The Queens of Crime

The Queens of Crime (2025) is a historical fiction mystery written by American author Heather Terrell under the pen name Marie Benedict. The novel follows England’s most famous female mystery novelists—Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Emma Orczy, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham—as they attempt to solve an actual mystery to earn their place in the all-male Detection Club. As the women investigate the disappearance of nurse May Daniels, Dorothy must confront her difficult past and the challenges of working in a man’s world. The novel’s themes relate to women’s challenges, the criminal justice system, and class expectations.

This guide refers to the 2025 St. Martin’s e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of gender discrimination, rape, sexual violence, pregnancy loss and termination, graphic violence, and death.

Plot Summary

Novelist Dorothy Sayers meets with fellow writer Agatha Christie to discuss the exclusion of women from the Detection Club, a new professional group for mystery writers. They decide to found a new club exclusively for women, recruiting writers Emma Orczy, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham to become the Queens of Crime.

Agatha and Dorothy sneak Emma, Ngaio, and Margery into the Detection Club initiation ceremony. Hoping to avoid a scene, the president initiates the women, but the other members shun them. Dorothy proposes that the Queens of Crime try to solve a real murder to prove that they belong. They settle on the murder of May Daniels, whose body was recently found after she disappeared during a trip to Boulogne, France, with her friend Celia McCarthy the previous October.

Dorothy accompanies her husband, Mac, a reporter covering the case, to Boulogne, and the Queens of Crime secretly follow. The women retrace May and Celia’s steps from the ferry building to a nearby café, where a chatty waitress says she recommended a hat shop to May and Celia the day they disappeared. At the hat shop, the shopkeeper reveals that May and Celia didn’t buy anything on their initial visit but that May returned later without Celia to buy a plain hat. In addition, the women learn that May was seen crying in a park on the day she disappeared.

Newspapers begin to suggest that May was killed for her involvement in the drug trade. Confident that these rumors are false, the Queens of Crime inspect the train station bathroom where May disappeared. When they can find no alternative exit, Dorothy theorizes that May used her new hat to sneak past Celia in disguise. Police reports reveal that the ground beneath May’s body was covered in her blood, even though she had no visible wounds. The women speculate that the blood was from a miscarriage or a dangerous abortion.

Dorothy and Ngaio visit May’s sisters, who explain that May’s trip to Boulogne was a spur-of-the-moment addition to a planned trip to Brighton. They reveal that May planned to visit London with Celia the night before they traveled to Brighton. In a box of May’s belongings, the women find two expensive dresses, recent tickets to a show in London, and a newspaper article about a missing violinist. Dorothy and Agatha contrive a chance meeting with Celia, who reveals that May went to London alone. She hints that May was dating a wealthy man in the months before her disappearance. Dorothy interviews the man who saw May in the park the day she disappeared. He claims that May argued with a man and then furiously wrote several pages.

Police receive a written confession to May’s murder but quickly dismiss it as a hoax. The women discover that the person who purchased May’s expensive dress may have been Louis Williams, an insurance executive mentioned in the article found in May’s possession about the missing violinist, Leonora Denning. Dorothy and Agatha meet Basil Dean, the producer of the play May saw shortly before she died. He invites them to see the same play and meet the theater’s director, Sir Alfred Chapman.

Dorothy theorizes that May had an affair with Louis that ended when she got pregnant and that he was involved in her death. When she spontaneously meets with Louis under the guise of buying insurance, he reveals offhandedly that he was supposed to see the play but was called away, seemingly confirming Dorothy’s theory. At the theater, Dorothy and Agatha find Sir Alfred Chapman boring until he reveals that theater performers often gather at Café de Paris, where Leonora Denning disappeared.

When Dorothy is attacked outside her home, she’s confident that the incident isn’t random. She recovers at the country home of her cousin Ivy. Ivy is a caretaker for John, an illegitimate son Dorothy had before meeting her husband, Mac. Although Dorothy longs to “adopt” John, Mac claims that the time isn’t right. Dorothy’s memories of being unexpectedly pregnant double her determination to connect May Daniels to Louis Williams.

The women travel back to Boulogne. Dorothy hypothesizes that, on the day she disappeared, May snuck away from Celia briefly to hide something in a locker at the station but was intercepted by her killer. Posing as May’s relatives, Dorothy and Emma gain access to her personal belongings and steal a locker key they find hidden in her purse. Inside the locker, they find a letter from May Daniels confirming that she had an affair with a married man. The letter also reveals that she was assaulted during her relationship, was pressured to have an abortion when she revealed the pregnancy, and was approached in Boulogne by a man offering to arrange an abortion.

That night, a man attempts to break into Dorothy’s hotel room. When she returns to London, she finds a letter threatening to reveal John’s existence unless she drops the May Daniels case. Urging her to ignore the threat, Agatha takes Dorothy to dinner at a luxurious restaurant, where the Queens use Margery as bait to lure the lecherous Louis Williams into a hotel room. Louis admits to having an affair with May but insists that he was never intimate with her and had nothing to do with her death. Dorothy allows him to leave, realizing that the letter never explicitly named Louis as the father of May’s child. When Mac reveals that Jimmy Williams and Sir Alfred Chapman are deeply involved in criminal activities, the women add them to the list of suspects.

The women trick Louis into gathering his father and Sir Alfred and then join them and accuse the men of May’s death. Sir Alfred admits that he raped May after meeting her at the theater and that he conspired with Jimmy to kill her. Jimmy claims that he believed Louis was the father and insists that he only wanted Sir Alfred to arrange an abortion. Jimmy’s secretary, Miss Bennett, overhears this confession and flies into a rage, revealing her secret affair with Sir Alfred. She pushes him down a flight of stairs, killing him instantly. The women protect Miss Bennett and warn Jimmy to reveal the truth to the police, or they’ll use the evidence they have to pin the murder on Louis. He agrees. Eight months later, Jimmy is convicted. As a result of their role in the case, the Detection Club enthusiastically welcomes the women as members.