lip top 10: rockin’ female detectives

Crime fiction holds a little corner of my heart. I picked up a Linda Fairstein novel in my early teens and never looked back – Sherlock Holmes, CSI, film noir and everything in between landed on my radar, but I always found myself gravitating to the works where female characters took the lead. I don’t know whether it was because girls are generally hardwired to identify with other girls, or teenage me was looking for an intelligent role model, but my reading and viewing over the years has paid off in the form of this list of rockin’ female detectives.

1. Miss Marple (several stories by Agatha Christie)
Characters from this era embody detective work as its finest – no DNA or fingerprints, phone taps or CCTV – just determination and sharp mind. While there were many detectives from the same time, such as Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple was one of the best. There’s nothing better than the crooks underestimating a kindly old lady, only for her to use her intellect to unravel a plot and deliver a sucker punch.

2. Detective Olivia Benson (Law and Order: Special Victims Unit)
I know I’ve mentioned her before in another column, but I just love her, okay? In fact, I’m just going to copy in what I said about her before: ‘She has more courage than a three-legged antelope hanging out in the savannah, more compassion than Bono and a better moral compass than the Dalai Lama.’

3. Nancy Drew (stories, films and a television series)
Nostalgia time! Nancy Drew stories have been written by several ghost writers under the name Carolyn Keene for about 80 years. Most of the stories I read were my aunts when they were kids, and in them Nancy Drew is super smart, intuitive and not afraid to get her hands dirty. The stories have evolved with the times, and the stories were even rewritten to eliminate racist stereotypes. While that’s a good thing, unfortunately along the way Nancy’s character was also rewritten to be more feminine and susceptible to danger.

4. Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison (Prime Suspect)
The best part of this character was that she was flawed. Earlier in the series she was battling against a sexist department, which often got in the way of a crime being solved, but the series wasn’t just about her triumph over misogyny. It also dealt with the cost of Tennison’s need to succeed – not just the loneliness and the bullying she endured, but also unwanted pregnancies and a battle with alcohol.

5. Precious Ramotswe (The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency)
Ramotswe is the main character in the novel series by Alexander McCall Smith, which has been adapted for radio and television. She is the first female private detective in Botswana. You could almost call her a modern incarnation of Miss Marple, as her suspicion of technology leads her to solve crimes more through legwork and intellect.

6. Clarice Starling (The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal)
Anyone who can face up to the likes of Hannibal Lecter receives kudos from me.

7. Jessica Fletcher (Murder, She Wrote)
Not going to lie, I think I like Jessica Fletcher more because I find the actress who plays her, Angela Lansbury, a little bit adorable. Fletcher is a bit like Miss Marple, but not as cool. Yeah, it’s definitely the Angela Lansbury thing. I think in 10 years’ time she’ll be like present-day Betty White.

8. Sergeant Christine Cagney (Cagney and Lacey)
What made Cagney more popular than Lacey was that she was portrayed as “every woman”, having been raised in an upper class neighbourhood and listing art and the opera as interests, but maintaining strong connections to her New York City police detective father. Like Jane Tennison, she is flawed. She lives off a large inheritance, but battles with alcoholism and often questions the decisions she makes in her personal life. Throughout the series she is shot and raped, but gains strength from what has happened to her, no doubt contributing to her appeal.

9. Agent 99 (Get Smart)
In the TV series and the film she is the intelligent counterpart to bumbling Maxwell Smart. I just enjoy watching her get Max out of tricky situations.

10. Modesty Blaise
Comic book time! In her past Blaise was a refugee, then a career criminal, but the series takes off from the point that she becomes a secret agent. You know what her weapon of choice is? A yawara stick, which basically fits in the palm of your hand.