Mystery, Thriller, and Crime genre books account for a whopping 32% of fiction book sales, making it the most popular genre as of 2023. Wildly popular and profitable, mysteries combine the unputdownable nature of solving a puzzle with immersive character arcs. It is no surprise that they are so well-received.
But mystery is an especially interesting genre when we look at it through a gendered lens. Many of the most prolific mystery writers are women: Agatha Christie, Louise Penny, and Gillian Flynn, to name a few. From Nancy Drew to Miss Marple, women have been at the forefront of some of the most loved mysteries. But why?
It is no secret that women love murder mysteries. In 2021, Saturday Night Live premiered a skit featuring Nick Jonas about women’s love for murder shows — which many held as all too true with the increasing popularity of shows like “Criminal Minds” and the plethora of Netflix murder documentaries. On her blog, Jeannette de Beauvoir describes the appeal of the female detective: “she’s the one who takes that body emotionally home with her, she’s the one who always remembers that it’s the victim, and not the killer, who is central to her case.”
Rather than the hardened dude-detective, these women actively experience emotions about the case, often feeling a deep connection to the mystery that pushes them to investigate. Unlike genius behemoths like Sherlock Holmes, the woman detective is typically the “everywoman.” She struggles, she gets attached, but through it all she leads with her curiosity, her wits, and her unmistakable pull toward a case. We see ourselves in these women and feel tension in the crime itself, but also in the detective’s narrative.
Women detectives are so enrapturing because their fate is so often tied up in the investigation itself that every word leaves you on the edge of your seat.
As such, mysteries become a space where women’s fears and emotions can be validated as shrewd instinct. No longer described as a hindrance, the very fact of their gender often becomes crucial to solving the puzzle.
In her book introduction, “Gender and Genre: The Woman Detective and the Diffusion of
Generic Voices,” Glenwood Irons writes, “The obvious subversion of order which the woman detective represents perhaps addresses our collective desire to undercut or at least question the institutions which inform our daily lives.” This sentiment is at the heart of why women-driven mysteries are so immersive. Not only do mysteries give women a space to show off brilliance alongside emotion, but they also speak to a longing for questioning. By inherently working in opposition to patriarchal order, women detectives confront their society, giving us all the space to question our own.
Mystery women have the power to validate each and every one of us, while also bringing a critical lens to the everyday structures we encounter.
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