The female private detective has been a staple of popular culture for over 150 years, from Victorian lady sleuths to ‘busy-body spinsters’ and guntoting modern PIs. But what about the real-life women behind these fictional tales – what crimes did they solve, and where are their stories?
In Private Inquiries, Caitlin Davies traces the history of the UK’s female investigators, uncovering the truth about their lives and careers from the 1850s to the present day. Women such as
- • Victorian private inquiry agent Antonia Moser – the first woman to open her own agency
- • Annette Kerner, who ran the Mayfair Detective Agency on Baker Street in the 1940s
- • Liverpool sleuth Zena Scott-Archer, who became the first woman president of the World Association of Detectives
Caitlin also follows in the footsteps of her subjects, undertaking a professional qualification to become a Private Investigator, and meeting modern PIs to disentangle fact from fiction.
Female investigators are on the rise in the UK – and despite the industry’s sleazy reputation, nearly a third of new trainees are women. After a century of undercover work, it’s time to reveal the secrets of their trailblazing forebears.
CAITLIN DAVIES is a novelist, non-fiction writer, award-winning journalist and teacher. She is the author of six novels and seven non-fiction books, including Bad Girls: The Rebels and Renegades of Holloway Prison, nominated for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing (2019), and Queens of the Underworld, a history of professional female crooks. She lives in Kent and is a trained PI.
My thoughts: I’d heard of a couple of the earliest female detectives before – Maud West and Kate Easton, but there were ones in this book I’d not come across before, and Caitlin Davies brings it into the 21st Century as well as training to become a PI herself, which was super interesting.
I really enjoy this sort of history, women who have somehow faded into the background, ordinary women, but once revealed are often so much more interesting than the men around them. It was such a fascinating and enjoyable read. Puts all those crime novels into context too – women really are out there digging into things and doing a better job at going unnoticed than the men in many cases. If you’re interested in women’s history, social history, crime and that sort of thing, this will be right up your street and written in an engaging and enjoyable way too, with a full list of resources if you want more.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
