NYT Bestselling Author Marie Benedict Presents The Queens of Crime

Advance Praise for THE QUEENS OF CRIME

“In this excellent novel, Benedict vividly brings to life real Golden Age mystery novelists ... Fans of Benedict’s previous novels and those who enjoy historical whodunits will find this hard to put down.”

—Library Journal, Starred review

“In this marvelous locked-room puzzle, we’re treated to a masterclass in solving mysteries from the grand dames of the form… A delight from beginning to end.”

—First Clue Reviews

“I was riveted by this quintet of mystery writers... Smart, biting, and a tribute to female friendship and loyalty. An absolute delight!”

—Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Spectacular

The Queens of Crime (On-sale: February 11, 2025) by beloved and bestselling author Marie Benedict (The Personal Librarian, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie) is a genre-bending novel starring Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie that blends classic mystery, historical fiction, and elements of true crime into a page-turning and unforgettable story. Set in London in the 1930s and starring five of the greatest women crime writers of the interwar period, The Queens of Crime is an homage to the Golden Age of Detective Fiction that celebrates women who buck convention and seek justice for themselves—and others.

It’s winter of 1931 and Dorothy Sayers has a plan. She’s a founding member of the Detection Club, an organization meant to help crime writers gain credibility in the literary establishment. She and Agatha Christie are the only women members, yet their male colleagues are determined to limit the role of women in what they consider their exclusive male preserve. Together, Sayers and Christie persuade Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Baroness Emma Orczy to join, creating a cohort of women to challenge the status quo—they dub themselves the Queens of Crime. To prove they belong in the pantheon of preeminent crime writers, Sayers proposes they solve an actual M**der, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.

May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The M**der has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which the Queens of Crime are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without any witnesses? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Resolved to solve the highly publicized M**der, the women embark on their own investigation, pooling their wits and unique skills to work as a team. But soon the killer targets Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.

As she does in all of her critically acclaimed novels, Benedict uses real-life events—the M**der of May Daniels that Sayers and her journalist husband actually investigated—as the basis for a novel that honors how Sayers and her contemporaries used their fiction to reveal the dark underbelly of societal attitudes and treatment of women. The Queens of Crime is a delight to read—an engaging mystery that illuminates the lengths to which five talented women will go to be taken seriously in a male-dominated world.

About the Author

MARIE BENEDICT is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Mitford Affair, Her Hidden Genius, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, The Only Woman in the Room, Lady Clementine, Carnegie's Maid, The Other Einstein, and with Victoria Christopher Murray, the Good Morning America Book Club pick The Personal Librarian and the Target Book of the Year The First Ladies. All have been translated into multiple languages, and many have been selected for the Barnes & Noble Book Club, Target Book Club, Costco Book Club, Indie Next List, and LibraryReads List. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

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