The Big Book of Female Detectives

by Otto Penzler (editor)

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler's new anthology brings together the most cunning, resourceful, and brilliant female sleuths in mystery fiction. A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original.For the first time ever, Otto Penzler gathers the most iconic women of the detective canon over the past 150 years, captivating and surprising readers in equal measure. The 74 handpicked stories in this collection introduce us to the most determined of gumshoe gals, from debutant detectives like Anna Katharine Green's Violet Strange to spinster sleuths like Mary Roberts Rinehart's Hilda Adams, from groundbreaking female cops like Baroness Orczy's Lady Molly to contemporary crime-fighting P.I.s like Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, and include indelible tales from Agatha Christie, Carolyn Wells, Edgar Wallace, L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace, Sara Paretsky, Nevada Barr, Linda Barnes, Laura Lippman, and many more.

Genres: Mystery, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Historical Fiction, Thriller

1109 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 16, 2018

About the author

Otto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.

Otto Penzler founded The Mysteriour Press in 1975 and was the publisher of The Armchair Detective, the Edgar-winning quarterly journal devoted to the study of mystery and suspense fiction, for seventeen years.

Penzler has won two Edgar Awards, for The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection in 1977, and The Lineup in 2010. The Mystery Writers of America awarded him the prestigious Ellery Queen Award in 1994, and the Raven--the group's highest non-writing award--in 2003.

Reviews

[Literary Redhead · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE DAY I MET V. I. WARSHAWSKI

The air was humid, the cobblestones glistening during my lunch break as a psychotherapist. I stumbled upon a little bookstore I’d not seen before on the South Side of Pittsburgh, where my spouse and I had just moved for his job with Capitol Records.

SOLACE
Libraries and bookstores gave me solace those early days in the Iron City, where I knew no one but a little-seen cousin. But I remember that day as if it were yesterday, because that’s when I first met V.I.

EXHALING
As I picked up KILLING ORDERS and read the dust cover bio on Sara Paretsky, I found myself exhaling. It was as if I’d been holding my breath since we’d moved, but now I could finally relax. For I’d found a new friend, one I could spend hours with over a good pinot. She’s been a bracing good companion for many years now.

BEST, BRIGHTEST
All that to say I was thrilled when I found “The Big Book of Female Detectives” on NetGalley! In this fine anthology, Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler assembles the best and the brightest of female sleuths in mystery fiction, representing 150 years of the detective canon.

GUMSHOE GALS
The 74 handpicked stories introduce us to the most determined of gumshoes gals, from debutant detectives like Anna Katharine Green's Violet Strange to spinster sleuths like Mary Roberts Rinehart's Hilda Adams, from groundbreaking female cops like Baroness Orczy's Lady Molly to contemporary crime-fighting P.I.s like Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, and include indelible tales from Agatha Christie, Carolyn Wells, Edgar Wallace, L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace, Nevada Barr, Linda Barnes, Laura Lippman, and my dear friend Sara Paretsky, among many more.

NA ZDROWIE!
To which Sara and I raise our glasses and say, “5/5!”

Pub Date 09 Oct 2018.

Thanks to the author, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine.

#TheBigBookOfFemaleDetectives #NetGalley

[Donna Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well now, that was a meal. Penzler does nothing halfway, and this meaty collection of 74 stories took me awhile to move through. I read most, but not all, and I’ll get to that in a minute. First, though, thanks go to Net Galley and Doubleday for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

The collection begins with Mrs. Paschal, published in 1864, who must find “the cleverest thieves in Christendom,” and it concludes with a piece by Joyce Carol Oates. The stories are broken down into sections, beginning with The Victorians and Edwardians, followed by Before World War I, The Pulp Era, The Golden Age, Mid-Century, and The Modern Era, and concluded with Bad Girls. Says Penzler in his introduction:

"Seeing the Evolution of the female detective’s style as it gathers strength and credibility through the decades is educational, but that is not the purpose of this book, or not the primary one, anyway. The writers whose work fills these pages are the best of their time, and their stories are among the high points of detective fiction that may be read with no greater agenda than the pure joy that derives from distinguished fiction."

And so the reader must absorb the hallmarks of the time period, and that means the earliest entries carry a certain number of stereotypes, primarily about the nature of women, but in the end, the detective is successful nevertheless. And it’s fun to see historical details written in present tense long ago, and so we know it’s getting to be late out when the lamplighters come out to start the gas lights in the hallways of the manse, for example. It’s also interesting to read authors that were the runaway sensations of their day, the ones that sold the most and wrote the most and were on the tongues of every mystery reader—and yet now they are completely obscure. We can never tell who will stand the test of time until it happens.

And now a confession. The first time I set out to read this tome, I read the entries in the first two sections and decided I would skip the portion devoted to pulp, which isn’t my personal favorite, and I would skip forward to read an entry by one of my favorite present-day mystery writers, and then go back again to cover the sections that come after the pulp section. That was my plan. I’m telling you this because the mistake I made here could happen to you, too, so here it is.

What I did was I skipped to the last section and began flipping through it, and then I was pissed, because I thought the best female detective writers of today had been left out, and in a huff, I abandoned the rest of the book and picked up something else. It wasn’t until I sat down to write a halfhearted review, in which I would explain what I read and what I skipped and why, that I reread the promotional teaser and realized I must have missed something. I went back to the galley, moved back to the second-to-last section that is clearly labeled “Modern”, and there they all were, and it is the longest, most inclusive section in the collection. That changed everything. So reader, if you go for this book, bear in mind that the sections are not completely linear. The “Bad Girls” section at the end, which didn’t do much for me but you may like it, is made up of stories about women criminals from a variety of different time periods. The most recent time period, the one bearing selections by Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky, the late and beloved Sue Grafton, Nevada Barr, and a host of others, is second-to-last.

Once I realized my error, of course I returned to read the rest of the book.

The one sorrowful note here is that those of us that love these modern female detectives enough to have bought other anthologies, for example those brought to us by the Paretsky group, “Sisters in Crime,” will run across selections we have already read. I have seen both the Grafton and Paretsky stories already, although the piece by Barr, “Beneath the Lilacs,” is new to me. However, I see authors I haven’t read and will happily watch for now. The end of the mid-century section features “Mom Sings an Aria,” and although it veers a wee bit toward stereotypes, I can’t say I mind too much, because this writer makes me laugh out loud. James Yaffe is on my list now. “Blood Types”, by Julie Smith is likewise pithy, and “Miss Gibson,” by Linda Barnes also cracks me up. And I don’t know why I am still surprised by this. After reading so many anthologies, you’d think I’d realize that the greatest charms are had by finding brand new-to-me authors, but since it’s a good surprise every time, I may allow myself not to absorb the lesson; this way I can still be pleasantly surprised over and over again.

If you buy a holiday gift for a mystery lover, I recommend you get this book. If you try to buy something by your loved one’s favorite author, you may run up against it as I did: they’ve already read it. (And you probably hate returning things as much as I do.) But what are the chances she has this anthology? It’s over a thousand pages of detective fiction, and last I saw, it’s on sale for less than twenty bucks. There, that’s one gift chosen for you, and it’s not even November yet. You’re welcome.

[Carla Remy · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were expected suspenseful and outlandish stories from pulp magazines like Murder With Flowers (1941). I liked some of the later things too. Particularly Headaches and Bad Dreams by Lawrence Block.
Chiller-Diller by Richard Sale was another good pulp tale from 1939. But I don't see how it qualified as a Female Detective story. Some ladies were named, but a man - Daffy Dill, a pulp hero newspaper reporter - was central and did everything. The story has a quite gruesome and creepy murder method: go up to a sitting person and push a hat pin in their ear.

[Judy Lesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard for a digital copy of this anthology.

This is an absolutely must-have collection for any reader who wants someone else to do all the hard research work for them. Otto Penzler has collected 74 short stories featuring a woman as the chief detective in a mystery from Victorian to modern times. Not every story will appeal to each reader, but there are so, so many fabulous stories included in this collection that it couldn't help but be a success for me. Penzler has included an introduction to the collection and then a short piece before each story to give the reader a sharper focus of the times and career of each author.

I started out reading one story from the earliest collections and then one from modern times. I enjoyed having such dynamic examples of how writing in this genre has advanced, but also to once again see how good the early writing was. With 74 authors covering such a wide time period it is probable that you will find yourself reading material from authors you aren't familiar with. I found some very good mystery stories from all the time periods and highly recommend this anthology.

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's really no better bedtime reading than a mystery short story.

I have the print version, just because I like big books "in person." I've also got the Kindle version because that big book could crush me if I dropped it me in bed.

This is a first class collection of short stories (mostly) ranging from Victorian times to the present. I liked all the time periods pretty well except, to my surprise, the pulp era stories. However, that is clearly a matter of personal taste. Otto Penzler serves up a wonderful selection and I discovered several new authors to investigate further. There are all sorts of detectives from the young and beautiful to the old and canny. Some have sidekicks (usually male), some have a gang of admirers/assistants, and some work completely alone.

Highly recommended for anyone who likes this sort of thing as much as I do.

[Simona · Rating 5 out of 5]

This big book (1136 pages) is collection of short stories (and few novellas) over the past 150 years, where main character is female trying to resolve some kind of mystery, murder, robbery ... Each story begins with short introduction of the author and where/when story was first published. I didn’t enjoy in all of them, but the collection as a whole is very interesting and good overview of female characters (and their development) in this genre.

[Raji · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to read this collection but I had also read reviews that talked about how unwieldy the book was, so I decided to listen to it instead. An anthology of stories means you can keep going away and coming back to it without losing the flow, I thought.

I wish the narrators were different, but for the most part, this was an interesting collection. The history of female detectives in fiction was fascinating. They seem to start out as capable, intelligent and resourceful, experience a period of being used as decorative props, and then find their resourcefulness again, thankfully.

I am not sure what criteria Otto Penzler used for his selections but some of the stories are puzzling. For instance, stories like ‘Red Hot’ and ‘The Letters and The Law’ barely have more than the token female presence and I am not sure why they were included at all. However, there were interesting inclusions like ‘The Unraveled Mystery’ which I would never have read if not for this anthology. It is one woman narrating what she thinks is a possible explanation for a mystery that she has not been consulted on and that remains unsolved.

Some of the stories are thrilling; some are unfortunately yawn-inducing. If, like me, you have not made the journey through the history of detective fiction, then you might find the eras, the tales, and the characters absorbing. What is really disappointing is that for an anthology published in 2018, BIPoC authors are missing. Why have a section called Bad Girls? Why not extend the Modern Era? I am not sure, but I do think this collection should be called Big Book of White Female Detectives.

I heard this on Audible and while I understand why a book this size has to be split up into parts, I hate that I cannot see a list of all the chapters at one go. A list reminds me of the gist of the story and I found that if the list had the name of the detective as well, then the whole story sometimes unfurled itself in front of my mind’s eye. There wasn’t such a list, so I made one, which I am sharing here. I tried googling the detectives’ names to make sure I was spelling them right, but in some instances, I couldn’t find their names, so I am going by what they sounded like :P

Also, the blurbs keep referring to 74 stories, but the audiobook only had 65.


The Big Book of Female Detectives – Otto Penzler
The Victorians and Edwardians (British)
1) The Mysterious Countess {Mrs Pascal} – Anonymous
2) The Unraveled Mystery – Andrew Forrester Jr
3) The Redhill Sisterhood {Loveday Brooke} – C L Pirkis
4) The Diamond Lizard {Dorcas Dene} – George R Sims
5) The Stir Outside the Café Royal {Nora van Snoop} – Clarence Rook
6) The Mandarin {Hagar of the Pawn Shop} – Fergus Hume
7) The Outside Ledge: A Cablegram Mystery {Florence Cusack} – L T Meade and Robert Eustace
8) The Frewin Miniatures {Lady Molly of Scotland Yard} – Baroness Orczy
9) Conscience {Judith Lee} – Richard Marsh
10) The Hidden Violin {Dora Myrl} – M McDonnell Bodkin

Before World War I (American)
11) Christabel’s Crystal {Elinor Frost} – Carolyn Wells
12) The Bullet from Nowhere {Madelyn Mack} – Hugh C Weir
13) An Intangible Clew {Violet Strange} – Anna Katharine Green
14) Planted {Mrs Polly} – James Oppenheim

Pulp
15) The Wizard’s Safe {Daphne Rayne} – Valentine
16) The Madame Goes Dramatic {The Madame} – Perry Paul
17) Red Hot {Patricia Seaward} – Frederick Nebel
18) The Domino Lady Collects {Ellen Patrick/The Domino Lady} – Lars Anderson
19) The Letters and The Law {Trixie Meehan} – T T Flynn
20) The Old Maids Die {Katie Blayne/The Duchess} – Whitman Chambers
21) Too Many Clients {Sarah Watson} – D B McCandless
22) Rat Runaround {Marge Chalmers} – Roger Torrey
23) Murder with Music and Coke for Co-Eds {Sally the Sleuth} – Adolphe Barreaux
24) Chiller-Diller – Richard Sale

The Golden Age
25) The Secret Adversary {Prudence (Tuppence) Cowley} – Agatha Christie
26) Diamond Cut Diamond {Eleanor Vance} – Frederic Arnold Kummer
27) Locked Doors {Hilda Adams} – Mary Roberts Rinehart
28) The Tea Leaf {Ruth Kelstern} – Edgar Jepson and Robert Eustace
29) The Almost Perfect Murder {Madame Rosika Storey} – Hulbert Footner
30) The Lover of St Lys {Solange Fontaine} – F Tennyson Jesse
31) Misogyny at Mougins {Kyra Sokratesco} – Gilbert Frankau
32) The Bloody Crescendo {Sally Cardiff} – Vincent Starrett
33) The Woman from The East {Ranee of Butilata} – Edgar Wallace
34) Burglars Must Dine {Miss Lucy Mott} – E. Phillips Oppenheim
35) Murder in The Movies {Rose Graham} – Karl Detzer
36) The Case of The Hundred Cats {Dame Beatrice Bradley} – Gladys Mitchell

Mid-Century
37) The Riddle of The Black Museum {Hildegarde Withers} – Stuart Palmer
38) Flowers for An Angel {Mrs Pym} – Nigel Morland

The Modern Era
39) All The Lonely People {Sharon McCone} – Marcia Muller
40) Blood Types {Rebecca Schwartz} – Julie Smith
41) A Poison That Leaves No Trace {Kinsey Millhone} – Sue Grafton
42) Discards {Andrea Darling} – Faye Kellerman
43) Spooked {Gretchen Gilman} – Carolyn G Hart
44) Making Lemonade {Detective Sergeant Marian Larch} – Barbara Paul
45) Louise {Ms. Michael Tree} – Max Allan Collins
46) Strung Out {VI (Victoria Iphigenia) Warshawski} – Sara Paretsky
47) Beneath the Lilacs {Gwen Clear} – Nevada Barr
48) Headaches and Bad Dreams {Sylvia Belgrave} – Lawrence Block
49) An Affair of Inconvenience {Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould} – Anne Perry
50) Beaubien {Mary Shelley} – Deborah Morgan
51) Double-Crossing Delancey {Lydia Chin} – S J Rozan
52) The Shoeshine Man’s Regrets {Tess Monaghan} – Laura Lippman
53) Dust Up {Pansy Reynard} – Wendy Hornsby
54) The Case of the Parr Children {Jemima Shore} – Antonia Fraser
55) Fast {Kathryn Dance} – Jeffery Deaver

Bad Girls
56) The Winged Assassin {Madame Koluchy} – LT Meade and Robert Eustace
57) The Blood-Red Cross {Madame Sara} – LT Meade and Robert Eustace
58) The Adventure of the Carnegie Library {Henrietta Van Raffles} – John Kendrick Bangs
59) She Knew What to Do {Miss Millie} – Joseph Shearing
60) The Forgers {Constance Dunlap} – Arthur B Reeve
61) The Meanest Man in Europe {Fidelity Dove} – David Durham
62) Four Square Jane Unmasked {Four Square Jane} – Edgar Wallace
63) The Adventure of the Headless Statue {Vivian Legrand aka The Lady from Hell} – Eugene Thomas
64) The Passing of Anne Marsh {Anne Marsh} – Arthur Leo Zagat
65) Extenuating Circumstances {Unnamed} – Joyce Carol Oates

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy reading short mystery stories, so I couldn’t resist this collection of 74 stories featuring female detectives. This is a robust collection of short stories ranging from cozy to hard-boiled from the last 150 years, written by both men and women. The stories are mainly grouped by era, with the exception of the last chapter called, “Bad Girls.” Each story includes an introduction with information about the author and the detective.

The collection includes many authors, mostly from the modern era, who have long been favorites of mine such as S.J. Rozan, Faye Kellerman, Anne Perry, Carolyn Hart, Sue Grafton, and Jeffery Deaver. This was my favorite chapter, because I enjoyed reading so many excellent stories by authors I have frequently read.

The collection includes a story by Agatha Christie, one of my all-time favorite authors, in the “Golden Age” chapter, but I was disappointed it featured Tommy and Tuppence instead of Miss Marple. I was happy to read some of the other stories in this chapter by authors I had heard of, such as Mignon G. Eberhart and Mary Roberts Rinehart, but hadn’t read before.

There were quite a few pleasant surprises in the collection. I really enjoyed a story by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace, originally published in 1900, featuring Miss Florence Cusack, a female Sherlock Holmes. I’m not usually a fan of Pulp stories and didn’t realize some of them featured female detectives. I especially enjoyed “The Letters and The Law” by T.T. Flynn even though some parts of it were very dated.

With such a large collection, readers aren’t going to connect with every story, but there is something for everyone in this delightful book of short stories. It can be read from beginning to end or you can dive right into your favorite era and enjoy. I have read other collections edited by Otto Penzler, but this one is my favorite. “The Big Book of Female Detectives” gave me many hours of enjoyment and I highly recommend it to mystery fans, especially those who enjoy short stories.

I received this book from NetGalley, through the courtesy of Vintage Crime. The book was provided to me in exchange for an honest review.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

From my blog and instagram account - @livereadandprosper

Thank you Netgalley and Knopf Publishing for this read for my honest review.

Ponder has put together short stories (including a few chapters each) of multiple generations of famous women detectives. The stories start from the Victorian Era and travel all the way up to modern day “Bad Girls”. Ponder starts each story with a small history of what’s taking place in the story to help paint a picture in your mind of what is to come. It also describes details about the author and when the story was published. Each story includes a few chapters of mystery, suspense, and thrill to engage your mind and plop you into the world of crime.

I seriously am in heaven. This is such a wonderful piece of work! I am a huge mystery/crime buff when it comes to fiction, so this is my dream come true. I can’t believe something like this hasn’t been done sooner! I cannot WAIT to get my hands on the physical copy and share these stories every night with my daughter. I would highly encourage a male version of this too, just because the content is so rich and I’m sure fathers and sons would enjoy reading this together. Heck, I would LOVE to read it! Any mystery lover, short story lover, and history buff would love this book. A must read!

5/5 Stars

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of 74 short mystery stories featuring a female detective. These stories were grouped by when they were written and featured stories from the first fictional female detectives in the mid-1800s up to the modern day. Some of the stories were very short while a few seemed novella length, but most could be read in an hour or two.

Some were essentially the detective telling how she solved the crime. Many told events as they happened and provided clues for the reader to puzzle out. Many of the women were competent, clever private or amateur detectives. A few were criminals intrigued by solving the puzzle or were even the one committing the crime. A whole group of stories had the woman as basically the beautiful sidekick to the real detective. This collection was interesting to read and contained many fun stories. There was no sex. There was a fair amount of bad language, mostly found in the more modern stories.

I received an ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley.

[Teri-K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really nice collection of stories, sorted by the time period published except for the last section which is "Bad Girls". I liked the groupings, it let me see the wide range of stories being published in any given time - there was more variety than I expected. And I found plenty of authors to read more of, though it didn't surprise me that I tended to like the earlier writers more than the very latest. Still there were plenty of good ones here to enjoy. (I own this book, and marked the stories I especially liked in the table of contents so I can look for more by those authors. Or you could keep a list.)

My only objection is that Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary isn't really a story, but a book. (It takes 100 pages here - way more than any other entry.) It's been published as a separate volume for decades and felt too long to be included here. She wrote plenty of short stories, why not include one of those?

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

No false advertising here: This book is well over 1,000 pages, set in double columns. I'm a fast reader generally, but it took me a long while to get through this, partly because my wrists were aching from holding it. There's a full-length Christie novel stuck in among the short stories, and one hardly notices it! The quality is good, too, although I enjoyed some of the roughly chronological sections more than others. (Some of the "female detectives" in the pulp fiction section, for instance, were really the gumshoe's secretaries or sidekicks.) And along with old favorites are some stories, and authors, that were new to me. The three star rating is because, after a while, more becomes less, and the reading experience becomes more of a marathon than a pleasure.

[Pamela Mclaren · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the Victorian Era to modern times, there have been stories that featured sharp women, both as sleuths and as avenging angels. And this book shares all types of stories, both with classic mystery writers, such as Fergus Hume, Carolyn Wells and yes, Agatha Christie, to those of today. Every story is a treat, some more than others as some show their age. But over the more than 1100 pages, there is always something to entertain and savor.

[Megan]

Not really rateable -- it's a compendium. A lot of great stories, a lot of mediocre but historically valuable stories; a sampler and a brick. No lesbian detectives represented (as far as I could tell), therefore inadequate and incomplete.

[Les Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took a while to get through but worth it in the end. Worth a read if you can treat each story as a separate book.

[Arnis · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://poseidons99.wordpress.com/202...

[Whistler's Mom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Making a long-term (eight days!) commitment to Oscar.

I appreciate Otto Penzler making so many old short stories available at great prices. I paid $5 for this one and knocked off $3 with a Kindle Rewards coupon. Seventy-four stories and over one thousand pages for two bucks is a bargain.

The stories were published from 1864 to 2014 and are grouped according to time range. I'd already read most of the older ones. Female gumshoes like Loveday Brooks, Dorcus Dene, Judith Lee, and Dora Myrl are old friends and their stories in Kindle collections are some of my favorites. In addition to ladies who catch criminals, there are some who ARE criminals. I love the Madame Sara stories, as well as those featuring Fidelity Dove and Four-square Jane.

Mind you, not all old stuff is to my liking. I find Anna Katherine Green's Violet Strange irritating and I'm not a fan of Lady Molly of Scotland Yard. I'll take a pass on Miss Madelyn Mack and the numerous stories by Carolyn Wells are just as boring as Oscar says if the one he printed is typical.

I bought two collections ("Ask Miss Mott" and "Constance Dunlap") because I enjoyed those stories. Madame Rosika Storey is also new to me and I suspect I'll end up buying some of the collections of those short stories and novellas. In the mid-century category, I enjoyed the story about Sister Ursula, Miss Hildegarde Withers, James Jaffe's Mom, Mr and Mrs North, and Peter and Iris Duluth.

I was disappointed in the Pulp Era stories. The pulps nurtured Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler (two of my favorites) but these "lady detective" stories are formulaic and boring. A gruff middle-aged male detective and his younger female side-kick. Who needs it?

I read the "Modern" stories (most now twenty years old or older) but they just convinced me that I'm wise to stick to the older stuff. The Sue Grafton story was amusing, but if I had to deal with Sis and Justine, you'd have to pay me more than $30/hour and expenses.

The real heart-breaker was finding several authors whose short stories I'd love to read, but which are available only in expensive editions. Great one by English author Phyllis Bentley featuring Miss Marion Phipps. The Miss Phipps stories are collected, but not available in Kindle and the hard copy edition is priced at a breath-taking $50. There are Kindles of many of Ethel Lina White's novels, but if you want to read her short stories (like the delightful one in this book) you must buy the book for $20.

There's a publisher named Crippen & Landru which collects old short stories. Many are not available on Kindle and those are priced more than other books by the same authors. At their prices, the "Lost Classics" will have to stay lost. Ironically, the company is named after two famous murderers (Hawley Crippen and Henri Landru.) Murder is an evil crime, but so is price gouging.

Otto's short story anthologies are gold mines. You won't like all the stories, but you'll probably find some you do like which will lead you to more good reading. That's the beauty of anthologies.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The Big Book of Female Detectives is an encyclopedic anthology of detective fiction featuring female characters (and a fair number are actually written by women). Released 16th Oct 2018, by Knopf/Doubleday on their Vintage Crime/Black Lizard imprint it's a mind boggling 1136 pages and available in ebook and paperback formats.

Editor Otto Penzler has done another astounding job of collecting these stories together and providing insightful background and history as well as context. There are more than a dozen other 'Big Book' anthologies curated by Mr. Penzler, and this one really delivers.

The book's introduction is a capsule survey of the representations of women in detective fiction from the late 19th century to today. Penzler writes well and with deep knowledge of his subject. There is also a short introduction to each story which gives interesting background and some publishing history for each of the entries.

The stories themselves are a mixed bag (including some with female antagonists, or at least anti-heroes). They're arranged in sections grouped roughly into time periods starting with the Victorians and Edwardians, and continuing through Pre-WWI, the Pulps, Golden Age, Mid-Century, and the Modern Era.

This is a really worthwhile collection and is honestly valuable just for the historical information about the origins and development of detective fiction along with the comprehensive acknowledgements and publishing info at the end. Along with the stories, the reader has over a thousand pages of classic fiction from giants of the genre and from some lesser known authors past and present. I love these anthologies because I always manage to find some new-to-me authors to read further.

Five huge stars. This was a whopper of a book and really supremely enjoyable for readers of historical detective fiction.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[Annette · Rating 5 out of 5]

OK – I am going to say something which is no surprise to most of us – Agatha Christie was truly the most amazing mystery author.

This book is wonderful.

We start out with female detectives from about one hundred years in the past. The writers are mostly men. But, there are also women authors who show how talented they were. The writing is not what one would expect from an author today. Situations and attitudes are somewhat dated. But, each story is well written and the mysteries hold the reader's interest.

The stories proceed toward more modern times. The reader moves forward through changing attitudes toward the female sleuths.

Mr Penzler went to a great deal of time and effort to find absolutely wonderful stories.

As much as I enjoyed each of the stories, I was still amazed at the fact that Ms Christie introduced a completely new level of writing and plot development.

Any reader who is a fan of mysteries, should really read this book.

The plots are varied, the characters are well developed and every author has shown the quality of their abilities.

I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to enjoy so many authors, so many stories and such terrific feminine investigators.

I received this book from the publisher through NetGalley. I am voluntarily writing this review and all opinions are completely my own.

[Richard]

Since this book is an absolute monster that I'll be dipping into occasionally probably forever, I'm going to review each of the 74(!) stories as I go.

"The Mysterious Countess," Anonymous: A brain numbing series of cliches that charms with its sincerity and corniness. I like Old Dark House films, this is very that.

"The Unraveled Mystery," Andrew Forrester, Jr: Honestly nothing but a series of racist stereotypes. Not good in any way.

"The Redhill Sisterhood," C.L. Pirkis: Now we're talking. This is a fun story. The detection element is a bit labored, but turns out to largely be misdirection. It surprised me, although perhaps my attention wasn't 100% since I thought I knew what was coming. I'd read this one again.

"The Diamond Lizard," George R Sims: Slight, and a bit confusing, but with period sparkle.

"The Stir Outside the Cafe Royale," Clarence Rook: A rather simple scenario and a quick payoff. Again, there's period charm, and the simplicity works in contrast to the more laboured early stories.

"The Mandarin," Fergus Hume: Again, ugly stereotypes and a roundabout style make this a drag. The detective has panache but she's seriously sidelined.

"The Outside Ledge: A Cablegram Mystery," LT Meade and Robert Eustace: So much exposition that it's barely even a story at all.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an impressive collection, largely for the number of stories taken directly from magazines that were never before collected in book form. For scholars (or fans) of early detective fiction, this is an especially good read, particularly the two pre-WWI sections (one British, on American) and the "Bad Girls" one. The pulp chapter felt like a stretch in a lot of the stories as far as "female detective" went, and the modern era section was fairly useless if you read (and remember) the Sisters in Crime anthologies, since many of the selections were reprinted from all five of them.

Personally I was thrilled to discover that L.T. Meade wrote detective fiction (and created the first female villains of the genre) because I only knew her from her girls' books (early YA/middle grade novels). I do think it a little bit of a shame that Maud of An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good wasn't included with the bad girls, but the focus was strictly American and British stories; even Canada and Australia were left out. I suppose Penzler had to draw the line somewhere.

[Robyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as the previous Big Books. | Not all of the women in these stories are the detectives. Some are clueless and being saved by men, some are barely part of their own story, some are the murderers. The entirety of an Agatha Christie book is included--not one of her short stories but an entire novel that is a collection of connected short stories. Some of the included stories are terrible, to the level that Penzler specifically explains what a bad writer the author was when introducing the story. Obviously there are some good ones, too, though mostly the stories I've read before. I did find one author that's new to me in these pages. But in previous Big Books I've found several authors to follow up on, and I've generally finished the Big Books in a couple days, not a year like this one. It felt like scraping the bottom of the barrel.

[Jessi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow. This is a LOT of female detective stories all in one place. Divided mainly by date published, this book includes not only selected short stories but brief biographies of the authors as well. Not all of the authors are women but all of the main characters are. I say main characters advisedly because the last section is labeled "Bad Girls" (which, "girls", really? You couldn't call it Femme Fatales? or Wicked Women?) and includes characters who may not exactly be on the side of angels.
I rarely wish books were shorter but this would have been better served to be in a few volumes. It got long slogging through the stories. And it would have been more interesting with slightly longer biographies. Or biographies of the characters. These were all too brief.

[Janet Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic Anthology of Female Sleuths
Well, he has done it again! This collection is a must for any mystery aficionado. There are 74 stories in this collection. They range from British Victorians and Edwardians, to pre WWI American, The Pulp Era, The Golden Age, Mid-Century, The Modern Era and just plain Bad Girls. While I have not yet read all of these stories, many I just re-read as they are favorites of mine, too. Each story is introduced with a nice bit on the history and significance of the piece. If I had gotten this book in physical form, it would be a permanent fixture on my nightstand. What a great book to add to any collection! This would make a wonderful gift for a mystery-loving mother on her special day! I received the ARC of this book for free and this is my honest review.

[BookBec · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative and entertaining trip through the development of the female detective in stories. I appreciated the chronological sequencing and the brief intros that helped frame the context of each author and character. Even the stories that I disliked had something to add to my understanding of the genre's progression.

However, the final "Bad Girls" section felt unnecessary. We were pitched back in time after the rest of the book's tidy timeline. The stories weren't about female detectives and weren't stunning enough to justify their inclusion. And the ending piece by Joyce Carol Oates was the totally wrong thing for me as a conclusion. Good thing there were plenty of other stories here to remember fondly, instead of the bad taste from that last one.

[Christopher Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

As one would expect from such a large collection, the tales in this varied from the excellent to the only fair. There are some real gems in here, and authors that I want to look into more deeply, and some I don't care if I ever read again.

If anything, the bios before each author's work (there are no repeats) were more useful than the stories themselves, introducing me to dozens of authors I'd never heard of from the past, mostly pulp era authors mostly forgotten by the public.

Interestingly, I found the more modern era of stories to be generally the weakest of the lot, with a few exceptions. There are 74 stories in this book, and you'll find something you'll like no matter what sort of tales you enjoy.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains 74 short stories featuring women detectives. It covers 150 years of writings by some famous and some-not-so famous authors. If you’re a mystery reader, you’ll recognize many if not all the modern authors. What is particularly fascinating is reading the stories from the early days to present day to see how the idea of the woman detective has evolved over the years. You also get to read how the writing evolved over that same period. At 1136 pages, it is not a book you can or should read in one setting. It deserves to be savored, one story at a time.

[Harron68 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over 1000 double column pages, so reading the entire book would be a challenge. I completed the "modern era" section of 200 plus pages, and that's enough to be considered a book in itself. EXCELLENT! The plots, the varied detectives, authors both male and female created some of the finest short mysteries I've read in a long time.
The rest of the book covers earlier times, and the few stories I read did show their age. I will delve into the maelstrom of misbehavior "BAD GIRLS" next. Four stars is generous considering I read only 20% of the entire volume, but what a twenty percent!

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing collection of stories in this book! I did not read all of them but of the ones I read I really enjoyed them alot!! I really liked that each story had a short bio of the author. I was amazed at how many of the authors of the 74 stories I had never even heard of and it was a huge number. I am amazed because I worked in a public library for 34 years!! My Mother would be scandalized because she was a huge fan of Mysteries while I tend more towards thrillers and sci fi. Kudos to Otto for putting together such a fascinating collection of stories!!!!

[Linden · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fascinating history of the development of stories featuring female detectives, going back to the Victorian period, and continuing through the 20th century and beyond. There are both familiar authors like Mary Roberts Rinehart and Agatha Christie, and lesser known ones. The introductory material on the authors is well researched and helps place each author in his/her historical context.