Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The 10 best lady detectives

Adrian McKinty is the critically acclaimed author of Dead I Well May Be, the award-winning The Dead Yard, The Bloomsday Dead, and Hidden River. McKinty was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and educated at Oxford University. His latest novel is Fifty Grand.

For the (London) Times, he named a top ten list of the best lady detectives.

One lady detective to make the grade:
Precious Ramotswe: Except, ironically, in Botswana, you would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t read at least one of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books. The Susan Boyle of the crime fighting world Mma Ramotswe is a rather large, slightly comic, jovial lady who runs a private detective agency in the Botswanan town of Gaborone. Of course like Miss Boyle Precious has hidden depths: smart as a whip, an astute judge of character and with a self taught detecting skill set she is a force for good in a turbulent and often quite depressing landscape. Solving murders, missing persons cases and thefts Ramotswe is a charming, wise and likeable character that everyone could do with as an auntie. She loves the Queen, Nelson Mandela and politician Seretse Khama whose son Ian got moaned at by Jeremy Clarkson and having survived that is now the current President of Botswana.
Read about all ten lady detectives on the list.

Visit Adrian McKinty's blog.

Declan Burke says McKinty's Fifty Grand "is already one of the Top Five Crime Novels of 2009."

McKinty appears on Brian McGilloway's top 10 list of modern Irish crime novels.

The Page 69 Test: Fifty Grand by Adrian McKinty.

--Marshal Zeringue