{"id":7001,"date":"2018-01-10T07:17:51","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T12:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7001"},"modified":"2018-01-10T07:17:51","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T12:17:51","slug":"fictional-female-investigators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7001","title":{"rendered":"Fictional Female Investigators"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Helen

Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison channeling Hamlet<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cA bit of a boys\u2019 club,\u201d says Kristen Lepionka about the place of women detectives in the world of crime fiction. In her new novel, The Last Place You Look<\/em>, she took on the task of creating a credible female private investigator and immediately discovered the female point of view involves \u201cmuch more than just a difference of chromosomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Women’s life experiences, and their interaction with crime (either as police, private investigators, or\u00a0 amateur detectives) is just so different from men\u2019s. In detective fiction, she says, they battle \u201crampant sexism, being underestimated, excluded, and harassed.\u201d Oh, and they also must solve cases.<\/p>\n

This lesson is oh-so-clear to me having just read a crime novel with a female protagonist, written by a man, which would have been much better had he named his main character, say, Sam instead of Samantha, and recognized he was writing a man. This character never seemed like a woman to me, though he gave her one annoying trait meant to symbolize the feminine sensibility. Every other page, she started crying.<\/p>\n

Lepionka created a list of ten fictional female detectives<\/a> she thinks really work and they\u2019re written by both men and women. From her list, I\u2019ve read books featuring: Antoinette Conway (a character created by Tana French); Alex Morrow (Denise Mina); and Smilla Jasperson (Peter H\u00f8eg). To her list, I\u2019d add Nikki Liska (Tami Hoag), Maisie Dobbs (Jacqueline Winspear), and Karin M\u00fcller (David Young). And, never forget Lynda LaPlante\u2019s development of feisty, put-upon DCI Jane Tennison<\/a>: \u201cDon\u2019t call me Ma\u2019am; I\u2019m not the bloody queen.\u201d Now I\u2019m excited to read crime-master Michael Connelly\u2019s new book, The Late Show<\/em>\u2014his first to feature female detective Ren\u00e9e Ballard. Can he do as well as he does with Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller?<\/p>\n

Thirty-five years ago, Sara Peretsky faced the same issues as Lepionka in creating her iconic female detective, V.I. Warshawski. In a recent LitHub essay<\/a>, she describes imagining a new type of detective, one who would be \u201cneither victim nor vamp,\u201d one \u201cwho would reflect the experience of my generation . . . who could have a sex life without it defining them as wicked. Women who could solve their own problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peretsky took her character\u2019s ardent spirit a step further. In 1986, speaking at a conference on \u201cWomen in the Mystery,\u201d she spoke out about the disturbing increase in explicit violence and sadism against women. Her remarks fell on receptive ears, coinciding with growing awareness of women writers\u2019 ignored role in the mystery\/crime genre, despite the continuing quality of their work<\/a>. Thus was the organization Sisters in Crime<\/a>\u2014of which I am a member\u2014born.<\/p>\n

Not that essays like these nor a single organization can overcome all the ingrained attitudes and expectations. Perhaps it isn\u2019t a surprise that the same new book I mentioned above with the weak female characterization includes a graphic, sadistic, and totally unnecessary threat to the investigator. More work to do. Write on!
\n<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cA bit of a boys\u2019 club,\u201d says Kristen Lepionka about the place of women detectives in the world of crime fiction. In her new novel, The Last Place You Look, she took on the task of creating a credible female … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Fictional Female Investigators -- fighting much more than crime","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61,54,40,174],"tags":[451,1207,609],"class_list":["post-7001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character","category-detective","category-fiction","category-first-draft-blog","tag-female-protagonist","tag-kristen-lepionka","tag-sisters-in-crime"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1OV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7003,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7001\/revisions\/7003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}