PRIVATE INQUIRIES

The secret history of female sleuths, this riveting myth-buster reveals the real histories of women PIs. The female private detective has been a staple of popular culture for over 150 years, from Victorian lady sleuths to 'busy-body spinsters' and gun-toting modern PIs, but what about the real-life women behind these fictional tales? Dismissed as Mrs Sherlock Holmes or amateurish Miss Marples, mocked as private dicks or honey trappers, they have been investigating crime since the mid-19th century - everything from fraud and theft to romance scams and murder. We meet Antonia Moser, the first woman to open her own agency, Annette Kerner, who ran the Mayfair Detective Agency on Baker Street in the 1940s, and Liverpool sleuth Zena Scott-Archer who became the first woman president of the World Association of Detectives. A terrific caseload in one special book including peephole servants, secret watchings, straight-shooting women, the Case of the Disappearing Whiskey, rogue daters, She-lock Holmes, the art of shadowing and how the best disguise is a woman. 320 page glamorous hardback, well illustrated.