination, and their knowledge show that they are not to be messed with.  The Queens of Crime are just that…Queens.

I am not a good clue follower while reading, I just go where the author takes me not really paying attention to the crimes.  In this book, I did just that and enjoyed the path I was going down.  As the story continues, I see those clues that I missed and have those ah ha moments that pull it all together.  

Thank you St. Martin’s Press for a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

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Meet Marie Benedict(taken from her website):  Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years' experience as a litigator at two of the country's premier law firms. She found her calling unearthing the hidden historical stories of women. Her mission is to excavate from the past the most important, complex and fascinating women of history and bring them into the light of present-day where we can finally perceive the breadth of their contributions as well as the insights they bring to modern day issues.

She is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Mitford Affair, Her Hidden Genius, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, The Only Woman in the Room, Lady Clementine, Carnegie's Maid, The Other Einstein, and the novella, Agent 355. With Victoria Christopher Murray, she co-wrote the Good Morning America Book Club pick The Personal Librarian and the Target Book of the Year The First Ladies. 

Her books have been translated into thirty languages, and selected for the Barnes & Noble Book Club, Target Book Club, Costco Book Club, Indie Next List, and LibraryReads List. 

Up next is the February 11, 2025 release, The Queens of Crime, the thrilling story of Agatha Christie’s legendary rival, mystery writer Dorothy Sayers, the race to solve a real-life murder, and the power of friendship among women.

And in April, her first children’s book will released, a middle grade historical adventure co-written with Courtney Sheinmel called The Secrets of the Lovelace Academy.