The Queens of Crime

The New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie returns with a thrilling story of ChristieΓÇÖs legendary rival Dorothy Sayers,the race to solve a murderand the power of friendship among women. London1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayersthe group includes Agatha ChristieNgaio MarshMargery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murderthat 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 Danielsa young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friendseemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months laterher body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? Ifas the police believethe cause of death is manual strangulationwhy is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murderthe Queens of Crime embark on their own investigationdiscovering theyΓÇÖre stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herselfthreatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden. Inspired by a true story in SayersΓÇÖ own lifeNew York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels.