5 Female Detectives Who Redefined the Mystery Genre
Ruth-Ann Baker, the citizen detective at the heart of Leave the Girls Behind, gave up on her dream of becoming a professional criminal profiler to work at a neighborhood bar on the Upper West Side. Owen, Ruthie’s pop-culture loving boss, doesn’t know much (at all!) about her past, but he’s always been intrigued by her abandoned career path, which is why he likes to call her Nancy Drew, along with a host of other fictional, female crime fighters.
Coming up with Owen’s references was one of the most fun parts of writing Leave the Girls Behind, especially as it gave me a chance to honor a few of the ground-breaking detectives who inspired me as a child.
Some might be better known than others, but all of Owen’s detectives – amateur or otherwise – showed me that it wasn’t just male gumshoes in trench coats who risked their safety, and sometimes their sanity, to solve the case. It might be a school girl, or a little old lady. It might be opposites who find themselves as partners, or a woman inventing a partner to front her detective agency – she could be anyone, as long as she was clever, courageous, and resilient.
Here are five of those fabulous, ground-and-rule-breaking women on Owen’s (and my) list:
Laura Holt
Try this for a deep, dark secret … this opening line from the credits of Remington Steele might be considered my origin story as a crime writer. The detective procedural, which ran on prime-time TV from 1982 to 1987, was my very first foray into the world of crime fiction. That Laura, played by Stephanie Zimbalist, was the real detective, while her partner Remington (a pre-Bond Pierce Brosnan), was the chaotic con man she only pretended was the boss, only made me love the show more. As a kid, I used to wear Laura’s iconic hats, and walk around with a notebook and pencil, looking for crimes to solve. I wanted to be her when I grew up. And I also adored the unapologetic blending of genres – each week, Remington Steele mixed comedy, romance, and suspense, all with a healthy dose of girl power, something I try to represent in my own work where I can.
Cagney & Lacey
This television show was another 1980s procedural that ostensibly aimed to replicate the popular buddy movies of the time – but with women in the lead. The Emmy-award winning series, which ran for six years, grew out of a made-for-television movie, and (eventually) settled on Sharon Gless as Christine Cagney, and Tyne Daly as Mary Beth Lacey, as the titular stars. Gless and Daly played police detectives who stuck together as they battled not only criminals, but the traditional male dominance of their profession. The show was a firm fan favorite, if not always beloved by television executives (they kept trying to cancel it), but for little me, unaware of the behind the scenes struggles to keep it on the air, Cagney & Lacey represented what I was already beginning to suspect: women belonged at the table. And it was even better when they took their seats together.
Miss Marple
Owen might not know exactly who Miss Marple is, but even he understands that she’s a legend when it comes to the world of fictional amateur detectives. Some facts Ruthie could have told him: Miss Marple was the creation of crime queen, Agatha Christie, and she appeared in 12 full-length novels, along with many short stories, during the golden age of crime fiction. An elderly woman who lived in an English village, Marple was an unlikely detective due to both her age and gender, and she delightfully used this to her advantage; her observations and understanding of small-town life helped her find clues and solve crimes that confounded the male professionals around her. She defied expectations in the very best way, and since her creation nearly 100 years ago, she’s been immortalized in books, movies, and TV shows. Miss Jane Marple continues to be a woman for the ages.
Nancy Drew
When Owen affectionally calls Ruthie by the nickname Nancy, he is paying homage to one of the most beloved teenage girls in fiction. Nancy Drew was introduced to the world in 1930, through a series of mystery novels written under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene, and she soon became a literary phenomenon. Like Miss Marple, Nancy was a character who upended expectations, only this time with youth as her super power. She’s now been represented in almost every form of media, including a recent TV series that ran on the CW network for four seasons. Each iteration of Nancy offers something different, but what stays the same is her status as one of the most influential amateur detectives ever created. Not bad for a teenage girl!
Ruth-Ann Baker very much follows in these character’s footsteps, and whether she succeeds or fails in her quest, she’s right there in the arena thanks to them.
Discover the Book
Embarking on a global investigation, Ruth becomes close to three very different women–one of whom might just hold the key to what happened to the missing girl. And her childhood friend, all those years ago.
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Jacqueline Bublitz is a writer, feminist, and arachnophobe who lives between Melbourne, Australia, and her hometown on the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island. She is the author of Before You Knew My Name and Leave the Girls Behind. Find out more at JacquelineBublitz.com.