Member Reviews
Plenty To Like…
Plenty to like in this well researched and organised account of women’s crime writing over the last century and dealing specifically with why women write crime. Covering developments from the 1930’s Golden Age of Crime to present day. Both well written and detailed. The reader may not agree with every point of view here but it makes interesting reading.
Maybe a bit too much to squeeze into one book there could be soooo much to this based on the title and you need to have interest in the crime fiction and have some understanding of Agatha Christie novels I think to enjoy it a little more.
The author provides some really interesting insight and it feels empowering to think how far this genre is dominated by the female authors.
There was probably more and different routes Sally Cline could’ve taken but as I said this is a big, no huge topic with so many aspects to consider.
I don't read much non-fiction but ass a huge fan of crime novels as well as a secondary school librarian I couldn't resist requesting this and also purchasing a copy for the library. It both interesting, well researched and extremely readable and gave me much for thought. As well as being an enjoyable leisure read, I have also been recommending it to our Sixth Formers who are currently studying Crime Fiction as part of their English A-level.
After Agatha: Women write crime is Sally Cline’s fourteenth book which includes biographies of Zelda Fitzgerald and Dashiell Hammett. It’s therefore safe to assume that Cline knows her way around writing non-fiction. With After Agatha she takes on the rather ambitious task of condensing the history of female crime writers of the past century into a single volume. Whether she was successful will largely depend on the reader’s expectations and background, but there's much food for thought packed into these 265 pages.
Full review: https://westwordsreviews.wordpress.com/2022/03/19/after-agatha-sally-cline/
4.5 Stars
Sally Cline examines British, American and Canadian female crime writers and how they each write about crime.
As a crime lover found this book to be extraordinarily interesting; the way on which the different female authors write about crime, and particularly crime against women is fascinating. I now have a long list of authors and novels that I need to read as well as a better understanding of some of my favourites.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review
As a huge Agatha Christie fan, I do like reading non fiction books, about the author. I really found this book very interesting and insightful.
I liked a lot about this book, however, some statements were really quite blanket, brushing all readers of crime fiction with the same brush. The author also focussed way too much on just crime fiction that terrorises women and barely mentioned other types. Ok, but expected something a bit broader.
I am not really a reader of crime fiction and I have to admit I have never read an Agatha Christie novel (I feel like I need to had back by book club membership card. That being said, I am the perfect audience for crime novels because the ones that I have read have completely floored me. I have been flabbergasted and shocked and totally outfoxed by the writer. I never predict the ending and everything is a shock to me. I am the audience that a crime writer wants to read their book.
I went into After Agatha really looking for direction into what authors I should read to get fully immersed in the genre. I got that which is good but I also got a full rounded education into the reasons why people, women in particular, like crime fiction. It was truly fascinating. And whilst that element was really interesting, how the various writers deal with brutality and crime was equally engaging and gave me more focus on whose work I would like to read.
This is a great read if you are looking for your next crime series.
After Agatha by Sally Cline is available now.
For more information regarding Oldcastle Books (@OldcastleBooks) please visit www.oldcastlebooks.co.uk.
Unfortunately, I didn't get along well with this book.
I was wanting a review of women crime writers since Agatha Christie, butI found the book to be a series of short author-page-on-Goodreads type of biographies of women writers with some quotes from them. There didn't seem to be much in the way of critical analysis of their work or impact, which was disappointing.
Recommended for readers who'd like short author bios and suggestions for books to read only.
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.
This is a wonderfully researched book. Cline begins by relaying that crime and thriller is the most popular book genre in the UK, and it’s women who choose to read those books. Furthermore, huge number of those women are drawn to read crime and thrillers written by female writes – I can agree with that, I am always on a lookout for a female crime/thriller writer. I also feel a sense of kinship and female solidarity when I pick up a crime/thriller book written by a woman, rather than a man.
The book is divided into chapters and each chapter is focused on a different matter: why women read crime, how Agatha Christie and other Golden Age female writers became successful and what impact they had, and then moving on to exploring past and present female crime writers and their protagonists.
Cline concentrates on explaining how female PIs came into action and explores female detectives on the UK and US scenes. The reader goes on a journey from Jane Casey, Ann Cleves, Elly Griffiths in the UK to Tess Gerritsen and Karin Slaughter in the US. My favourite chapter was ‘Lesbian Protagonists Appear’ – I found it fascinating because those authors found it challenging to become published because of their protagonist’s sexuality.
Overall, it’s a great book, full of facts, perfect for lovers of crime. I definitely recommend it.
This is a very interesting and informative exploration of crime and thriller writing. Although there is a detailed consideration of the work of Agatha Christie, as one would expect from the book title, there are also chapters that cover different niches of crime and thriller novels. My personal interest is in domestic noir and there is decent coverage of the history and current state and issues within the genre.
This book would be of interest to any reader who enjoys reading in these genres and who would like to dig deeper into the history and analysis of books and authors.
A must read for any crime fiction fans, Cline explores reasons why women, who face fear and violence in their daily lives, should want to read or write about it for entertainment.
From the golden era of Agatha Christie to the explosion of female novelists in the US in thr 1950s to the present day authors who are writing lesbian, disabled, black and ethic minority characters, Cline covers it all, including domestic noir and forensic thrillers.
I believe this is a fantastically researched and interesting response to the rise of crime fiction and the women who write it.
Crime fiction is loose definition for something that can be the traditional story or a gritty and gorey novel featuring serial killers.
This is an intersting read but somehow if felt rushed and it seems more oriented to list and discuss thrillers than other type of crime of stories. A cozy or a traditional mystery are crime story. MC Beaton or Louise Penny sell tons of books but they're not in this list.
The theory that women want gore seemed a bit farfetched to me, I like true crime but I'm not a fan of too much gore and I'd like to know how large the statistical pool is.
Another note: I don't think it's ok to spoil the solution of a crime story.
I had high expectations, learn something new and was a bit disappointed
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
Sally Cline provides an overview of the phenomenally popular, crime fiction genre. But her primary focus is on women authors and readers, it’s a genre that is, after all, predominantly consumed by women. Her book strives to be comprehensive in its coverage offering up potted histories and accounts of a range of eras and subgenres: from the Golden Age crime of Sayers and Christie to the feminist P.I. novels of second-wave feminism, exemplified by the work of Marcia Muller and Sara Paretsky onwards. Cline takes in the police procedurals of authors like Tess Gerritsen and Ann Cleeves, the lesbian crime stories of Sarah Dreher and Ellen Hart, the forensic science narratives of Patricia Cornwall, as well as work that features the machinations of the criminal justice system in the U.K. and the U.S. Along the way she references debates on diversity, race and representation and ethical issues around violence in crime fiction. She takes a brief, but relevant, look at the role of publishers as gatekeepers, for example it was the small presses like Women’s Press who first took on novels featuring lesbian leads, and only after these were proven popular, did more mainstream companies move to cash in on their success. She also speculates on the reasons why women readers might be so drawn to depictions of crime and criminality.
The sheer scope of her study makes it almost inevitable that this seems rather rushed, breathless and list-like at times. In addition, there’s a tendency to make sweeping claims when it comes to issues around women and crime, or gender and crime fiction in general, which could be a little irritating at times, particularly because, without a detailed ethnographic study, many of Cline’s key points lack evidence to support them. There are moments too when this veers off-track, why for example devote so much space to Patricia Cornwall’s life history? And why include a synopsis of Highsmith’s “Carol” despite noting it has nothing to do with her crime fiction? So, overall, a highly readable but slightly unbalanced survey of the territory which could do with further editing. Its saving graces are Cline’s extensive interviews with contemporary women crime writers, and the opportunity to discover a number of writers and crime fiction that were new to me.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Oldcastle Books
After Agatha by Sally Cline is an intriguing mix of interviews with current female authors of crime fiction, a look at why women seem to be drawn even more than men to crime novels despite the majority of them involving female victims, and a general overview of the genre.
I found the book a bit of a mixed bag. The discussion of the attraction of the genre was interesting, and the book contains some excellent insider info from a range of different authors. But unfortunately, sometimes the book descended to little more than naming authors and listing the (increasingly oddly-named) awards they have won. And even more annoyingly, in some places, Cline gives away important plot points in some novels for little or no compelling reason in the discussion.
It did introduce me to a number of intriguing authors who's work I was previously unfamiliar with, however, and that in itself made it a worthwhile read.
A must have for fans of thrillers and murder mysteries, particularly those of us who fell in love with the genre thanks to Agatha Christie. Focusing on women who write crime, After Agatha features interviews with a number of today's leading crime writers, including Tess Gerritsen and Ann Cleeves. I loved dipping into this exploration of female crime writers and would absolutely recommend it to fellow murder mystery fans!
I've been reading crime fiction since working my way through most of Agatha Christie as a teenager, and I've read a heck of a lot since, most of it by women. So I was very interested to read Sally Cline's study of the subject, which ranges from Golden Age writers to modern domestic noir. It's definitely a good read, incorporating a very wide range of the genre, including many I've read and quite a few I haven't read or, often, even heard of. I was also reminded of some I'd read many years ago and forgotten. And I've added several recommended reads to my list.
I was disappointed, though, to find no mention of the excellent and unfairly forgotten Celia Fremlin, whose tense, claustrophobic novels could certainly be deemed early domestic noir, and are well worth a read.
I don't necessarily relate to what the author suggests at the beginning as major reasons women read and write crime - as a way of exploring our own fears about violence against women. Crime is probably my favourite genre but I am far more drawn to the investigative/mystery aspect (I love a good police procedural) and have no interest in graphic, lingering accounts of women being "stalked, raped, battered, tortured and murdered". I'm not entertained by those subjects and avoid those books that unduly dwell on them (that's not to say I think violence against women shouldn't be addressed, but there are ways of doing it which aren't gratuitous) and I'm fairly confident I'm not alone in that. It's not hard to avoid those books - they're usually easy to spot. It's a valid theory though and would be fine if it didn't feel so much like the author is generalising about *all* women readers. (Encapsulated by the opening line, referring to women spending "so much of their real lives being afraid" and hence being drawn to stories which depict those fears.)
I'm more taken by the idea that fictional female PIs and police officers may contribute in some way to changing public perceptions of women in law enforcement. I want strong and complex female characters, and thankfully there are many out there.
Cline has interviewed numerous writers and it's very interesting to see their insights into their own work and that of others, even if I don't always agree with them. She covers subjects including the Golden Age writers, the rise of the female PI (I've never read Sue Grafton's series, but I loved Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone), police procedurals and more, and also discusses issues of diversity - or, often, the lack of it. (It's something I've definitely noticed in the current trend for domestic psychological thrillers.)
The Women's Press crime imprint was responsible for a lot of my reading back in the 80s, introducing a new breed of lesbian detectives like Katherine V. Forrest's LAPD detective Kate Delafield and Val McDermid's intrepid journalist Lindsay Gordon, among many others. I read the heck out of these books, though I'm not sure I appreciated quite how groundbreaking they were at the time, and Sally Cline has an interesting section on the explosion in lesbian detective fiction which occurred around that time.
The section on PIs also features two of my favourite female-written male detectives, Jackson Brodie and Cormoran Strike, and Cline has warm words for both.
There's an interesting discussion of a modern trend to revive classic characters or even writers in new fiction - I'm particularly fond of Nicola Upson's Josephine Tey series and Sophie Hannah's new Poirot novels (I love all Sophie Hannah's work), but I wasn't aware of a series by Alison Joseph featuring a fictionalised Agatha Christie, and I'm interested to check that out.
(There are a few areas where tighter editing would be beneficial. For instance, the marvellous Josephine Tey is at one point referred to as writing under her own name, which she didn't. And Poirot's last case is referred to both as Curtain (correct) and Sleeping Murder (incorrect). The latter is Miss Marple's last case.)
There are spoilers for a few plots, so if this is likely to bother you, be wary.
All in all an interesting and often thought-provoking read which has inspired me to try a few new writers.
I am a great reader of crime fiction and was interested to read this exploration of why so many women read, and write, in this genre. However, I found the beginning to be full of some quite sweeping statements, such as, “women writers seem to identify more fully with their characters…” or suggestions that male writers are less successful at writing female characters (hmm, William Shaw’s DS Alexandra Cupidi’s series jumped immediately to mind) or her comments on gender neutral author names. She states, for example, that the sales of the Robert Galbraith books rose enormously when the author was discovered to be J.K. Rowling, assuming it was because she was female. She barely seemed to consider the enormous Harry Potter fanbase, or the fact that the author’s name J.K. Rowling was itself gender neutral, as boys were considered to be more likely to read a children’s series if the author was not highlighted as a woman, while male crime writers often use pen names to appeal more to female readers, such as Todd Ritter, who uses the pseudonym Riley Sager for his crime novels. Also, I am not sure that I agreed with many of her suggestions as to why women enjoy crime, such as exploring possible dangers in a safe way. Women, after all, make up the majority of readers in just all about all genres, with the possible exception of sci-fi and fantasy books.
Having said that, it is good to read books that you may not necessarily agree with, and this would certainly be a great read for a book group, with so much to argue about. Once the generalisations were over with, the author moved onto interviews with authors and discussions of different sub-genres of crime, such as books involving forensic investigators, private investigators, or members of the police force. This has added to my TBR list immediately and, even though many of the authors were familiar to me, I did enjoy hearing about the background to familiar series or finding authors that were less well known to me. I would probably rate this book somewhere between a 3 and a 4, but I have opted for a four, as, overall, I did enjoy it, even if I didn’t agree with all of it. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
I blitzed through this book over the weekend as I just could not get enough. Light and witty I enjoyed every second. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is an interesting read for women crime fiction fans and would make a good companion to Martin Edwards' 'The Golden Age of Murder' as it continues the story but with an additional gender interest. However, I should add that it's very much an anecdotal and rather simplified account of the connections between women and crime fiction, and could have usefully been far more nuanced with a more critical approach.
It's based on interviews with various and mostly contemporary female crime writers, arranged as snippets rather than longer pieces in each chapter. And it is good to have an overview of how women's relationship to the crime genre has evolved over time.
However, Cline theorises as if all female readers of crime are one person driven by the same tastes and motivations and so I frequently found myself both arguing back and finding myself excluded from the straightforward argument with which the book opens: that women are used to fear in our daily lives and that reading about women in books being stalked, raped, tortured and murdered allows us to confront and live out these fears in a safe space. The problem with this premise is that while I'm a fan of crime fiction, I *won't* read serial killer-type books precisely because I refuse to inhabit the head of this kind of misogynist sexual (male) killer or vicariously live through the systematic and often close to pornographic descriptions of women's bodies being mutilated in this way. So as a reader of Cline's book I was immediately thrust outside its prime position.
Alongside this, it's a very uncritical ra-ra account of female-authored crime fiction: now, I'm a great Christie fan but no way would I agree that her Miss Marple 'is a strong professional, a powerful female detective' or that Christie has a 'deceptively simple and elegant style': simple yes, but 'elegant', no way. Similarly, Marple is delicately subversive as other characters dismiss her as a fluffy old woman, and yet it's her gentle voice through which the 'truth' is exposed - but 'professional', 'powerful'? Just no. She makes herself seen, but she is also a conservative reactionary with unwavering and strict traditional views of morality with no mitigation and a firm believer in capital punishment - yikes!
Amidst my niggles, though, it's fun to hear from contemporary crime writers almost all from the UK and US, and to think back on how women writers and readers have moved the genre on into a contemporary and immensely popular form.