The Queens of Crime: A Novel

London, 1930. Five prominent women crime writers—Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Baroness Emma Orczy—form a secret society called the Queens of Crime. Their goal is to demonstrate they will no longer accept being treated as second-class citizens by male members of the Detection Club. They decide to solve an actual murder: that of May Daniels, a young English nurse found strangled in woods near a French train station. Months earlier, Daniels had vanished while preparing to board a ferry home with a friend. The case presents puzzling details—how the killer removed her body from a crowded station unnoticed, the unexplained amount of blood at the scene, and a cryptic letter that may implicate an unnamed person. As the Queens of Crime investigate, they discover their combined talents make them stronger. However, the killer begins targeting Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret from her past. The novel is inspired by a true event in Sayers' life and follows these five writers as they work to solve a mystery while fighting for recognition in the male-dominated literary world.