The topic of this book was niche and specific, and one that I was super interested in and happy to go down the author’s rabbit hole. It was clearly a passion project and well-researched, which made it really interesting to read. It was definitely informative and left me thinking, and the more casual narrative voice made it digestible and enjoyable. Weaving in real life female detectives and fictional ones was also a nice, multifaceted approach.

Thank you to Netgalley and Yale University Press for this arc. This did not influence my review.

This is a nonfiction book about the history of female detectives in the Victorian period. While some might find the style of this book a bit boring due to how research heavy it is, I personally really enjoyed it. This is definitely for someone who is actually interested in this topic.

Personally, I had very little knowledge on real Victorian detectives and only knew about it from my obsession with mystery novels as a child. In reality, it seems that being a detective in that era was not as glamorous or exciting as I thought.

First we learn about those in real life. These female detectives were not as sensational as the ones in the novels, and sometimes were cogs in the system which oppressed their sex. These were real working class women who caught petty crimes; mainly done by other low income women. In fact, they did it without proper payment or even credit. However, their contributions to the police force did indeed revolutionise the way women were portrayed in the arts.

We move on to the literary heroes of Victorian novels. These women are there for a purpose; female detectives served as a vehicle for “revenge” against e.g. domestic violence. They were characters still very much based on reality however contained elements that allowed them to be main character material. Female detectives were thus the way for the Victorian masses to express their frustrations with society. In many cases, this was a way to point out the lack of rights of married women and the abuse and mistreatment they suffered at the hands of the men in their lives. The book goes into great details about “domestic tyranny”. One could consider these as real feminist texts, as they did oppose the views of women being quiet and malleable. Many novels feature lower class women as detectives who showed themes of class and gender disparity.

Then goes into the theatrical. Melodramas and plays! These were much more interesting to me as this concept of a female detective turns dramatic. In thrillers and mysteries that featured these women, they were crass and gunslingers. They were crossdressers, actresses and helpers in an unjust society. In fact, this would be both inaccurate and accurate to real life female detectives.

While originally I thought this book would focus on British detectives, it also focused on American and Irish. In fact, some of the later content would be very American heavy and the impact of some of the (somewhat fabricated) female detectives had on detective fictions and feminist movements could be seen even across the pond.

I do not believe you need to be someone with previous knowledge on history or English literature. The book was not the easiest to follow but definitely not the hardest. The most knowledge one would need would be perhaps high school English literature due to the discussions on literary devices.

Overall an enlightening experience for me as I had not thought about the societal aspects of detective fiction or just women in general in detective fiction. One thing I would like to note though is the spoilers of multiple books and plays that one should be aware of. While it was an important part in understanding the bigger picture around the concept of a female detective, it was wholly unexpected. However I do not think it is a big deal.

I was very excited when I learnt about this book and as an academic I love seeing fellow academics writing books for the broad public because knowledge shouldn’t be hidden behind difficult to understand sentences. This book is entertaining and informative and I loved that it focused on real life women and literary figures too. The balance is really great and as a reader you can feel her passion for her topic. Highly recommend.

I loved this book. It was just the right balance between informative and entertaining, and it was great to hear the stories of early female detectives and some of the cases that they worked on. As a Librarian, I can appreciate all of the different resources the author must have used in order to tell this story so fully and in such an accessible way. A brilliant book that I will definitely be buying a copy of!

Very well written and well researched. As Sara Lodge states in the book, the history of female detectives - and what they means in reality and in fiction - is something I took great interest in. I enjoyed the historical and literary analysis that Lodge takes as her approach in this subject.

The Mysterious Case... is a fascinating history of the Victorian female detective - both the fictional heroines and their real-life counterparts. As a fan of historical mysteries and golden age crime, this provided some interesting and little-known historical context to many of my favourite stories.

Lodge has packed this book full of examples from stage, page, court records, newspapers and more. Some of the close-reading gets a little repetitive after a while: the reader is more interested in the case studies than any analysis of them. But Lodge's enthusiasm for her subject is contagious, making this a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Female detectives in the Victorian era only exist in books. That's how you think. But actually it wasn't all that unusual for women to work in this area. Often as loyalty testers, but also in numerous other cases, women have successfully worked as investigators. This book provides numerous exciting and very well-researched insights into this very special topic. Contemporary illustrations provide information about the image that people had of female detectives at the time. This is sometimes amusing, but it also reflects a certain skepticism towards such independent women. The book therefore offers crime history, female power and historical context. A convincing book on every level that deserves attention.

This was a fun and fascinating read, looking at female detectives in the Victorian era, mostly in Britain, both real - and far more mundane than one might imagine - and fictional, the latter with a particular (and interesting) emphasis on theater presentations. Lodge has an easy-to-read writing style and while the tone of the book is academic, that rarely bogs the narrative down. That said, especially towards the end, Lodge's focus shifts to the US and particularly New York, and where she provided a lot of background information and context for her English female detectives, that feels generally lacking for the US. (Although Lodge does divert into a discussion of female detectives and their connections to female spies during the Civil War in popular literature, which was interesting.)

Overall, a very easy to read and informative work of history; I enjoyed it a ton.

I loved this book far more than I expected to, I am happy to admit. As someone who loves mysteries, I am more than familiar with fictional detectives, but far less so with historical detectives. Enter Sara Lodge’s history!

Lodge has done a fantastic job of incorporating an incredibly wide range of sources, including Victorian novels about female detectives, that really kept me interested. (As an historian, a lot of what I do includes looking at how and where things are written.) And it doesn’t only touch on “detectives” specifically but all of the related roles that women covered, including “searchers”. Lodge’s research very much highlights how important their work was, as they were able to carry out tasks and investigations that men were not.

This approach allows for us to learn more about both these incredible women and the cases that they investigated. I wasn’t expecting for this book to touch on quite so many issues and areas of history, but it only shows why histories like these are so important.

Let’s play a word association game. What’s the first name you think of for “name a Victorian detective”? Hands up if Sherlock Holmes popped into your mind? He might be high in the public consciousness as a famous fictional detective, but in real life, an innocuous, overlooked woman was a far more likely type.
The author starts by giving us a fascinating insight into female ‘searchers’. These were the wives of policeman who held the unpaid role of searching people in custordy. They looked or ‘searched’ for evidence concealed on the person, but not just stolen goods, for they also recorded evidence of bruising and other signs of domestic abuse when a wife accused her husband of maltreatment.
This book is a fascinating read that reveals an aspect of the 19th century world little recognised today: that of the female detective. It was the stereotypical characteristics of women that suited them to the task of being a private investigator. Indeed, many private investigation agencies advertised for females, often to go undercover in lodging houses or as servants, to covertly observe comings and goings, and to seek out gossip.
The author reflects on different aspects of the social history of female detectives in the 19th century. For example, there was a fascination with female detectives in plays and novels. These were often bold characters who intruded on a male world, and thought nothing of cross-dressing to fit in. They delighted and perhaps titillated their audience, and made celebrities out of some of the actresses who portrayed them.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a passing interest in not only 19th century detectives and detecting, but how women were portrayed in plays, novels, and newspapers of the day. I love the idea that a band of resourceful women were able to make a living in a profession that from the 21st century we more strongly associate with Victorian men. But there again, it’s worth taking off those rose-tinted glasses to reflect that the female ‘searchers’ worked unpaid and held their role purely because they were married to a policeman!

An illuminating deep dive into the world of Victorian female detectives, this book offers a rich exploration of characters who broke societal norms and laid the groundwork for future crime fiction heroines. With well-researched analysis and fascinating details, it sheds light on both familiar and obscure figures, showing how these early portrayals challenged conventional views of women's roles in society. A must-read for fans of mystery and literary history alike, it reveals how the evolution of female detectives in fiction reflects broader shifts in gender roles and the perception of women in public life.

This book unearths the forgotten history of real Victorian women detectives, comparing their often deceptive work with the sensational, popular image of the female detective in fiction and drama. The book explores their roles as both unacknowledged working-class laborers and feminist icons in the murky underworld of Victorian society.

This thorough, well-researched book is an interesting look at the role of women in the early British police force and as private inquiry agents. While a scholarly work, it’s written in an accessible style and full of information that will appeal to a lay audience.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

I have been a fan of the Sherlock so this was fantastic to learn more about the Victorian female detective and it was very interesting and informative to learn the truth.

A really interesting subject matter with some less well known names but it is presented as a research paper, and so was a little too dry and meandering for me. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

A somewhat interesting look at the real history behind women employed in the 19th century as "detectives," which can mean several things within the fields of investigation and police work. With its length, it started to feel somewhat repetitive in making its main points. It's fairly academic in tone and provides a broad overview of the subject, with brief forays into the specific careers of real and fictional detectives. I wanted to like it more than I did, but it felt a bit dry to me.

I never tire of this subject matter and am always looking to learn about new-to-me authors and characters in the genre. While I generally enjoyed and appreciated this book, I was occasionally put off by the writer's frequent insistence that no one (besides her) has ever heard of these figures. I grant they are lesser known and deserve more attention, but even an amateur enthusiast like me knew several of these 'unknowns.'

This was a delightful read, entertaining but also I really learnt a lot about Victorian women investigators. I had not even considered that women would have been so active in such fields. A super read.

This was a fascinating book exploing the early days of women in the world of detective work- both in fiction and reality. Sara Lodge makes an impressive argument that women were involved in police work long before they 'officially' began being counted as police women, and it was these women who perhaps became the inspiration for the 'female detectives' of the early fictional stories.

Stories of female detectives were being sold by the 1860s, with the detectives donning disguises and blending into the background as servants to gather the proof needed to solve their cases because, the stories argued, it was easier for women to hide in plain sight than men. Often (possibly a case of wish fulfillment?) these fictional detectives were saving women from cruel husbands and bad marriages, accidental bigamy, or other abuses that they didn't see coming, but which the law couldn't protect them from. I loved how Lodge was able to find 19th century plays of female detectives where the women became early action heroes- beating the villanous men and police alike to save the day, with frequent disguises, cross-dressing, guns, and the physical ability to protect both themselves and their clients.

But as much as these heroines of the stage were looked up to, real life detectives occupied a murkier reality. As divorce became more common, many were involved in gathering evidence against spouses - and sometimes creating that evidence. At a time when public and private spheres was undergoing a shift, the private detective's role itself was being defined, and the women in the profession tended to take the blame if things went wrong.

Brilliantly researched and well-written, this is a book for any mystery lover to read. If you think the lady detective begins with Agatha Christie, think again!

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

The book had some strong points. The cases discussed are fascinating and compellingly written. The book also provides a great overview of life back then. And there was some clever wording that kept me appropriately amused. I also loved the visuals in the book. To me the only downside was the frequent less-than-conversational tone of the book when discussing sociology. Thank you to Netgalley and Yale University Press for the advance reader copy.

Behind its intriguing title, The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective is a captivating and very well-researched analysis of women sleuths in 19th-century Britain and America. Sara Lodge made it not only accessible but also entertaining—she knows how to play on words!—and the various illustrations she used enhance her investigation. By the time I finished the book, my perception of female detectives had completely changed.