It’s always interesting to check out “Best of … ” lists to see how my personal picks stack up and to add books to my To Be Read list. TIME magazine compiled their list, released this month, with the help of authors including Tana French, Rachel Howzell Hall, and Sujata Massey. (The authors weren’t allowed to submit their own work for consideration but each of these novelists has a book on the list.)
The list presents its top 100 in chronological order, starting in the 1800s with Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Familiar authors from the Golden Age of mystery, such as Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie, and Ngaoi March are there, along with more modern names like Kate Atkinson, Attica Locke and Louise Penny.
Turns out, I’ve read 20 of the 100 and I would not quibble with the inclusion of any of them on this list. I’m more into mysteries than thrillers — though the lines between the two sometimes blur — but I found this a great resource for considering what I want to read next. I particularly appreciate the diversity of authors.
Some of the best female sleuths included:
- Harriet Vane in Dorothy L. Sayers’ Gaudy Night, published in 1935.
- Dr. Kay Scarpetta in Patricia Daniels Cornwell’s Postmortem, published in 1990.
- Korede in Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, published in 2018.
- Sydney Green in Alyssa Cole’s When No One is Watching, published in 2020.
Among the books going on my TBR list immediately are Eleanor Taylor Bland’s Dead Time and Laura Lippman’s What the Dead Know. What about you?
FemaleSleuths.com 
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