<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: An encyclopedia of women in mystery series.
Review: An encyclopedia of women in mystery series, covering up to 1979 in vol. 1, with vol 2 in the works. Includes both well known and obscure authors and characters, with historical survey of how the genre has changed. With bibliographies and commentary.
Rating:
Summary: Check this review from Library Journal
Review: From The May 1, 1998 Library Journal, p. 92.Barnett, a lawyer and teacher of political science, has collected mystery fiction with female protagonists for more than 20 years. Here she focuses on those protagonists instead of female mystery writers, as other guides do (e.g. Jean Swanson's By a Woman's Hand, Berkeley, 1996, 2nd ed.). This book is the first of a proposed three volume work covering female protagonists in detective fiction from the inception of the popular mystery until 1979. Entries are grouped by era (e.g. Victorian, interwar), with an introductory essay describing the political and social background of the era with reference to women. Each entry describes a female detective (or major female character in a mystery series), the works in which they appear, and the significance of the series or works to the development of the genre. Appendixes list authors with their works and characters, works with their authors and characters, and references sources. A character index to the three volumes would have helped. Nevertheless, Barnett offers a unique and highly subjective approach to the genre. Recommended where there is an interest in "mystery women" and for readers' advisory services.
<< 1 >>
| 
