Devi Nair
Going in, I expected The Queens of Crime to feel a bit like Roseanne Limoncelli’s Four Queens of Crime, a story where each legendary writer would carry equal weight. Instead, what we get is very much told through the eyes of Dorothy L. Sayers. On the plus side, she’s such a fascinating woman, whip-smart and commanding on the page. But the trade-off was seeing Agatha, Margery, and Ngaio more as supporting characters than true equals, which undercut the “four queens” promise for me. The concept, four legendary crime writers solving a real mystery, is electric, and I loved stepping into their 1930s world. Bessie Carter’s narration is a standout, especially her spot-on New Zealand accent for Ngaio Marsh, breathing life into each character.
The pacing stumbled in the middle stretches, with sections that could easily have been trimmed without losing the story’s heart. I also couldn’t help but notice the repeated use of “frozen” during tension-filled moments—it felt overdone and made the climactic sequences less sharp than they could have been. On top of that, the choice to use a first-person narrative for a story spanning decades rang a little inauthentic, especially when trying to capture long-past events.
Overall, while not perfect, The Queens of Crime is an enjoyable read for fans of historical fiction, literary biographies, and crime writing enthusiasts.
Originally posted at www.viewsshewrites.com.
Going in, I expected The Queens of Crime to feel a bit like Roseanne Limoncelli’s Four Queens of Crime, a story where each legendary writer would carry equal weight. Instead, what we get is very much told through the eyes of Dorothy L. Sayers. On the plus side, she’s such a fascinating woman, whip-smart and commanding on the page. But the trade-off was seeing Agatha, Margery, and Ngaio more as supporting characters than true equals, which undercut the “four queens” promise for me. The concept, four legendary crime writers solving a real mystery, is electric, and I loved stepping into their 1930s world. Bessie Carter’s narration is a standout, especially her spot-on New Zealand accent for Ngaio Marsh, breathing life into each character.
The pacing stumbled in the middle stretches, with sections that could easily have been trimmed without losing the story’s heart. I also couldn’t help but notice the repeated use of “frozen” during tension-filled moments—it felt overdone and made the climactic sequences less sharp than they could have been. On top of that, the choice to use a first-person narrative for a story spanning decades rang a little inauthentic, especially when trying to capture long-past events.
Overall, while not perfect, The Queens of Crime is an enjoyable read for fans of historical fiction, literary biographies, and crime writing enthusiasts.
Originally posted at www.viewsshewrites.com.