Anna Lee Huber’s Top 10 Female Sleuths in Long-Running Historical Mystery Series

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There’s nothing quite like sinking into a long-running book series, knowing you have multiple adventures in which to watch the characters grow, and the mysteries unravel, and the romance blossom. Series allow authors to delve deeper into their characters—both primary and secondary, to establish complex subplots, and build expansive worlds, to truly immerse the reader in a new universe.

However, once I began doing research for this article, I discovered that truly long-running series—those that last for a minimum of ten books—are far fewer than I’d anticipated. And narrowing the field further to examine only my subgenre of historical mysteries—those set in the past when they were written, not penned contemporaneously in a time that happens to now be historical, à la Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot—the number of entries shrank even more. But a glimpse of those series that do hit that mark offers up a stellar list of titles which combine endearing characters, clever plots, and fascinating history.

The quantity of these long-running historical mystery series that feature female sleuths is particularly striking, for these heroines each exhibit their own captivating blend of moxie, panache, and ingenuity. I’m absolutely thrilled that with the release of A Perilous Perspective, my heroine, Lady Darby, will now be added to that long-running series list. So to celebrate, I’m sharing some of my favorite dames who always get their man.

Tasha Alexander – Lady Emily Hargreaves

Secrets of the Nile, which releases on October 4th, will be the sixteenth entry in Alexander’s bestselling Lady Emily Mystery series set in the Victorian era. The series began in And Only to Deceive with Lady Emily embracing the freedoms afforded by widowhood after the husband she’d wed only to escape her overbearing mother is killed while on safari in Africa. Her intellectual curiosity, awakened by her late husband’s journals, is part of Lady Emily’s charm, as well as her willingness to push the strict boundaries of Victorian society, whether it be drinking port with the men or investigating murders. The romance between her charming suitor-turned-husband and investigative partner, Colin Hargreaves, only adds greater depths to Alexander’s characters. One particular highlight of the series is all the various settings Emily and Colin visit, from Constantinople to Paris to Venice to St. Petersburg to Egypt, in her latest.

Stephanie Barron – Jane Austen

Jane and the Year Without a Summer is the fourteenth installment in Barron’s critically acclaimed Regency-set Being a Jane Austen Mystery series. This clever series brings famed author Jane Austen to life as its heroine and sleuth. Utilizing the meticulous research she’s done into Austen’s life and correspondence, Barron pens tales about Austen’s family, friendships, and travels while adding a dash of fictional murder and intrigue. The series opens in 1802 with Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor and carries on through the larger Regency period, intertwining with historical figures and events such as Lord Byron and the Battle of Waterloo. Fans of Austen and the Regency will gobble it up.

Rhys Bowen – Lady Georgie

Bowen writes two long-running historical mystery series, her Molly Murphy Mysteries of which there are eighteen books, and Her Royal Spyness series featuring Lady Georgie, who I’ve chosen to highlight. Set in the 1930s, the books are humorous, heart-warming romps with a puzzle or two to solve, many involving murder. This tone is set from the very beginning in Her Royal Spyness when Lady Georgie, 34th in line to the English throne, absconds from her selfish brother’s home and make her way to London where she camps out in the family home without any servants and little money to pay for necessities. She decides to clandestinely begin a housekeeping business to pay the way and mayhem ensues. The series takes readers cavorting through various plots and locales, and currently stands at fifteen books, the latest being God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen.

Kerry Greenwood – Phryne Fisher

Like many, I was introduced to Greenwood’s delightful heroine Phryne Fisher through the television series adapted from the books – Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Set in 1920s Melbourne, Australia, the series provides a charming escape to another place and time. They are equally amusing, alluring, and peppered with properly twisty plots. The 21st book in the series, Death in Daylesford, released last year, but readers would be well-served to start at the beginning with Cocaine Blues.

Laurie R King – Mary Russell

There are a number of Sherlock Holmes reiterations and King’s Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series is one of the most popular for a reason. We first meet her female protagonist, Mary Russell, in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice when Sherlock Holmes is retired and observing honeybees in Sussex in 1915. Orphaned fifteen-year-old Mary displays an impressive intellect and it only increases under Holmes’s tutelage. In Russell, Holmes has met his match, and it isn’t long before the intrepid pair are wed and teaming up to solve intricate mysteries all over the globe. This series is insightful, well-researched, and ingeniously delves into fascinating, but little-known pockets of history. The latest book, Castle Shade, the seventeenth in the series, released last summer, and takes Mary and Holmes to Romania, a land where myth is as tangible as facts.

Susan Elia MacNeal – Maggie Hope

MacNeal first introduces her clever and courageous heroine, Maggie Hope, in Mr. Churchill’s Secretary, where she works for the prime minister in the War Rooms in 1940. But Maggie’s intellect and daring soon see her sent on increasingly varied missions on behalf of British Intelligence, enabling MacNeal to explore various intriguing settings and aspects of the Second World War. Maggie breaks codes, slips into enemy-occupied territory, diffuses bombs, and rides motorcycles. She is as active as she is smart. In the tenth book in the Maggie Hope Mysteries, The Hollywood Spy, which released last summer, we learn that America was not without its nests of Nazi spies and collaborators.

Alyssa Maxwell – Emma Cross

Those readers who haven’t yet discovered Maxwell’s Gilded Newport Mysteries, but are fans of HBO’s The Gilded Age, should pick up Murder at the Breakers, the first book in the series, posthaste. Maxwell has proven herself an expert in the era, adeptly inserting real figures from the period, and using the historic Newport mansions as her settings, as well as the village of Newport itself. Her affable and intelligent heroine, Emma Cross, has one foot in both worlds—being a cousin to the Vanderbilts, but having to work as a reporter to support herself—and Maxwell makes good use of this shrewd set-up, which allows Emma to step into situations both high and low. The tenth book in the series, Murder at Beacon Rock, releases on August 30^th.

Victoria Thompson – Sarah Brandt Malloy

It takes considerable skill to keep the characters and plots in a long-running series fresh, and Thompson has managed to do so in her Gaslight Mysteries series for twenty-five books thus far. Set in turn-of-the-century New York City, the series explores many different aspects and classes of American life, delving deeper than just the surface or the higher strata of gilded life. Readers are introduced to her midwife heroine, Sarah Brandt, as well her investigative partner and later romantic interest, policeman Frank Malloy, in Murder on Astor Place. The pair navigate life, love, and murder throughout the series, along with a colorful cast of secondary characters. Murder on Madison Square, Book 25, releases on May 3rd.

Charles Todd – Bess Crawford

The mother and son team of Charles Todd have penned two long-running historical mystery series, but since this list is about series with female protagonists, I’ve chosen to focus on their Bess Crawford Mysteries. World War I nurse Bess Crawford first appears in A Duty to the Dead, when she returns to England to recuperate after having survived the sinking of a hospital ship. The delivery of a message sets her on the course of her first mystery, and many more follow. This series once again demonstrates Todd’s impressive knowledge of WWI-era England, as well as the life of a battlefield nurse. Bess proves to be a sensible, likable, and more than capable protagonist and sleuth. The twelfth book in the series, An Irish Hostage, released last summer.

Jacqueline Winspear – Maisie Dobbs

When Winspear introduces readers to Maisie Dobbs in the book of the same name, it is 1929, and Maisie has set herself up as a private investigator. However, we swiftly learn that her history is much more complicated and heart-wrenching. We also discover that Maisie is sensitive and whip smart. Through the twists and turns of the series and into the Second World War, we see Maisie inhabit many roles and utilize her savvy intellect to escape from dangerous situations more than once. The latest book in the series, A Sunlit Weapon, Book 17, released in March.

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