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Fictional Female PI's Time Chart
My Definition of a Female PI, Private Investigator, Private Eye, Private Detective, Private Enquiry Agent:
A woman who investigates crimes, apparent crimes, mysterious circumstances/events on at least a semi-regular basis while seeking compensation for her efforts but does not currently work for a government agency, body, group or organization. In short, not a policewoman nor an amateur sleuth but a woman who tries to earn a living by investigating crimes outside of government employment.
I will try to classify the women detectives into various literary categories that I think best captures the writing style/sub-genre into which the author fits. Some of the terms I'll use are: Casebook, Victorian Sensation, Dime Novel, Shilling Shocker/Penny Dreadful, Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Scientific/Medical, GAD, Thriller/Rogue/Espionage, Supernatural, Pulp, Pulp-Influenced, Psychological Suspense, HIBK, Paperback Original, 1970's Feminist-Influenced, Comic, Cozy.
TIME CHART
Year Character Author
1864 Mrs G(ladden?) Andrew W Forrester Jr., psd of James Redding Ware (1832-1909)
1864 Mrs. Paschel W(illiam) Stephens Hayward (1838-1870)
Location: London
Lone/Agent/Owner: Quasi private/quasi police
Name of agency: ?
Type: softboiled Literary Classification: Casebook
Comments: Mrs. Gladden was former police constable. Appeared in The Female Detective. Had a woman assistant.
Mrs. Paschel was a widow, boss was Colonel Warner, was well educated and had some experience as an actress. Appeared in The Experiences of a Lady Detective according to K. G. Klein.
1882 Denver Doll Edwin L(ytton) Wheeler (1854?-1885)
Location: American West
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of agency: ?
Type: Medium Boiled Literary Classification: Dime Novel
Comments: Sort of a Dime Novel combo of Annie Oakley & Dale Evans. Appeared in 4 stories in Beadle's Half-Dime Library in 1882-83. Known as "The Detective Queen". Author also created "Deadwood Dick" character.
1882 Clarice Dyke Harry Rockwood (aka Ernest Avon Young, Donald J McKenzie) 1832-1873)
Location: Boston
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: ?
Type: Softboiled Literary Classification: Dime Novel
Comments: Works for/with husband, Donald Dyke. Victor Berch has informed me that Clarice's first appearance was actually 12/31/1882 in a story titled "A Wife's Strategy and Her Search for Donald Dyke".
1884 Madeline Payne Lawrence L Lynch (psd of Emma Murdock Van Deventer) (1853-1914)
Location: NYC & environs
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone
Name of Agency: NA
Type: Softboiled Literary Classification: Victorian Sensation
Comments: Appeared in Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter (1884) and Moina, or Against the Mighty, A Detective Story (1891) according to Colleen Barnett in Mystery Women. Madeline is a young woman of about 17 or so in her first case. Her deceased father was Lionel Payne, a celebrated detective nicknamed "The Expert" for his ability to unravel complicated mysteries and solve difficult cases. Madeline is forced to go undercover as a detective (using disguises, of course) to unravel the schemes of no less than three fortune-hunters. She pieces together the mysterious events that tied several disparate people together and winds up freeing a falsely imprisoned man, brings justice to the three fortune-hunters, saves a young woman from a rogue, saves a middle-aged woman from the same rogue and reclaims her inheritance from her greedy and cruel stepfather. Madeline is, naturally, exhausted by these efforts so at the end of her first book she travels to Europe for rest and a change of scene. Madeline and some of the other characters from her first book return in a sequel seven years later in her second recorded case. I have only managed to read an excerpt of Moina, or Against the Mighty but it seems to be more of the same type of Victorian melodrama (secret marriages, bigamy, false imprisonment, stolen inheritances) as the first book with the addition of international intrigue and secret societies. It would seem that Van Deventer was the first American woman author who wrote about a female professional detective character.
1886 Kate Edwards (Goelet?) Harlan P Halsey (aka "Old Sleuth", Tony Pastor, Judson R Taylor)
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of agency: ?
Type: Mediumboiled Literary Classification: Dime Novel
Comments: "Lady Kate, the Dashing Female Detective" seems to be a Dime-Novel version of Honey West who, unlike Honey, manages to keep her clothes on. Kate is 23 years old.
1888 Miriam Lea Leonard Merrick aka Leonard Miller (1864-1939)
Location: London (also Europe & South Africa)
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: Alfred Bazalgette of High Holborn
Type: Softboiled Literary Classification: Victorian Sensation?
Comments: Miriam's only appearance is in Mr. Bazalgette's Agent (1888). According to "Andre's" Kindle review on 10/02/13 of The British Library's new edition (and some other sources) Miriam is a 28 year old former stage actress and governess who has fallen on hard times (like Loveday Brooke, see below) through misfortune. Miriam is well educated and can speak French, German and Italian which gets her hired by Mr. Bazalgette's detective agency to track down an embezzler. Her assistant is Emma Dunstan, who poses as Miriam's maid during their travels in pursuit of the absconder. The book is written in diary form and seems to have a "...light-hearted sense of adventure" according to "Andre". Apparently Miriam poses as a writer to provide a cover for her detecting. "Andre" also notes that Miriam is "...dogged, resourceful and sharp-witted". The British Library edition claims that this book is the first British novel to feature a female detective, the notion being that the books about Mrs. Gladding and Mrs. Paschel were collections of stories, not true novels. This sounds like a fun read and I am trying to locate a copy.
I have acquired a copy of Mr. Bazalgette's Agent and found it an entertaining read. Mike Ashley's introduction to the 2013? British Library Crime Classics edition is informative, though I have some qualms with some of what he writes. One point is that Mr. Bazalgette's Agent is not really a novel. I estimate the word count at about 31,000 so I consider it a novella. Ashley suggests that Merrick's reason for belittling his first major published work (and attempting to buy up and destroy any copies he could lay his hands on) was because he realized several of the plotpoints were very similar to the American DIme Novel "Lady Kate, the Dashing Female Detective (see above) published two years earlier. I propose another theory: Merrick, who was nicknamed "the novelist's novelist" by some of his contemporary author acquaintences, was embarrassed by how he ended the story. The first 2/3's is a charming, light-hearted diary-like description of a woman detective chasing an embezzler across Europe and Africa. Wry humor, subtle satire and wonderful phrasings (along with somewhat reasonable detective work) dominate the first sections of the book. In fact, it seemed like Merrick may have been the inspiration for Mary Roberts Rinehart's lovely little collection of stories titled Bab: A Sub-Deb written just prior to WWI. In the final 1/3 of the book Merrick turns the story into a typical Victorian Sensation melodrama undermining all the clever and witty work he did in the first sections of the book. Taken as a whole, this is an enjoyable book well worth seeking out by those interested in the early development of the fictional female detective and anyone desiring a breezy read by a stylish author. One example of the clever stylings of Merrick occurs early in the book when Miriam describes her fall from higher levels of society . . ."I was a governess until people discovered I had been an actress, and I was an actress till they discovered I could not act". Evidently Miriam was orphaned while she was attending an expensive boarding school (maybe in Belgium?) and was allowed to finish her education due to the school's charity but she was penniless upon graduation. In that regard Miriam reminded me of the Cordelia Gray detective character written by P. D. James (see below) some 85 years later.
1889 Hilda Serene Albert W. Aiken (1846-1894)
Location:
Lone/Agent/Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type: probably softboiled Literary Classification: Dime Novel
Comments: 25 year old detective appeared in "The Actress Detective: Or, The Invisible Hand: The Romance of an Implacable Mission".
1891 Maggie Everett Harlan P Halsey? (aka "Old Sleuth", Tony Pastor, Judson R Taylor)
Location: ?
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of agency: Badger & Co
Type: ? Literary Classification: Dime Novel
Comments: ?
1892 Laura Keen C. Little
Location: American West?
Lone/Agent/ Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: Dime Novel
Comments: Appeared in Laura Keen, the Queen of Detectives per Michele B Slung in Crime on Her Mind (1975).
Appears to be a Dime-novel type heroine maybe similar to Denver Doll? (see above). Note: Laura Keene, born Mary Frances Moss( 1826-1873) was a British stage actress who found success in the US as an actress, theater manager and producer. She was a witness to Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theater in 1865. I wonder if C. Little took the name of his detective character from this real life actress?
1892 Dorcas Dene (nee Lester) George R(obert) Sims (1847-1922)
Location: England
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent/Owner
Name of Agency: ?
Type: softboiled Literary Classification: Victorian Sensation & Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
Comments: Appeared in Dorcas Dene, Detective; Her Adventures. Her dramatist friend, Mr Saxon, acts as her Watson per CJ Rzepka. Retired actress begins working for her neighbor's detective agency before eventually taking it over. Dorcas has to earn living to support her family because artist husband, Paul Dene, has become blind. Household also consists of Dorcas's mother (Mrs Lester) and a bulldog named Toddlekins. Storytelling style and plotlines are similar to the Loveday Brooke stories by C L Pirkis (see below). Stories often involve secret marriages, mistaken identity, lunatic asylums and stolen inheritances. Men behaving badly are ubiquitious.
1894 Loveday Brooke Catherine Louisa Pirkis, nee Lyne (1839-1910)
Location: London
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: Lynch Court Detective Agency?
Type: Softboiled Literary Classification: Casebook/Victorian Sensation/Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
Comments: Upper class woman falls on hard times, works as a PI to earn a living. Boss is Ebenezer Dyer.
Storytelling style and plotlines are similar to the Dorcas Dene stories by George R Sims (see above). Main
difference between Loveday and Dorcas is that at the end of a case Dorcas returns to a loving household
while Loveday seems to have no friends or relatives she can turn to for solice or company. Stories are solid mysteries with genuine detection.
1894 Coralie Urquhart M(ary) E(lizaeth) Braddon (aka Mrs John Maxwell) (1835-1915)
Location: England
Lone/Agent/Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type: mediumboiled Literary Classification: Victorian Sensation
Comments: Appeared in Thou Art the Man. Author had written Lady Audley's Secret in 1862. Coralie is not a detective. She happens to piece together the movements and motives of one of her relatives to partially solve a pair of murders in this sordid melodrama.
1894 "The Squirrel"? Charleton Savage (aka Carlton Strange)
Location: ?
Lone/Agent/Owner: ?
Name of Agency: ?
Type: Softboiled? Literary Classification: Shilling Shocker/Penny Dreadful
Comments: Appeared in The Beech Court Mystery. She is the daughter of a poacher?
1894 Annie Cory &/or Dora Bell/Dora White Mrs George Corbett (aka Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett) (1846-1930)
Location: ?
Lone/Agent/Owner: ?
Name of Agency: ?
Type: ? Literary Classification: ?
Comments: Appeared in When the Sea Gives Up Its Dead. Author also wrote a book of ss titled Adventures of a Lady Detective in 1890 but scant info exists. Is Annie Cory the "Lady Detective"? Or is it Bell White (who works for/with Robert "Bob" White) from Secrets of a Private Inquiry Office? (1890, one of the 15 stories in this book features a woman detective, Dora White, who is a neice of Bob White one of the co-owners of the Bell & White Agency, Dora works undercover). Annie detects alongside her father per Michele B. Slung's reading of Victorian Detective Fiction (1966). Mrs. Corbett was involved in the Women's Rights and Women's Suffrage movements. She wrote at least 12 novels and numerous short stories (most of which appeared never to have been collected in book form) between 1881 and 1922. Below I've compiled a list of works from Wikipedia and other Internet sources with some comments:
The Missing Note (1881) novel-possibly Detective
Cassandra (1884) novel-?
Pharisees Unveiled: The Adventures of an Amateur Detective (1889) novel-Detective/SiFi
New Amazonia: A Foretaste of the Future (1889) novel-Feminist Utopia/Distopia
Behind the Veil or Adventures of a Lady Detective (1890) short stories, poss magazine pub only-Detective
Secrets of a Private Enquiry Office (1891) short stories, poss magazine pub only-Detective
A Young Stowaway (1893) novel-YA Adventure
Mrs. Grundy’s Victims (1893)-?
When the Sea Gives Up Its Dead (1894) novel-Detective
Deb O’Mally’s (1895) novel-?
Little Miss Robinson Crusoe (1898) novel-YA Adventure
The Marriage Market (1903) novel-?
The Adventures of Princess Daintipet (1905) novel-?
An Unwilling Husband (1922) novel-?
1895 Rose Cortenay Spicer Milton Danvers (aka J Edmond Long)
Location: England
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: ?
Type: ? Literary Classification: ?
Comments: Appears in The Fatal Finger Mark, Rose Cortenay's First Case (1895) as an agent of the agency
owned by Robert Spicer as per CJ Rzepka. May have appeared in six other novels in the 1890's. Possibly appeared in The Grantham Mystery (1893?) although the date may be wrong. The Doctor's Crime, The Detectives Honeymoon, A Desperate Dilemma, Mysterious Disappearance of a Bride, The Lone Cross Manor Mystery, The Squire's Fatal Will.
1895 Mignon Lawrence Albert W. Aiken (1846-1894)
Location: NYC & New Mexico
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: Joe Phenix's Agency
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: Dime Novel
Comments: Former NYC policewoman detects out West under the guise of being a barber. Partner/boss is Joe Phenix whose real name is Gilbert Barlee. Appeared in "The Female-Barber Detective: Or, Joe Phenix in Silver City" and possibly "The Actress Detective" which I have not yet read. In "The Female-Barber Detective" Mignon is apparently sent West by her boss, Joe Phenix, to track down a fugitive wanted for crimes in NYC. She is quite "mannish", even sporting a thick mustache which needs to be constantly kept in check by a straight razor. Her cover while detecting in New Mexico is to pretend to be a barber. She also disguises herself as a Mexican cowboy when the bad guys get too suspicious of her. She's a quick thinker and can handle herself in a fight. Her putative boss, Joe Phenix, is never actually mentioned in this slow-moving story but one supposes that the Dime-Novel readers of the time knew Mignon worked for Joe.
1895 Caroline "Cad" Metti Harlan P. Halsey (1839?-1898)
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: ?
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: Dime Novel
Comments: Appeared in "Cad Metti: The Female Detective Strategist: Or, Dudie Dunne, Again in the Field" and possibly two other stories, one of which was Oscar the Detective or Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective). Oscar Woodford "Dudie" Dunne is Cad's boss/partner. Cad is a beautiful Italian-American dark-haired young woman who can sing, dance, fence, wrestle and shoot with great expertise. She, like her boss, is a master of disguise (what top-notch detective of that era wasn't) and can tail/follow anyone, anytime without being noticed. She also enjoys a good fight and doesn't shy away from administering a severe beating (with her trusty small billy club) to any criminal who deserves it. Cad earns her moniker of "Detective Strategist" mainly by doing the thinking for her boss/partner, Dudie Dunne, on those occasions when Dudie falls prey to a pretty woman of questionable character. The Dudie Dunne character almost shouts out for a deeper analysis than I am qualified to offer. Although he is slight of build, he is quite athletic, adept at disguises and expert at tailing suspects. Both Dudie (the nickname refers to his penchant for dressing like a dude) and Cad often assume the guise of the opposite sex, even when the plot doesn't really call for such actions. Cad and Dudie sometimes even disguise themselves as each other, but, as mentioned above, this cross-dressing doesn't serve to further the plot in any appreciable way. "Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist...,etc." is a Dime-novel, pot-boiler describing the detectives efforts to capture a gang of master criminals who are about to unleash a world-wide counterfeiting scheme. These so-called mastermind criminals were able to somehow organize a sophisticated international plot of great complexity, yet, due mainly to their own stupidity, become easy prey to a couple of NYC detectives who seem to like to cross-dress as much as they like to fight crime. Other than some interesting descriptions of the Sheepshead Bay--Coney Island sections of Brooklyn, this is a poorly written adventure story with little true detection on display.
1898 Lois Cayley Grant Allen (1848-1899)
Location: England, Europe, Asia
Lone/Agent/Owner: ?
Name of Agency: ?
Type: Soft? Literary Classification: Thriller/Rogue/Espionage
Comments: Really more Adventuress than Detective as indicated by title of book she appears in, Miss Cayley's Adventures. She is 21, dark complexion, eyes & hair.
1899 Florence Cusak L T Meade & R Eustace aka Eustace Robert Barton (1854-1943)
Location: England? aka Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith (1844-1914)
Lone/Agent/Owner: ?
Name of Agency: ?
Type: Soft? Literary Classification: Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
Comments: Dark blue eyes & raven hair. Appears in 4 stories in Harmsworth Magazine. Narrator/friend is
Dr Lonsdale. The story I read tries to mimic a Sherlock Holmes-type adventure.
1899 Mrs Mollie Delamere Beatrice Maude Emelia Eastwick Heron-Maxwell , nee Eastwick (1859-1927)
Location: London
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency:
Type:? Softboiled Literary Classification: Victorian Sensation
Comments: A young widow who is a part time journalist and an appraiser/agent for a pearl merchant. Apparently Mollie foils crimes while working for the pearl merchant? per Michele B Slung in Crime on Her Mind (1975). Appeared in The Adventures of a Lady Pearl-Broker. After reading these episodic adventures I must say that Mollie is not a professional detective. She is a plucky, fairly intelligent woman who is put on salary and commission by a successful pearl merchant, Mr. Leighton, to act as an agent selling and delivering pearls to the merchants customers. These are really adventure stories in which Mollie does a bit of detecting in order to safeguard the pearls placed in her possession but she usually depends more on luck than skill in thwarting thieves and villains. Mollie's pearl-brokering career and her widowhood both come to an end in the final paragraph of the last story as she marries a wealthy Australian connoisseur of fine objects. The nine chapters/episodes I read were mildly entertaining but somewhat silly.
1900 Dora Myrl Beck M(atthias) McDonnell Bodkin
Location: London?
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone
Name of Agency:
Type: Soft Literary Classification: Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
Comments: Dora Myrl, the Lady Detective and The Capture of Paul Beck and perhaps in some of her son's (Paul Jr.) adventures. Dora is a Cambridge graduate, worked as a telegraphg girl, telephone operator (similar to Molly Morganthau, see below), companion and journalist. She is 25, athletic and slim of build in her first book.
1900 Hilda Wade Grant Allen
Location: ?
Lone/Agent/Owner: ?
Name of Agency: ?
Type: ? Literary Classification: Scientific/Medical?
Comments: Apparently was a nurse who happens to solve mysteries so probably not eligible for this list.
Perhaps Mary Roberts Rinehart read these stories and named her nurse detective, Hilda Adams, after
Grant Allen's protaganist? Hilda Adams (Miss Pinkerton) is not eligible for this list because she is an
undercover police detective (and a nurse), not a PI. Note on the finances of Rinehart's Hilda Adams: Since she usually was paid both by the police and the families into whose home her boss secretly plants her when working on a case (and when in-between cases she could always find nurse-related employment) she must have made a nice living throughout her long career.
1903 Bella Thorn Tom Gallon (1866?-1914)
Location: London?
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: Secretarial Supply Syndicate, Ltd.
Type: Soft? Literary Classification: Thriller/Rogue/Espionage
Comments: Appeared in The Girl Behind the Keys. Probably more an amateur sleuth/typist than a PI per my reading of Michele B Slung's comments in Crime on Her Mind (1975). A new edition of this book was published in 2005 by Broadview Press a Canadian independent academic publisher. I have only managed to read excerpts of the introduction by Arlene Young and portions of a few of the eight stories in this volume. Apparently Bella Thorn, described as a "small-statured 21 year-old" London based trained typist, answers a help wanted ad just as she is about to run out of money (similar to Miriam Lea see above 1888 entry). She soon discovers that her new boss, Neal Larrurd, is a con man and the Secretarial Supply Syndicate is a criminal enterprise. Bella uses her wits to foil the nefarious plans of her boss while still maintaining her job and lucrative salary. The stories seem to be quite charming reminding me of the Mollie Delamere (see above 1899 entry) and the previously mentioned Miriam Lea stories. Gallon, a prolific British author and playwright, wrote well over 40 novels and perhaps 9 plays between 1897 and 1914. Words like rogue, folly, and ghost appear in some of his titles so I have no idea how to classify Gallon as an author. Apparently a member of Gallon's family donated money to create a literary prize named for him which is still awarded today. IMDB claims that the critics of his era considered Gallon a second-rate Charles Dickens. Several of Gallon's works were made into films in the teens and twenties. The stories in this book are somewhat comparable to the Romney Pringle stories co-written by Dr. Thorndyke creator R. Austin Freeman published around the same time (1902). I wonder if Gallon was influenced by reading the roguish Pringle stories and the result were the stories found in The Girl Behind the Keys.
1904 Mademoiselle Lucie Harlan P. Halsey
Location:
Lone/Agent/Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type: ? Literary Classification: Dime Novel
Comments: Appeared in "Mademoiselle Lucie, the French Lady Detective". Jerry Mack is her male partner.
1906 Frances Baird R(eginald) W(right) Kauffman
Location: Philadelphia & NYC?
Lone/Agent /Owner: Agent then owner/lone?
Name of Agency: Watkins Private Detective Agency
Type: softboiled Literary Classification: Thriller/Rogue/Espionage
Comments: Appeared in Miss Frances Baird, Detective: A Passage from her Memoirs (1906) & My Heart and Stephanie (1910). Associates were Ambrose Kemp in the first book & Sam Burton in the second. "Of historical interest only" according to Colleen Barnett in Mystery Women. Frances narrates her first book, Sam Burton narrates her second. Kathleen G. Klein considers the second book more a spy/romance than a detective story.
1909 Alice Montgomery Francis W Doughty
Location: ?
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: Old & Young King Brady
Type: ? Literary Classification: ?
Comments: ?
1910 Joan Mar Marie Connor Leighton (1865?-1941?)
Location: ?
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone
Name of Agency: ?
Type: Softboiled Literary Classification: Victorian Sensation
Comments: Appeared in Joan Mar, Detective
1911 Ida Lee Marie Conner Leighton (1865?-1941?)
Location: England?
Lone/Agent/Owner:
Name of Agency: ?
Type: ? Literary Classification: Victorian Sensation
Comments: Appeared in The Bride of Dutton Market.
1912 Judith Lee Richard Marsh, psd of Bernard Heldmann (1857-1915)
Location: ?
Lone/Agent/Agency: Lone?
Name of Agency:
Type: Softboiled Literary Classification: ?
Comments: Appeared in Judith Lee (1912) and The Adventures of Judith Lee (1916), both collections of short stories. Used her lip-reading skills to solve mysteries according to Colleen Barnett in Mystery Women. The Complete Adventures of Judith Lee was published in 2013 by Black Coat Press. Much of the following information I gathered from the introduction by Jean-Daniel Breque: Heldmann/Marsh was a prolific author who tended to write in the mystery/horror/supernatural genres. His most famous book was The Beetle: A Mystery (1897). After publishing various adventure-type stories in the late 1870's and early 1880s he was involved in some type of financial scandal in 1884 and was sent to prison. A year or two after his release he began writing under the name of Richard Marsh in 1888. I was able to read 2 of the 22 Judith Lee stories and found them charming, interesting and well written. I hope to obtain a copy of the Complete Adventures and read all the stories so I can determine if Judith , at least occasionally, accepted a fee for her detective services or if she was just a busybody who "read" peoples private conversations and intruded herself into dangerous situations. I came across a Judith Lee pastiche (or fan fiction) written in 2015 on a site called suffrajitsu.com in which Judith has travelled to New York City to give a speech about teaching the deaf. While there she gets involved with the murder (or suicide) of a strange doctor who practiced an odd form of psychiatry on Riverside Drive in upper Manhattan. The story implies that Judith became involved in the suffragette movement back home in England and used her jiujitsu skills to protect leaders like Emmeline Pankhurst during public appearances and demonstrations. I don't quite know what to make of this story but those interested can click here to read it. Also, the story states that Judith's father was Chinese and her mother was English, I will have to read more of the real Judith Lee stories to verify this.
1914 Mercedes Quero G. E. (Gladys Edson) Locke (1887-????)
Location: London?
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone
Name of Agency: ?
Type: softboiled Literary Classification: Victorian Sensation/Rivals of Sherlock Holmes/GAD (almost)
Comments: Appeared in That Affair at Portstead Manor (1914), The Red Cavalier (1922), The Scarlet Macaw (1923) & The House on the Downs (1925). "The Locke books were lengthy for this period, running 250 to 300 plus pages." according to Colleen Barnett in Mystery Women.
That Affair at Portstead Manor (1914)
This is a longish (80,000 words, 266 pages) Country House murder mystery written by a now mostly forgotten author of once popular mysteries set in England. This is the debut of London based private detective Mercedes Quero the tall, slim, brown haired/eyed 20+ year old detective who is working undercover at the titular manor house posing as companion to Lady Pevensy, one of several manor guests. The story is told from the point of view of Mr. Archibald Clavering, a short, balding, rotund, middle-aged bachelor who is a devotee of Sherlock Holmes and finds himself investigating the theft of a diamond necklace, the shooting of an earl, the theft of valuable government papers and the shooting of a baronet. Clavering eventually joins forces with Quero and they (well, mostly Quero) eventually solve the mysterious events that unfolded at Portstead Manor. Had Locke employed fewer secret passages/panels, tightened the plot, not lost track of characters for chapters at a time, and played more fairly with the reader this might be considered a noble precursor to the typical Golden Age mystery novels that would become popular in the 1920s and 1930s. I found the most interesting aspect of the book not the detections of Mercedes Quero nor the various romances/love triangles of the major characters but the budding romance between the middle-aged, worldly, self-absorbed widowed Lady Pevensy and fussbudget, aesthetic bachelor Mr. Clavering. By story’s end Lady Pevensy is not seeking to replace her dearly departed Eustace with matrimony to Clavering but she just wants him to become a friend with benefits, as we say nowadays. Clavering serves as Quero’s Captain Hastings meaning he is occasionally useful at finding clues if he is given proper direction but often comes to fanciful conclusions as to the meaning of the clues. I wonder if Agatha Christie read this book and used Clavering as model for Hastings when she wrote her Hercule Poirot books starting in 1920.
Locke is hardly mentioned in mystery fiction reference books so I had to look around the web for further info on her. Most of the below comes from the Dorchester Atheneum website which is devoted to the history of Dorchester, Massachusetts: Gladys Edson Locke was born in Dorchester, MA and spent most of her life in that section/suburb of Boston. She was highly educated, graduating from Boston University with a master’s degree in English. She later earned a degree in library science at Simmons College. She tutored Latin, Italian and French in a New Hampshire high school. Her education reminds me of her contemporary mystery author, Jeanette Barbour Perry Lee, who wrote about NY detective Millicent Newberry (see below). “In 1917 she became a cataloger in the main branch of the Boston Public Library . . .where she worked for many decades.” She never married. She was an anglophile and often traveled to England and Scotland where she typically set her mystery novels. In this regard Locke reminded me of John Dickson Carr (1906-1977), master of the locked room mystery. Carr was a better constructor of puzzle plots but each were roughly equals as prose stylists. Locke wrote at least 11 mystery novels between 1914 and 1935, Mercedes Quero appeared in only four as far as I can determine. Quero self-describes herself as born to an upper-class family but fell on hard times and had to resort to detective work in order to support herself, much like Loveday Brooke and Miriam Lea (see above). It seems that Mercedes often works with Inspector Burton who appears in her other books but I fear that the Pevensy/Clavering couple mentioned above do not appear in the other three Quero adventures.
1914 Madelyn Mack Hugh C Weir
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent then Owner then Lone
Name of Agency:
Type: softboiled? Literary Classification: Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
Comments: Started as assistant house detective for the Niegel Dry Goods store then becomes owner of a large agency on Fifth Avenue. Housekeeper was Susan Bolton. Reporter Nora Noraker was her narrator. She went to college and modeled herself on Sherlock Holmes per Colleen Barnett in Mystery Women. Appeared in Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective (1914). Stories are very reminiscent of Doyle's detective stories though not quite as good. Just like Holmes, Madelyn turns to a drug, of sorts, when depressed or bored---Cola berries?? She is so successful in her detecting exploits that at one point she owns an agency employing several "agents" and a secretary/receptionist and a second home---a country house located north of NYC overlooking the Hudson River.
Eventually she becomes wealthy enough to downsize her agency and work part time solving crimes that interest
her. The one story I read was entertaining but unfairly-clued. She is 25 at the start of her adventures.
1915 Violet Strange Anna Katherine Green (Roelphs) (1846-1935)
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency:
Type: softboiled Literary Classification: ?
Comments: Teenage heiress secretly works as PI to raise cash to help estranged (by father) older sister.
Appeared in The Golden Slipper & Other Problems for Violet Strange (1915). Several of the stories feature
puzzling plots with satisfying solutions. These stories are somewhat more easily approached by modern readers compared to the author's Gryce/Butterworth works. Mike Grost maintains that Strange is not a Sensation character and Green is not a Sensation writer. Green's stories are less sordid and better plotted and contain more detection than the typical Victorian Sensation novel but in my opinion she is pretty darn close to being a Sensation author. Maybe I'll call Violet a Rival of Sherlock Holmes?
1916 (1913?) Clare Kendall Arthur B Reeve (1880-1936)
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency:
Type: softboiled? Literary Classification: Rivals of Sherlock Holmes & Scientific/Medical
Comments: Appeared in a Craig Kennedy story "The Ear in the Wall" as the owner of a detective agency
specializing in helping women. Maybe a precursor to Dol Bonner's relationship with Nero Wolfe? Clare is described as a dark-haired, grey-eyed, not-unattractive, intelligent woman who had started out as an operative for one of the large NYC detective agencies and eventually opened her own agency. Like Reeve's main detective, Craig Kennedy, and his other detective/adventuress creation Constance Dunlap (see below), Clare seems to spend much of her time fighting against or dealing with the pervasive corruption created by the Tammany Hall political machine which dominated NYC from roughly 1840 to 1930. Clare apparently also worked closely with the suffragette movement. I recently read some previously unknown to me Clare Kendall short stories serialized in 1913. Generally the stories were not very impressive. The ubiquitous municipal corruption detailed in "The Ear in the Wall" seemed absent in these earlier stories. Also, Clare has a boyfriend (of sorts) in this series, a Dr. William "Billy" Lawson who owns Lawson Laboratories. It comes in handy to have an eager admirer who will act as your assistant and run lab tests any time, day or night.
Here is a list of the 1913 stories:
"A Skirmish With the Occult"
"The Pearl Doctor"
"The House of Cards"
"The Temple of Beauty" (I have not read this one)
The Mystery of the Stolen Da Vinci"
From the 1913 story illustrations, Clare sported quite a collection of hats.
1915 Mary (Molly) McKenna Morganthau Babbitts Geraldine Bonner (1870-1930)
Location: NYC & environs
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: Whitney & Whitney Law Firm
Type: softboiled Literary Classification: HIBK?
Comments: Former department store worker and telephone switchboard operator turned part time sleuth. She is 23 in her first adventure and ages in real time during her series. Molly sometimes worked with reporter/husband "Soapy" Babbitts. Molly often uses her telephone operator skills to eavesdrop on important conversations. Colleen Barnett in Mystery Women believes Molly was the first blue collar worker who became a female detective. Molly collected at least two large rewards in addition to being paid by the Whitney & Whitney law firm for her undercover sleuthing so she surely was a professional investigator. Appeared in The Girl at Central (1915), The Black Eagle Mystery (1916), and Miss Maitland, Private Secretary (1919).
The Girl at Central mostly takes place in a rural New Jersey county roughly halfway between Philadelphia and New York City. Molly has been dispatched there by NYC telephone company headquarters management to help out a shorthanded central switching station office. Small town life and the operations of a telephone central substation are interestingly described. Trains, planes, automobiles and horse-drawn carriages play important parts in the story. Some might think the solution to the crime is a bit of a cheat but I think Bonner fairly-clued the ending. Molly is back home in Manhattan with a newly acquired husband and living in a well appointed apartment thanks to the large reward she collected by solving her first case when she gets involved in The Black Eagle Mystery. The Black Eagle being the name of a Manhattan office building in which mysterious events and crimes occur. Miss Maitland, Private Secretary takes place partly in Manhattan and partly on a Long Island estate. All three stories offer interesting insights into how certain classes of people lived during the World War I era. Bonner's writing style is similar to that of Mary Roberts Rinehart: lively and interesting narration, some HIBK moments, a modern (for the time) wry writing style. Some jarring ethnic and racial slurs creep into the stories which hurt the charm factor of Molly's narration. Bonner plays fair with the reader, to some extent, in that most of the clues are laid out so the solutions could, in theory, be arrived at before the final chapter. The key to solving Bonner's mysteries before Molly does is to identify the hidden or secret relationships between and among the various characters in each mystery story. Molly's charm factor gradually erodes as the series progresses. As Molly attains material things (a husband, more money, a nice apartment) she becomes more dismissive of others who are not so fortunate. She treats her poor housekeeper very rudely at times. Molly's character goes from being quite compassionate in the first book to almost uncaring by the third book. This fact combined with the casual tossing about of ethnic and racial slurs (which, in light of the fact that Molly is half Jewish and half Irish, seems a bit odd) prevents me from recommending these stories to casual mystery readers. Serious students of the history of the American detective/mystery story should read these stories. Interesting side note: Miss Maitland, Private Secretary was made into a motion picture in 1920, a year after the novel was published. It was re-titled "The Girl in the Web", the title referring to the somehat complex plot Bonner had created. Looking over the cast listed on IMBD it seems as though the film version eliminated the roles of Molly herself and the Whitney father and son lawyers who usually play small but key roles in the stories.
I have kept printed copies of Molly's three adventures so if anyone cannot find copies online or in used bookshops, I might be able to provide copies. My email appears at the top of this page.
1916 Constance Dunlap Arthur B Reeve (1880-1936)
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner?
Name of Agency:
Type: mediumboiled? Literary Classification: Thriller/Rogue/Espionage & Scientific/Medical
Comments: Housewife then widow then adventuress then criminal then detective? Appeared in Constance Dunlap, Woman Detective (1913?). Stories are written in the same overwrought melodramatic style as Reeve's
Craig Kenney stories. New (at the time) inventions, such as fish-eye lenses, are often showcased in the stories.
Municipal corruption seems endemic.
1917 Millicent Newberry Jeanette Barbour Perry Lee (1860 or 1861-1951)
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent then Owner
Name of Agency: Tom Corbin's Agency, then her own (The Millicent Newberry Agency)
Type: soft Literary Classification: Victorian Sensation & Rivals of Sherlock Holmes?
Comments: Former seamstress, short but somewhat stout with grey hair & eyes. Milly lives with her elderly mother who often needs "looking after". One of Milly's former social cases eventually becomes maid/companion to the mother. Colleen Barnett in Mystery Women says Millicent appeared in 3 books The Green Jacket (1917), The Mysterious Office (1922) & Dead Right (1925) but not in Simeon Tetlow's Shadow (1909) so 1917 would seem to be her proper debut date. Millie is as much a social worker as a PI. K. G. Klein points out that, when possible, Millicent would prefer to reform rather than punish wrongdoers.
The Green Jacket is a longish (60,000? words) novel that would have been better served as a 30,000 word novella. The plot revolves around the disappearance of a valuable emerald necklace from the house of an affluent family outside of NYC. Two years after the apparent theft, Milly is hired by the owner of the necklace to finally discover what really happened to the jewels. Milly ensconces herself in the house ostensibly as a seamstress and listens, questions, observes and searches until she eventually solves the case. The solution is a bit of a letdown but makes sense after all the secrets and misunderstandings occurring between the family members. Although Milly is never described as a beautiful woman, she does receive two marriage proposals during the story, one from a man older than herself and one from a younger man. Milly's agency is successful enough to have two offices. A busy downtown office for routine cases and one uptown staffed only by herself for the more subtle cases that call for a social worker rather than a detective. The titular "green jacket" does not describe the emerald necklace but is the wool jacket that Milly knits continuously during the case and finishes once the case is solved.
The Mysterious Office is a shorter novel, about 50,000 words. Milly is hired to discover who stole a $25,000 pile of currency carelessly left unattended for a few minutes on top of a businessman's desk. She is ostensively brought in to the office as some kind of efficiency expert and, after several days, solves the case. As in her first recorded case, various misunderstandings and secret-keeping among the office workers and the businessman's family drive the plot. Also, stock market speculation plays a key role in the story. I hoped to see the author gradually changing her writing style from Victorian Sensation to a Golden Age of Detection style, but it did not happen in this story. I noticed a bit of shift to a Mary Roberts Rinehart/HIBK style but nothing more than that. Maybe in her third recorded case, Millicent will show more of a Golden Age nuance since at least four Agatha Christie books and one Lord Peter Wimsey book, that hopefully Lee read, were published by the time the final Millicent Newberry book, Dead Right was published in 1925. Milly discovers a clever stenographer/typist in the titular office and offers her a job as a detective trainee in her own agency.
Jeanette Lee was an educated woman and worked as an instructor and/or professor of English Literature and related subjects at five different colleges, her last position was at her alma mater, Smith College, before she left the academic world in 1913 to become a full time writer. I count 22 books that she published between 1900 and 1926 but she seems to have published no books after 1926. Less than 15% of her output seems to be in the mystery/detective genre. I find it difficult to categorize the bulk of her published works. She seemed to write about a wide variety of subjects and themes. Lee was married to Gerald Stanley Lee who was a Congregational pastor, author, magazine editor and lecturer. He published 10 books between 1896 and 1922 but none after that date that I can find. Most of his books seem to be about history, religion, inspirational and health related topics. Jeanette Lee dedicated several of her books to her husband. I found it interesting that Lee used the word "wistful' or "wistfully" at least 3 or 4 times in each of her first two Millicent Newberry books. I wonder why Lee only wrote three books about detective Millicent Newberry and no books at all after 1926? She seems to have written many magazine articles and short stories. One would have to go through her papers, which are deposited at Smith College, to discover why she published no books during the last 25 years of her life. It seems that Jeanette Lee was the first American woman author to create a female professional detective who owned her own agency.
1917 Evelyn Temple Ronald Gorell Barnes (aka Lord Gorell) (1884-1963)
Location:
Lone/Agent/ Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type: Soft/ Literary Classification: Medical/Scientific?
Comments: Scientific detective? Michele B Slung labels her as an amateur sleuth so probably ineligible for this list.
Appeared in In the Night (1917) in which Evelyn is in her early 20's and Red Lilac (1935) in which she is her mid-30's per Coleen Barnett in Mystery Women. Gorell was a WWI hero, involved with many charities, a magazine editor, co-president of the Detection Club alongside Agatha in the late 50's and early 60's, perhaps served as a model for Lord Peter Wimsey in the books by Sayers. His 14 books published between 1917 and 1954 were all scrupulously fairly clued but perhaps best described as workmanlike. Evelyn Temple was not his main series character as she appeared in only 2 of his 14 books. Above info was gathered from the GA Detection wiki and Wikipedia.
1918 Solange Fontaine (Mrs) F(ryniwyd Wynifried Margaret) Tennyson Jesse (Harwood)
aka Fryn Jesse aka F. Tennyson Jesse (1888-1958)
Location: France
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone
Name of Agency: na
Type: Softboiled (but does sometimes carry a gun) Literary Classification: GAD & Supernatural & Psych Suspense
Comments: Solange seems to accept payment for her services so I believe she should be on this list. According to Michael Grost there is an uncollected group of short stories from 1918, a second group of stories collected and published in 1929 called The Solange Stories, an uncollected story from 1930. The stories are well written with coherent plots and well developed characters. Mike Grost compares Jess's style to that of Somerset Maugham's. Solange claims to have the ability to sense the presence of evil.
What follows are my thoughts after reading all the Solange stories that were collected and published in 2014:
Solange Fontaine was the daughter of Englishwoman Emily Manningtree-Trent (of a respectable Sussex family) and Dr./Professor Fontaine, a Frenchman who was a police forensic scientist (crime scene blood, dust, hairs, etc. just like R. A. Freeman’s Dr. Thorndyke) employed by the French Surete and sometimes consulted by Scotland Yard. In the early stories it is not clear exactly what type of medical/scientific work Dr. Fontaine does. In the later stories he is more clearly shown as a forensic scientist. Solange works in her father’s lab(s) as his assistant (she is expert in fingerprints, poisons and metric (crime scene?) photography. Solange is also, somehow, qualified to defend clients in French court so she appears to be an “avocet” or roughly the equivalent of an English barrister (also like Dr. Thorndyke). She considers herself a criminal anthropologist, being a follower to a certain degree of Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) the Italian criminologist, some of whose theories, like the “born criminal” distinguishable by various physical traits, were eventually rejected by later science. A more modern description of Solange would be along the lines of a criminal psychologist or a criminal profiler. She claimed to be able to sense or detect “hidden evil” in people and places. The stories demonstrate that this special sense, although it sometimes misleads her, never fails her. She was technically employed by the French police (and like her father often consulted with Scotland Yard) but she did occasional freelance detective work, sometimes for a fee, sometimes gratis. She is about 30 years old in the 1918-19 stories and several years older in the 1929 stories. Solange lived in many places while growing up including England, France and various West Indies (or Caribbean) islands. As an adult she traveled to the US and numerous other foreign countries. The settings for the stories are Paris, Southern France, England and a few Caribbean islands. She is pursued by an American journalist stationed in Europe in most of the 1918-19 stories. She eventually advises the journalist to look elsewhere for love because she felt she would lose her unique “gift” if she married (or lost her virginity, I’m not sure which). By rebuffing her suitor Solange resolves the mystery plot vs. marriage plot dilemma posed by K. G. Klein. Solange doesn't need to worry that one will impinge on the other in the later stories. Solange is fluent in both French and English but seems more at home in France. She is described a pretty (not beautiful) petite woman with blondish or very light brown hair which she always wears in a short cut. She smokes cigarettes and occasionally caries a small pistol when she knows she will be in a perilous situation. She is described as having a slim boyish figure and is athletic since she plays tennis and can scramble up a rope when necessary. Solange, like E. Phillips Oppenheim’s detective the Baroness Clara Linz, is very cosmopolitan. People who are worried about a crime or a potential crime seem to want to confide in her.
Doug Greene’s introduction to the 2014 edition is very informative. I do take issue with his classification of Solange as an “Occult’ or ‘Supernatural” detective similar to William Hope Hodgson’s character Carnacki (The Ghost Finder). Solange does not actively seek out occult or supernatural situations, she is more along the lines of a psychic or clairvoyant detective who comes across evil almost by chance. Jesse’s stories, to me, are more similar to E. C. Bentley’s Philip Trent (note that Solange's mother's maiden name was Trent) stories combined with Agatha Christie’s Harley Quinn stories. Jesse varies the occult/supernatural content greatly from story to story.
Jesse led a surprisingly full life, making contributions to fiction, true crime writing and journalism, despite suffering from morphine addiction (due to the aftermath of a horrible hand injury from an airplane propeller accident), severe migraines and intense mood swings. Her family life was, to say the least, unusual. “Fryn” Jesse was a grandniece of British Poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892).
The stories are listed below as they appear in The Compleat Adventures of Solange Fontaine published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box in 2014 (with magazine publication dates noted). The version of the book I read has one glaring typo...on an inside title page the author's name is misspelled as Jessie instead of Jesse. The stories are best read in the order published in the book rather than the chronological order of first magazine publication dates:
“Emma-Brother and Susie-Brother” (11/1918) set in and around Nice
“The Green Parrakeet” (12/1918) set in and around Nice
“Mademoiselle of the Mantles” (8/1918) Marseilles & Martinique, very racist story
“The Lovers of St. Lys” (2/1919) hills above Nice
“The Mother’s Heart” (3/1919) Paris, Cuba, Martinique, Trinidad & Barbados
“What Happened at Bout-du-Monde” (4/1919) St Martin?
“The Sanatorium” (6/1919) Nice & vicinity
“The Pedlar” (12/1929) London & Sussex?
“The Reprieve” (10/1929) London & Sussex?
“The Canary” (8/1929) London
“Lot’s Wife” (11/1929) Nice, London, Isle of Wright, Paris, Cannes
“The Black Veil” (9/1929) St. Tropez/St. Raphael vicinity & Draguignan
“The Railway Carriage” (11/1931) Sussex?
1918 Barbara "Baddie" Pretlow Arthur Stringer
Location: ?
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: The Locke Agency
Type: medium?
Comments: Appeared in The House of Intrigue. Baddie is a former criminal then a detective then a criminal again. Kathleen G. Klein describes this book as a"non-detective crime and mystery story."
1919? Lucile Dare Marie Connor Leighton (1865-1941)
Location: London?
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone?
Name of Agency:
Type: Soft Literary Classification: Victorian Sensation
Comments: Michele B Slung in Crime on Her Mind (1975) notes that Lucille is a mistress of disguise and has
been involved in many cases, most are unrecorded. Appeared in Lucile Dare, Detective. Maybe she is an ancestor of M. G. Eberhart's writer/detective Susan Dare? The novel seems to be a Victorian Sensation Novel but Leighton wrote it 18 or so years after Victoria's death and 8 years after Edward VII's death. Writing style is very similar to that of M E Braddon and Lawrence L Lynch (see above)----overwrought and melodramatic compared to the styles of F Tennyson Jessie and Geraldine Bonner (see above) and Mary Roberts Rinehart, each of whom were writing in a more modern style.
1914 Miss Balmy Rymal Arthur Stringer
Location: US?
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: Security Alliance
Type: Soft
Comments: Michele B Slung in Crime on Her Mind (1975) suggests that the main client of the agency Balmy
works for is the Jewleler's Protective Union. Winfred (Winkie) Ealand is Balm's love interest and sometimes partner/assistant.
1920 Millie Lynn Rawson Cecil L. Bullivant
Location: ?
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Type: Soft
Comments: Appeared in Millie Lynn, Shop Investigator along with Ken Rawson, whom she will eventually marry.
1923 Sylvia Shale Mrs Sydney Groom
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: Pemberthy's
Type: softboiled?
Comments: 25 year old daughter of a former Scotland Yard detective. Came to New York to make a name for herself. Appeared in Detective Sylvia Shale.
1927 Kitty Climpson Dorothy L Sayers
Location: London
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency:
Type: softboiled Literary Classification: GAD
Comments: Middle-aged spinster appearing in at least two Lord Peter Wimsey stories: Unnatural Death and
Strong Poison. Her full name is Alexandra Katherine Climpson. She's the owner of the secreterial/detective
agency nicknamed "the Cattery" that Lord Peter helped to set up mainly so he could employ her investigative abilities on an "as needed" basis.
1928 Maude Silver Patricial Wentworth
Location: London
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency:
Type: softboiled Literary Classification: GAD?
Comments: Spinster turns to PI work to supplement her retirement income.
1928 Lynn MacDonald Kay Cleaver Strahan (1888-1941)
Location: American West especially Oregon
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone?
Name of Agency:
Type: softboiled? Literary Classification: GAD
Comments: Appeared in seven books between 1928 & 1936, the first and perhaps the best being The Desert Moon Mystery (1928). She was tall with reddish hair and gray eyes. This info taken from The Thrilling Detective site owned by Kevin Burton Smith with much of the info supplied by John Norris.
1931 Yola Yates C(ecil?) B(oyd?) Yorke
Location:
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency:
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: Pulp
Comments: According to Erika Janik in Pistols and Petticoats, Yola owns her own agency in "Hot Numbers" in the May 1931 issue of Gangster Stories, a 3rd tier pulp magazine. I do not know if this was her only appearance in print. i can find almost no information on C. B. Yorke other than this was likely a psd. He or she created a more well known character, Queen Sue, a tough, smart gun moll who sometimes headed her own gang and sometimes worked alone. I count several Queen Sue stories in the "gangster" pulps, mostly in the early 1930s. Yorke also created another character, Velma Dare (maybe a relative of Eberhart's Susan Dare?) who apparently was framed and fell into the gangster life. I have not yet been able to read a copy of "Hot Numbers".
1932? Baroness Clara Linz E(dward) Phillips Oppenheim
Location: London
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of agency: Advice Limited
Type: softboiled Literary Classification: Thriller/Rogue/Espionage & GAD
Comments: She is English by birth, Austrian by marriage, glamorous and cosmopolitan. Seems to be a
widow at the time of the stories. Exotic foreigners are prominent. Sometimes pretends to be the agency's secretary rather than its owner for no apparent reason other than to keep her connection to the agency a secret? Clientel is drawn mostly from the upper classes and nobility. The Baroness is more mature and thoughtful (and a better detective) than Oppenheim's other female PI, Miss Mott, (see below). Here is a listing of her recorded cases:
"Thirty-Nine Wooden Boxes"
"An Olympian Debacle"
"Broken Engagements"
"Too Many Dukes"
"The Ritz Hotel Conference"
"Between the 8th Green and the 9th Tee" aka "The Ranelagh Mystery"
"Help for Mr. Goldman"
"The Lonely Man"
"A Family Understanding"
"The Listening Lady"
"A Gift from the Gods"
Some of these stories were published (possibly with editorial changes) in the American slick magazines Ladies' Home Journal and Women's Home Companion in 1933 & 1934 according to Project Gutenberg Australia. Clara is wooed by a Spanish nobleman through most of the stories and eventually accepts his marriage proposal, after helping to restore his family fortune. Clara smokes cigarettes, rides horses, plays golf and is considered quite beautiful.
1933 Madame Rosika Storey Hulbert Footner (1879-1944)
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency:
Type: softboiled Literary Classification: Pulp? & HIBK?
Comments: Beautiful and aloof. Her secretary/narrator/companion is Bella Brickley (who has curly red hair). Rosika lives near Gramercy Park in NYC and has a pet monkey. She seems to solve cases by use of good guesswork, "practical psychology" and fortuitous prior knowledge of certain facts or people. The stories don't appear to aspire to play fair with the reader. Bella Brickley has to be the most fawning narrator in all of detective fiction. By comparison, she makes Bunny Manders seem almost arrogant toward Raffles. Although the stories are by no means silly, some of Rosika's actions and attitudes seem quite silly to a modern reader, though certainly not to Bella.
1933 Olga Knaresbrook Hazel Campbell
Location: England?
Lone/Agent/Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type:
Comments:
1933 Trixie Meehan T T Flynn
Location: US
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: Blaine Agency
Type: medium boiled Literary Classification: Pulp
Comments: A spunky Lois Lane type; usually paired with fellow agent Mike Harris.
1934 Grace "Redsie" Culver Roswell Brown (aka Jean Francis Webb)
Location: US
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: Noonan Agency
Type: Medium boiled Literary Classification: Pulp
Comments: She is the nominal secretary/assistant to "Big" Tim Noonan. Her sometime sidekick is
Jerry Riker.
1934 Peggy Fairfield E(loise) S Liddon (1897- ?)
Location: US
Lone/Agent/Owner: ?
Name of Agency: ?
Type: Medium boiled Literary Classification; GAD & Scientific/Medical
Comments: Appeared in The Riddle of the Russian Princess (1934) and The Riddle of the Florentine Folio (1935). According to Colleen Barnett in Mystery Women, Peggy was a student of criminology and used scientific methods.
1935 Miss Lucie Mott E Phillips Oppenheim
Location: London
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: Mott's Enquiry Agency
Type: Medium boiled Literary Classification: Thriller/Rogue/Espionage
Comments: Appeared in Ask Miss Mott (1936) based upon a series of magazine stories published in 1935 Most of the stories are of the Romantic/Adventure/Thriller type. Only one or two feature actual detection. Miss Mott writes an advice column for a weekly (or bi-weekly) London women's magazine. She is sort of a combination Ann Landers and Martha Stewart. With the help of her uncle, who is a Scotland Yard detective, she decides to open an investigation agency almost on a whim. Kathleen Gregory Klein describes Miss Mott as "An ineffective detective without any ethical code and a romantic fool with a craving for excitement." Ouch. Although the stories were written in 1935 they almost seem to be taking place in 1895 (minus all the cars and telephones). Miss Mott has to be rescued from criminals by either her uncle or her quasi-criminal boyfriend in many of the stories. Her clientel is drawn mostly from the lower and middle classes. Lucie does sometimes carry a small pistol and she is not afraid of to use it. Here is a listing of the stories (with alternate titles) as described by Project Gutenberg Australia:
"Ask Miss Mott"---magazine & ebook book title
"Burglars Must Dine"---book title, "Dinner Without Masks"---magazine title, "Miss Mott Intervenes"---alt title
"The Magic Popgun"---magazine & book title
"Noah's Ark"---book title, "The House of Dread"---magazine title
"Buttercups and Daisies"---book title, "Behind Barred Doors"---magazine title
"The House by the River"---magazine & book title
"Lost Miss Greene"---no magazine publication, the only "pure" detective story in the series
"Meredith Walks Out"---book title, "Against Orders"---magazine title
"Marconi Saves Miss Mott"---book title, "First Catch the Girl"---magazine title
"The Terrified Wife"---book title, "The Other Letter"---magazine title
"Informers Still Pay"---book title, "Settled Out of Jail"---magazine title
Project Gutenberg Australia has some nice illustrations by Floyd M Davis that appeared in Collier's Magazine.
1935 Violet McDade Cleve F Adams
Location: US
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: McDade & Alverado Detective Agency
Type: hardboiled Literary Classification: Pulp
Comments: Her partner is Nevada Alverado, who apparently is a very attractive woman.
1936 Sarah Watson D B McCandless
Location: Midwest US
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: Watson Detective Agency
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: Pulp
Comments: Hevey-set, middle-aged widow. "Young" Ben Todd is her assistant. Based in a small town. Prototype for Bertha Cool?
1937 Carrie Cashin Theodore Tinsley
Location: US
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: Cash & Carry Detective Agency
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: Pulp
Comments: Beautiful and dangerous. Aleck Burton poses as her boss for "appearances".
1937 Theodolinda "Dol" Bonner Rex Stout
Location: US, NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: Bonner & Raffrey
Type: MediumBoiled Literary Classification: GAD?
Comments: Upper class woman falls on hard times so starts a detective agency to earn a living.
Sally Colt is one of her agents. Appeared in one novel of her own, one Tecumseh Fox novel and
several Nero Wolfe adventures (most notably "Too Many Detectives").
1938 Mary Carner Zelda F Popkin (1898-1983)
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: Blankfort's
Type: Softboiled Literary Classification: GAD
Comments: Department Store Dick. That's how Sharon McCone got her start---guarding dresses.
1938 Carole Trevor Hugh Pentecost (aka Judson P Phillips)
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: Old Towne Detective Agency
Type: medium boiled Literary Classification: Pulp
Comments: She is assisted by her ex-husband, Maxwell Blythe.
1939 Bertha Cool Earle Stanley Gardner
Location: LA
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: B Cool Confidential Investigations
Type: hardboiled Literary Classification: GAD?
Comments: Plus-size widow starts detective agency to earn a living. She is greedy and unethical.
Her junior partner is Donald Lamb who does all the legwork and much of the thinking.
1939 Hilea Bailey Hilea Bailey (psd of Ruth Lenore Marting)
Location: ?
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: ?
Type: Softboiled Literary Classification:
Comments: Appeared in What Night Will Bring (1939), Give Thanks to Death (1940), The Smiling Corpse (1941), Breathe No More, My Lady (1946). Worked for her disabled father and sometimes with boyfriend/newspaperman, Jake Jones. Colleen Barnett in Mystery Women classifies Hilea as more of a narrator/assistant than independent investigator.
1940 Amanda & Lutie Beagle Torrey Chanslor
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owners
Name of Agency:
Type: softboiled Literary Classification: GAD & Comic?
Comments: The Beagle sisters inherit a detective agency from their brother Ezekiel. Their neice,
Mary?Martha?Marthy? Meecham narrates and Jeff Mahoney "does some of the legwork and all of the heavy lifting"
per T & E Schantz. The author was a children's book illustrator.
1941 Jean Abbott Frances Crane
Location: SF
Lone/Agent/Owner: Co-owner?
Name of Agency:
Type: softboiled? Literary Classification: Pulp-Influenced
Comments: Former New Mexico shopkeeper marries a San Francisco based PI (Patrick "Pat" Abbott) and
assists him on some of his cases. According to Victoria Nichols & Susan Thompson in Silk Stalkings (1988)
this series of 26 books leans more to HIBK school than mean streets but Mike Grost considers her better classified as pulp-influenced.
1947 Gale Gallagher Gale Gallagher (aka Will Oursler & Margaret Scott)
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: Acme Investigating Bureau, G. K. Gallagher, principal.
Type: mediumboiled Literary Classification: Pulp & HIBK
Comments: Skip Tracer/PI. Maybe a precursor of Stephanie Plum (minus the smart mouth and kookie family)? Appeared in I Found Him Dead (1947) and Chord in Crimson (1949). Patsy Higgins (a young Brooklyn woman) is her secretary/assistant. Gale learned her investigative skills from her father, a NYC policeman who was killed in the line of duty when Gale was a teenager. Gale's mother had died many years earlier. She is described as having light reddish brown hair and being about thirty or so years old. Gale is very concerned with fashion. She is constantly describing how she dresses and the reasoning behind each choice of outfits. Gale often re-freshens her make-up but she does carry a gun and thinks nothing of scrambling up fire escapes and trespassing to advance her investigations so her adventures were not solely aimed at a female readership. She acquires a handsome boyfriend in her first recorded case and my understanding is that she is still involved with him in her second case. Gale wears a lot of different hats during her investigations, not as part of various disguises but because they go along with all her different fashion outfits. She also smokes cigarettes and drinks hard liquor, in moderation. Oursler and Scott copied the Ellery Queen technique of pretending that the character's name is also the author's name.
1949 Miriam Birdseye Nancy Spain
Location: England?
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone?
Name of Agency:
Type: Literary Classification:
Comments: Appeared in at least two books, Poison for Teacher (1949) and Out, Damned Tot (1952)
Miriam is an ex-actress turned detective according to Michele B Slung in Crime on Her Mind (1975).
1950 Eli? Donovan James L Rubel
Location:
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone
Name of Agency:
Type: Hardboiled? Literary Classification: Paperback Original?
Comments: Appeared in No Business for a Lady.
1955 Mavis Seidlitz Alan Geoffrey Yates (aka Carter Brown)
Location:
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent then Lone?
Name of Agency: Johnny Rios Detective Agency
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: Paperback Original
Comments: Dizzy blonde bombshell.
1956 Miss Hogg Austin Lee (aka John Austwick, Julian Callender) 1904-1965
Location: England?
Lone/Agent/Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type:
Comments: Ex-school-mistress according to Michele B Slung in Crime on Her Mind (1975). Miss Hogg appeared
in nine books between 1955 and 1963.
1957 Honey West G G Fickling (aka Gloria & Forrest Fickling)
Location: LA
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency:
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: Paperback Original
Comments: Combines Marilyn Monroe's looks with Emma Peel's athleticism. Inherited father's
detective agency. Boyfriend/sidekick is Johnny Doom?
1959 Marla Trent Henry Kane (aka Anthony McCall, Kenneth R McKay, Mario J Segola)
Location: NYC b 1918
Lone/Agent/Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: Paperback Original
Comments: Beauty & brains; sometimes paired with Peter Chambers. Appeared in Private Eyeful (1959) & Kisses of Death (1962) according to Kevin Burton Smith on the Thrilling Detective website.
1972 Cordelia Gray P D James
Location: London
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: Pryde's Agency
Type: softboiled Literary Classification: 1970's Feminist-Influenced
Comments: 22 year old woman with an unusual childhood upbringing inherits a detective agency from
her friend and former business partner.
1973 Nicole Sweet Fran Huston (psd of Ron S Miller) b 1936
Location: Calif?
Lone/Agent/Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type: Hardboiled? Literary Classification:
Comments: Michele B Slung in Crime on Her Mind (1975) notes that Nicole is a cop's daughter who seems to
be a female version of Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer. Appeared in The Rich Get It All (1973).
1974 Delilah West Maxine O'Callaghan (1937- )
Location: So Calif
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: West & West Investigations
Type: hardboiled Literary Classification: 1970's Feminist-Influenced
Comments: Former LAPD policewoman starts detective agency with her husband (also ex-LAPD) and then carries on
after his death. Delilah was a swimmer and gymnast in college. The prototype for all realistic, post-feminist era hardboiled female PI's? After husband Jack dies, Delilah eventually changes name of her agency to West Investigations. Her office is in the city of Santa Ana and most of her casework is based in Orange County, CA. One wonders how much more success would have come O'Callaghan's way had she finished and published the first Delilah West novel soon after the publication of the first Delilah West short story (1974). O'Callaghan would have then beaten Marcia Muller (see below) to the punch by about two years According to the Thrilling Detective website (which credits Victoria Esposito-Shea for her help) here is a list of Delilah's recorded cases:
1974-"A Change of Clients"-short story
1981-Death Is Forever-novel
1982-Run From the Nightmare-novel
1989-Hit and Run-novel
1991-Set-Up-novel
1994-"Bad News"-short story
1996-Trade-Off-novel
1997-Down for the Count-novel
????-"Deal With the Devil"-short short story
1998-"Diamonds Are For Never"-short story
????-"Somewhere South of Melrose"-short story
????-"Going to the Dogs"-short story
????-"Belling the Cat"-short short story
The four stories noted with question marks (instead of dates) appeared in Bad News and Trouble (Brash Books, 2014), the first complete collection of all seven of the Delilah West short stories. Ms. O'Callaghan wrote a one page introduction to this slim volume but only gives vague hints as to when each of the stories was written/first published. My guess is the undated stories were written in the late 1990's and early 2000's. Style-wise, O'Callaghan is closer to Grafton than to Muller or Paretsky, or is it more accurate to say that Grafton is closer to O'Callaghan than to Muller or Paretsky? Chicken or the egg? All four are wonderful detective story writers and I am a fan of them all.
1975 Angela Harpe James D Lawrence
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: Thriller/Rogue/Espionage
Comments: African American PI. Former police officer, fashion model and call girl per Colleen A Barnett.
Appeared in four novels in 1975: The Dream Girl Caper, The Emerald Oil Caper, The Gilded Snatch Caper & The Godmother Caper. K. G. Klein considers the books as not much more than soft-core pornography. Kevin Burton on the Thrilling Detective website considers the series "racist, sexist, sadistic trash, etc."
1976 Madge Hatchett Lee McGraw
Location: Chicago
Lone/Agent/ Owner: Lone
Name of Agency:
Type: Hardboiled Literary classification:
Comments: A female Mike Hammer? Appeared in one novel, Hatchett (1976) per Kevin Burton Smith on the Thrilling Detective website.
1977 Sharon McCone Marcia Muller (1944- )
Location: SF
Lone/Agent/Owner: First agent then owner
Name of Agency: All-Souls Legal Co-op then McCone Investigations
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: 1970's Feminist-Influenced & Thriller/Rogue/Espionage in her later cases
Comments: First post 1970's feminist era realistic hardboiled female PI to appear in a novel written by a woman? Early job was in department store security----guarding dresses. Novels are uneven; short stories are generally top-notch. Novella, "The Broken Men" is a masterpiece. Sharon is 5'6" (same height as Kinsey Millhone) and fairly athletic. Thought she was more than 90% Scotch-Irish and a small % Native American but 2/3 into her series discovers she is 100% Native American (Shoshone). Muller is the best ss writer of the Big Four.
1978 Helen Keremos Eve Zaremba (1930- )
Location: Canada/US
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone
Name of Agency:
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: 1970's Feminist-Influenced
Comments: First lesbian PI? Appeared in six novels between 1978 and 1997 as follows: A Reason to Kill (1978), Work for a Million (1986), Beyond Hope (1987), Uneasy Lies (1990), The Butterfly Effect (1994) and White Noise (1997)
1978 Judith (never Judy) Eve Bernstein Singer Sharpe Susan Isaacs
Location: Long Island, NY
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone
Name of Agency: NA
Type: Softboiled Literary Classification: 1970's Feminist-Influenced & Comic
Comments: Really does not belong on this list because Judith Singer is technically an amateur sleuth (but she most likely did receive a $5,000 reward posted by a regional dental association for solving the murder of a local periodontist, so that does make her a professional, sort of). Judith has appeared in four recorded cases (two novels and two short stories) as follows: Compromising Positions (1978), "Compliments of a Friend" (2000), Long Time No See (2001) and "After Lunch" (2008?). Judith is a 34 year old suburban housewife and mother of two when the series begins and ages throughout the saga. She is a blunt-spoken, sharped-tongued, warm-hearted, intelligent Jewish woman who has managed to involve herself in four murder investigations that occurred in her Long Island bedroom community of Shorehaven, NY. Her indepth knowledge of the inhabitants and customs of her suburban community combined with a keen intelligence is what allowed her to solve these murders. She is usually aided in her investigations by three continuing characters; a sexy homicide detective, her best friend Nancy (who is a borderline alcoholic and serial adulterer) and her annoying, empty-headed friend, Mary Alice (nicknamed Malice). The stories are bitingly satiric and hilarious funny; the detection is not bad, either. I can only wish that Susan Isaacs would stop writing mainstream novels and concentrate on producing more Judith Singer tales. For more about Judith click here.
1979 Anna Jugedinski Phyllis Swann
Location:
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone
Name of Agency:
Type: Hardboiled
Comments: Street smart former cop?
1979 Barbara Arenas Lourdes Ortiz
Location: Spain
Lone/Agent/Owner: ?
Name of Agency: ?
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: Thriller/Rogue/Espionage
Comments: Sort of a female James Bond type in a Telanovela type story titled Picadura mortal (1979). The author was a well-respected mainstream in Spain but wrote this book as a rush job.
1980 Anna Lee Liza Cody
Location: London
Lone/Agent/Owner: Agent
Name of Agency: Brierly Security
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: 1970's Feminist-Influenced
Comments: Former cop.
1982 Kinsey Millhone Sue Grafton (1940-2017)
Location: So Calif
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone
Name of Agency:
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: 1970's Feminist-Influenced
Comments: Former cop. Novels are generally strong, short stories vary in quality. Along with Marcia Muller
(see above) and Sara Paretsky (see below) author is considered among the "Big Three" of current female detective fiction writers.
Sadly, Ms. Grafton died in late December 2017. I enjoyed her work and thought she was the most consistent of the post-feminist female PI writers. There will be no "Z" Kinsey Millhone mystery novel. Y is for Yesterday was Kinsey's last case. RIP Sue Grafton.
1982 V I Warshawski Sara Paretsky (1947- )
Location: Chicago
Lone/Agent/Owner: Lone
Name of Agency:
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: 1970's Feminist-Influenced
Comments: Though author's short stories vary in quality, overall they are stronger than Grafton's but weaker than Muller's. Novels tend to show author's ultra liberal-leaning beliefs but storytelling is not hurt by this. Seems to write fewer but longer novels compared to Muller and Grafton. VI is 5'8" strong and athletic. Played basketball in college. Was of Polish/Italian/Jewish heritage.
1984 Kate Baeier Gillian Slovo (1952- )
Location: London?
Lone/Agent/Lone: ?
Name of Agency: ?
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: 1970's Feminist-Influenced
Comments: Books are reported to be political/left-wing/progressive. Kate has appeared in five books:
Morbid Symptons (1984), Death by Analysis (1986), Death Comes Staccato (1988), Catnap (1994) and Close Call (1995) per Kevin Burton Smith's Thrilling Detective website.
1985 Apol.lunia (Lunia) Guiu Maria Antonia Oliver
Location: Spain
Lone/Agent/Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type:
Comments: More realistic and less sexual than other Spanish detective Barbara Arenas (see above). Appeared in Estudi en lila in 1985.
1989 Clio Browne Delores Komo aka Dolores Komoroski
Location: St Louis
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: ?
Type: Softboiled
Comments: Inherits her fathers PI agncy. Deceased husband was a cop. Appeared in only one book, Clio Browne, Private Investigtaor in 1989. Clio was a middle-aged, African-American widow whose mother aids/hinders her investigations.
1989 Claire Conrad & Maggie Hill Melodie Johnson Howe
Location:
Lone/Agent/Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type: Medium boiled? Literary Classification: 1970's Feminist-Influenced?
Comments: Claire acts as the eccentric genius Nero Wolfe type and Maggie is the wiseacre Archie Goodwin type according to Kevin Burton Smith on the Thrilling detective website. Appeared in The Mother Shadow (1989) and Beauty Dies (1994).
1991 Hannah Wolfe Sarah Dunant (1950- )
Location: London
Lone/Agent/Owner:
Name of Agency:
Type:
Comments: Hannah has appeared in 3 books according to Kevin Burton Smith's Thrilling Detective website: Birth Marks (1991), Fatlands (1993) and Under My Skin (1995)
1994 Ling Wan-Ju "Lydia" Chin SJ Rozan
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: Chin Investigative Services (or sometimes) Lydia Chin Investigations
Type: Hardboiled Literary Classification: 1970's Feminist-Influenced
Comments: Lydia is a twenty-something year old ABC (American Born Chinese) woman who lives with her mother in Chinatown and runs her agency out of a storefront office on Canal Street. Her sometimes partner is Bill Smith, a 40-something white PI who's interest in Lydia is more than avuncular. They appear together (and sometimes separately) in eleven novels and several short stories begining in 1994. Lydia has a loving but prickly relationship with her mother who strongly disapproves of her chosen profession, not only because of its dangers but also because her detective work rarely brings her into contact with suitable potential marriage partners. Lydia has at least four older brothers who have successful "traditional" careers. Although the author does not clearly state that Lydia is strikingly beautiful, the way male characters tend to react to her (both overtly and covertly) makes it clear that she is one of the most attractive female characters in business today. Lydia is very petite but she is proficient in martial arts and does carry a gun, so she is a match for most of the criminals and lowlifes she runs into during her investigations.
Note: Lydia's mother made her detecting debut in a short story in the March/April 2015 issue of EQMM. She decides to spare Lydia from bother (and imagined danger) by taking on a case herself involving a ghost (maybe), gambling, a disappearing restaurant worker and loansharks. Not a bad story but I want to see more of Lydia herself. I don't think there has been a new Chin ss or novel since 2012.
1994 Tamara Hale Valerie Wilson Wesley
Location: Newark NJ
Lone/Agent/Owner; Lone?
Name of Agency: ?
Type: ?
Comments: African-American, single mother, ex-cop now working in Newark. Appeared in the following books:
When Death Comes Stealing (1994)
Devil's Gonna Get Him (1995)
Where Evil Sleeps (1996)
No Hiding Place (1997)
Easier to Kill (1998)
The Devil Riding (2000)
Dying in the Dark (2004)
Of Blood and Sorrow (2008)
1996 Lupe Solano Carolina Garcia-Aguilera
Location: Miami FL
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: ?
Type: ?
Comments: Lupe is Cuban born and owns her own agency in Miami. Author is/was a real-life PI.
1996 Lucy Trimble Brenner Eric Wright (1929-2015)
Location: Ontario Canada
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: ?
Type: Softboiled
Comments: Apparently Lucy is a librarian/hotelier who inherits (like Cordelia Gray and the Beagle sisters) a detective agency. In this case it was from her cousin. Appeared in:
Death of a Sunday Writer (1996)
Death on the Rocks (1999)
2013 Lana Luna Robert J. Schneider
Location: NYC
Lone/Agent/Owner: Owner
Name of Agency: The Pringle-Luna Literary Agency
Type: Softboiled Literary Classification: Cozy
Comments: Lana's only recorded case (to date) is "Greenpoint Girls", an unpublished novella written in 2013. The 35 year-old former investment analyst inherited a struggling Manhattan literary agency from her uncle. The previous tenant of an empty office suite down the hall was a detective agency so occasionally people show up needing a detective, not a literary agent. Lana's helpful and curious nature (and her plentiful free time due to a lack of author clients) draw her into investigations. Lana is assisted in her detecting efforts by her receptionist/office manager and sole employee, Monica McCool. Since Lana is not a licensed private investigator, she does not accept money upon the successful completion of a case but she will accept gifts from grateful clients. Technically, Lana Luna does not qualify for inclusion on this site but I am making an exception for her. Click HERE to read "Greenpoint Girls"
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Some sources I used:
Crime On Her Mind
1975
Michele B. Slung
Mystery Women: An Encylopedia of Leading Women Characters in Mystery Fiction
2001, Volume I (1860-1979) Revised
Colleen Barnett
(This book has become a favorite resource, I must try to track down some of the other volumes and revised editions)
The Woman Detective, Gender & Genre
1988
Kathleen Gregory Klein
This is a scholarly book containing in depth analysis of a selection of characters and authors. A quote from the bookjacket "The Woman Detective examines how gender and genre restrictions affect the outcome of nearly 300 novels written between 1864 and 1987." Klein has opened my mind to viewing certain books from a different perspective than I initially approached them. At times I believe Ms. Klein reads more into the words of these authors than really exist in them...but because her intellectual approach to the subject matter is at a level much higher than mine, I defer to her analysis (for the most part).
Victor A. Berch (1924-2015) was for many years the Special Collections Librarian at Brandeis University. He was a bibliographer, collector of Dime Novels, Pulp Magazines and other forms of popular literature. He was expert in many fields of study. Out of the blue one day he emailed me with information concerning the actual first publication date of a Clarice Dyke (see above 1882 entry) short story. Although we only exchanged a couple of emails several years ago, I was astonished that a great scholar like Victor would take an interest in this small website endeavor.
RIP Victor Berch.
Michael E. Grost has given me several tips on improving my website, see below
Mike Grost's comprehensive website: A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection mikegrost.com/classics.htm
