Marie Benedict, “The Queens of Crime,” copyright 2025, St Martin Publishing co

Most books which are told in a narrative manner(mainly, I guess, I mean where usually one thing follows another)are roughly divisible in to two types–Fiction and Non-Fiction. Occasionally you get one that is part each and I have one here. It is mostly fiction, but not entirely as I will try to explain.

Marie Benedict is an American who lives in(of all places to a veteran Cleveland area person) Pittsburgh. But she knows her subjects, early 20th century British social history, and the history of the British Mystery novel very well and puts all that knowledge to use, along with a sprightly style, in this book.

The “true” part of this book is the background. The geographical setting is southern UK and northern France. The time is 1930-1931 when WWI is fading a little bit, but only a little in people’s memories and is still to many a significant fact. The coming debacle of depression and economic troubles is on the horizon but not quite in everyone’s awareness yet. Not too much is made of this, but you know it’s there, at least if you know early 20th century history.

The immediate social setting of the book is(though in differing locations at times)the world of British Mystery writers in what is often(mostly correctly, I would say) know as the Golden Age of the Mystery novel. There really was a Detection Club centered in London and with G K Chesterton as its first President, and it began with authors of that era.

This is our starting point. If you think the Detection Club itself sounds interesting, I suggest Martin Edward’s “The Golden Age of Murder” which deals with older British mystery writing and concentrates on the Detection Club. Edwards, a distinguished mystery writer today, is the current President of the club.

The beginnings of the club saw only two women members, though, somewhat ironically, they would become the best known of writers of that group. They were Dorothy L Sayers, creator of Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey, and Agatha Christie, whom I’m going to assume you already know. In her afterward Benedict admits that she plays with history a bit now and then and one example is that there is no real indication that there was anything sexist about the club at its beginning. But that is the cause, albeit invented by the novelist, that brings our five heroines together and that’s OK with me.

So, we have five female mystery writers banding together to bring more women into the club. This is the story’s premise. They choose to call themselves “The Queens of Crime.” In addition to Sayers and Christie, they are Marjorie Allingham, Baroness Orczy, and Ngaio Marsh. Apparently strange names encourage people to write mysteries. Have you known anyone named “Ngaio.?” And if you’re full name was Emma Magdelena Rozalia Maria Jozefa Borbala Orczy de Orci you’d likely use a shortened version too.

Each one of them had her own detective(s). Sayers had Vane and Lord Peter, Christie, Poirot and Jane Marple, Allingham, Albert Campion, Orczy the Scarlett Pimpernel, and Marsh Roderick Allyn. (I recently saw the old film of “Pimpernel” which I must say I found very mediocre)

At the beginning of the book these five friends and colleagues make their pact. They will find a way to get more women writers into the club. That will be their mission. But it’s not. This is because Dorothy, who tells the story in the first person, has an idea. What would win the respect of the gentlemen in the club like the ladies solving a real murder? When the others question her as of whether she had a real murder in mind, it turns out she does. She remembers the case of a British girl, who seemed to disappear inexplicably while on a one day cross-channel trip with a friend, Miss McCarthy. Later, her body was found; yes, she had been murdered. And so, to no experienced mystery fan’s surprise, suddenly they are involved with a real mystery.

It appears to Dorothy that neither the French nor the British authorities made a very serious effort to catch the culprit. Oh, they went through motions and perhaps a bit more. People who knew the two girls were interviewed and a little bit of evidence gathered. But there appears to be no real, convincing evidence about what happened. Dorothy suspects that the fact that the victim, May Daniels, was relatively poor, not from a “good family,” and female may have led to this lack of seriousness in effort.

So the ladies organize and take off. They travel a lot, particularly between France and the UK. At first it seems discouraging. But all things come to those who wait, or someone once said so. Particularly if they wait and work. And eventually, after interviews, discussions and analysis they begin to learn some things.

Some of May’s friends think she might have had a “beau” in recent months. No one seems to know who it was. They discover, through Miss McCarthy, that May had two beautiful dresses from a stylish London shop. She could never have afforded them. Who could and did, for her? They follow clues carefully, just as their heroic fictional detectives might, but perhaps with a bit less panache. It’s easier to give that sort of thing to a character you’ve created than to create it immediately for yourself.

But the case eventually unfolds, somewhat in the manner of a mystery novel. A visit to the dress shop yields an address. No one knows whose address it is, but that’s where the dresses were sent. And this leads to a Law Firm with two dubious guys, a father and son, making money, seducing women and likely dealing in spurious investment schemes too.

At the same time the name of a theatre intrudes. May, it is established, had tickets to a play there that she clearly could not afford. Once again, who bought them?

Meanwhile Dorothy is is trouble. Although she has a loving husband, he’s a reporter and often not at home or anywhere near her. This leaves her feeling(for good reason it turns out)that she’d unprotected, She is attacked, her hotel room nearly invaded. She survives more or less intact, but someone is after her for something. Worst of all, she gets a letter which is clearly a black mail attempt. She is warned to quit pursuing the matter or everyone one will learn what the writer of the letter knows. Now, what do you think that could be?

This leads the ladies to a great deal of talking, the occasional quarrel and a great deal of doubt. But, noses to the grindstone, they slowly–and logically–work it out. There is some talk(appropriately, not a great deal )about how they all tend to end their novels. If you know traditional mysteries, you know the drill–you get everybody involved together in the library and–well, that only works if it’s a big-house-in-the- country story, but you can do urban versions of it. And that is, cleverly, more or less what we get here. The way Ms. Benedict gets you there is crisply described, but not without a sense of “whats-going-to-happen?” suspense about it. This is the kind of book where you turn the page and almost unconsciously do a quick scan of the two new pages appearing to you to see what names are there and if you’ve gotten to the final answer. Who did it?

Obviously, this is where I stop the narrative. The mystery fan’s code of honor says you don’t give away or even hint much at the solution and goes double for someone writing about it. But it all is done with careful, succinct writing and an excellent sense of logic. And it meets the first requirement for a good mystery. You care who is guilty as much when you’re learning the answer as you did when you first learned the question.

So if you like this type of mystery, well here’s a good one for you. And keep an eye on this lady. She already has a number of books published and appears to tend toward books like this one–fictional works based on real history. The really interesting events of history are sufficient that a novelist who has an eye for combining historical background with imagined events ought to have an inexhaustible source of possibilities. You might as well see where this takes her.