This is an engaging book that is the first substantial study of historical crime fiction and persuasively advances feminist theory. Johnsen demonstrates how representative works within the genre employ feminist historiography to link women's writing with political awareness. She primarily focuses on the series of seven historical crime writers because they are well-researched, employ effective narrative strategies, contain well-constructed crime plots, and invite the reader to treat them as a launching pad for further exploration of the moments in women's history that these works have explored in afictional mode. - Martha Reineke, University of Northern Iowa
'Spoiler alert! Johnsen reveals endings and reads beyond them in this serious look at popular series. Selecting fictions which from the early l990s placed female sleuths in historical settings, she judges their effect in the world by a feminist measure: do they exploit the power of fiction to enable change? Sociable mystery readers will be delighted to engage this provocative study at the same time theorists of historical fiction will discover a sturdy intersection with feminist analysis.' Jo Ellyn Clarey, The Drood Review
'In settings that range from twelfth century France to late twentieth century Ireland, Johnsen takes us on a fascinating tour through feminist historical crime fiction. She has done all the work of locating the true gems in this intriguing recent genre of feminist writing, and she will send you out in search of some of these wonderful books you will want to read right now. Johnsen succeeds in persuading this historian of 'true-crime' narratives that historical crime fiction has much to teach us, not only about women's history, and about what she calls the 'gender content of traditional structures in fiction,' but about the power of the historically grounded imagination to inspire present and future feminist action. Quite an achievement!' - Mary S. Hartman, Director, Institute for Women's Leadership, Rutgers University, co-founder of the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women and author of Victorian Murderesses: A True History of Thirteen Respectable French and English Women Accused of Unspeakable Crimes