kris's Reviews > The Queens of Crime

Dorothy L. Sayers, acclaimed crime novelist, is appalled when her Detective's Club dislikes the idea of having an "abundance of women" as club members (other than Agatha Christie, natch). So Dorothy summons Agatha, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, and Baroness Emma Orczy together to infiltrate their numbers—by solving an actual murder and proving their superiority once and for all. As they begin to unpick the knot that led to May Daniels's death, the self-named "Queens of Crime" discover that life isn't like their books (until it is). (Or something.)

1. This is in first person, which, ugh. It's just not my favorite narrative tool, especially when it's paired with investigations and character studies. It reads as clunky, as the narrator has to stop and react to things and notice things and think about things in a way that doesn't come across as natural or organic or compelling.

2. The "observations" on the other "queens of crime" were ... weirdly shaped around a lot of appearance indicators and assumptions. Eventually (very late in the book) Sayers (the narrator) begins to examine the very broad stereotypes she uses on these other women, but this change was far too close to the end and far too superficial for it to undo the fact that we're given more detail about what each author wears to every meeting than we are about their professions, their craft, their outlook on the world, their relationships, their general being in the world they allegedly inhabit. It's pretty disappointing.

3. I've said this about other books that dabble in the fact vs. fiction realm, but I ... mostly don't like it? Especially when you assign drivers or objectives or goals to the characters that may not align with who they really are or were.

For example, there's a sub-sub-plot about (no spoilers here because real people / actual fact) Dorothy L. Sayer's son (John Anthony) who was born out of wedlock and raised by her cousin Ivy Shrimpton. In The Queens of Crime, Benedict's "Dorothy" ends up recuperating from an attack with cousin Ivy and opines the fact that Mac (her husband) has indicated that he and Dorothy would someday "adopt" John and live together as a family. Except "no time is ever right" and the adoption has been delayed and delayed again, with Mac finally dangling a "summer holiday stay" as a means of reconciling this whole sub-sub-plot.

And the whole thing is just....kind of gross? Without any evidence to the contrary, Benedict assigns a lot of weight to the idea that her Dorothy wants desperately to be a mother to John and is deeply emotional when she sees him (which is only semi-frequently due to her schedule and work). And maybe the Real Actual Dorothy L. Sayers felt that way—but maybe she didn't, and choosing to apply that characterization to her feels ... pretty ick.

(It also makes her relationship with Mac seem ... less idealistic than I think Benedict wants to portray, so that's another interesting facet to the entire thing. Because there are things about their marriage (in the book) that seem strained but they're carefully excised / worked around rather than confronted as actual shades of gray to "Dorothy's" world. Another pitfall of first person.)

4. The mystery itself was also kind of ham-fisted, in that the "queens" find a critical letter that is....written in a way that no human on earth would ever write. It's crafted to be a Mystery Novel Clue and reads like a sand trap, intentionally leading down a dead end so that the "twist" can happen twenty pages later—making the letter basically nonsense because of how intentionally vague it was. (Also it's just full of weird details like sneaking out of the restaurant and what dress the victim wore to a dinner date and her feelings when accosted in the park. Like, if I was afraid for my life I wouldn't write about sitting in a park feeling rage; I'd want to capture relevant details about the people who were perpetrating the potential crimes instead of talking about the fact that I had to wear an old dress to dinner. Perhaps this is just me. Or perhaps it's just not an authentic letter for the circumstances in which it was supposed to have been written. WHO'S TO SAY.)

(I'm to say: I'm the reader and I say: bad.)

5. The actual denouement and accusation was a weird sour note, too, with lots of shouting and awkwardness and death. Very odd.

6. I do want to check out books written by the other "queens of crime" though, so I suppose that's a good outcome of this!