I loved this! It was so fun that the authors got together to solve a real crime. I was invested the whole time and liked how the short chapters kept the pace up of the book. I thought this was really creative and super fun especially if you’re a mystery and crime lover.

Marie Benedict delivers a dazzling blend of historical fiction and murder mystery in 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗘𝗡𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗥𝗜𝗠𝗘. Set in 1930s London, this novel brings together crime-writing legends Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, and others as they form a secret society to solve a murder no one else can. The murder case—packed with locked-room intrigue, hidden motives, and shocking twists—kept me guessing until the very end.

I loved how Benedict crafted these iconic women with distinct personalities, making their camaraderie as gripping as the case itself. While it leans more into fiction than history, the mystery’s complexity and the vibrant depiction of the era had me hooked. This is a must-read for fans of golden-age mysteries or stories about women breaking barriers.

The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict
Narrated by Bessie Carter

It is thanks to Marie Benedict's The Mystery of Mrs. Christie and other historical fiction that I really became interested in all the secrecy about Agatha Christie's past. Now the author has written an historical fiction that includes Agatha Christie and other real life crime fiction writers of old. I was only familiar with the name of Dorothy Sayers and not familiar at all with the other featured crime writers in this book, besides Agatha Christie. Dorothy leads the way with this story as we see things from her POV.

I was able to have both the audiobook and ebook in front of me. Bessie Carter does a fabulous job of narrating the book and the ebook allowed me to search the internet for names and places as I listened to the story. Although the story is historical fiction, the afterword by the author lets us know what parts of the story lean on real life events and what parts of the story have been fictionalized. Now I'm interested in several other women crime fiction writers than just Agatha Christie and I foresee more more reading and researching in my future.

I got such a feel for the time and place and became well acquainted with the manner of dress and affectations of each of the women crime writers who aid Dorothy and Agatha in their investigation of the death of May Daniels, a young nurse who has been done wrong. Law enforcement wants no meddling from women and they also want to shelve this incident, putting all the blame of her death on the young woman herself. Dorothy, Agatha, and their cohorts are not going to allow this to happen and it's fun following them around on their sleuthing jaunts. Each woman will fall back on "what would so and so do", using their own fictional characters to help them decide how to approach each turn in this murder case. I was able to buddy read this story with DeAnn and we are now both interested in learning much more than we ever knew about these women.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for this ARC.

Dive in and follow an unexpected group of women who are not afraid to deft societal norms to follow their love of mystery and intrigue to take their passions off the pages of their books and into a real life mystery.

An absolutely fantastic literary start to a new year. #MarieBenedict created a fantastic twist on historical fiction with #TheQueensofCrime. The narrator was the perfect match for the perfect who done it Murder She Wrote esque saga.

#netgalley ##MacMillanAudio #arc

I thoroughly enjoyed this read! I was engaged the whole time and didn't want to put it down. The story was so good and I couldn't figure out what the ending was going to be.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

First of all, the narrator of this audiobook is excellent! Her pacing is spot on and she creates the perfect mood for the book. In terms of the book itself, this isn't classic Marie Benedict, and I definitely liked it less than some of her other historical fiction. However, Queens is a fun consideration of female crime writers in the early part of the twentieth century. I was familiar with several of them, but not all, so it was fun to get to know all five of the queens. The story is told in a pretty classic mystery mode, and it takes advantage of the women identifying typical tropes, et cetera. I didn't find the mystery itself all that compelling, though, and I thought some of the explanation was a bit repetitive. I also appreciated the illumination of gender dynamics during this time period, but that too was just a bit pedantic for my taste. That said, this is a book I'll recommend to readers who are fans of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, or other classic mystery writers.

Thank you to NetGalley for this audio ARC.

A interesting and enjoyable who-done-it about a team of some of the original great authors of who-done-its, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Baroness Emma Orczy. It also serves as a social observation on the bias against women in the workplace, and the treatment of women when victims of crime, of which we still have not made enough progress on as a society.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Net Galley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the Queens of Crime. It is an interesting mystery with famous authors doing the investigating. It was fun and entertaining. I would have liked an author's note at the end explaining some of the historical information.

I liked the narrator.

Marie Benedict has created another hit with this historical fiction work depicting real life mystery writers, including Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, who band together to create a club in order to solve a real life mystery to help them enter a male-dominated club. I loved this and know so many people who will also love it. The story is both fascinating and heartwarming and I loved the feminist theme and the way that the authors in the story used their female perspectives to see this mystery in a whole different light than their male counterparts. The narrator of this audiobook does a fabulous job and sounds exactly like I would picture Dorothy Sayers to sound. Marie Benedict’s books are already a hit with book clubs and these definitely will be as well. Ideal for fans of both cozy mysteries and historical fiction.

As a big fan of Marie Benedict, I was excited to receive an early copy of The Queens of Crime, and it did not disappoint! Marie Benedict tells a captivating story of how five women mystery writers embark to solve a true crime to help be taken more seriously by their male counterparts.

The narrator did a phenomenal job, I am interested to listen to other books she has narrated.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for my advance reader copy in exchange for my honest feedback.

I thoroughly anjoyed this take on historical fiction where 5 well-known female mystery writers band together in 1930s London to solve a crime in the hopes of establishing legitmacy with their male counterparts. I found the whole premise delightful, and it was executed well. I'd love to see this become a series!

The narration was great.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #MacmillanAudio for a free copy of #TheQueensOfCrime by Marie Benedict. All opinions are my own.

As a big fan of Marie Benedict, I was looking forward to The Queens of Crime. This interesting take on historical fiction and crime/mystery definitely didn’t disappoint. I really enjoyed learning more about these five women crime writers, especially Dorothy Sayers. Marie Benedict tells an intriguing story of how these “Queens” embark to solve a true crime to help be taken more seriously by their male counterparts.

Bessie Carter was an excellent narrator, very entertaining and good accents to help you keep all the characters on track.

Thank you NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the early copy. All opinions are my own.

I'm a big fan of Marie Benedict, and I thought this book was pretty good! If you enjoy Agatha Christie and that style of mystery, you'll likely find this one really enjoyable.

Thank you, NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this ARC audiobook for review. Marie Benedict always knows how to bring history to life as all of her historical fiction stories are always based on a nugget of truth. There really was the life and murder of Dorothy Sayers, although the murder was never solved. This book brings together the top women mystery writers of that time period, including the infamous Agatha Christie, to solve the mystery of Dorothy’s murder. Benedict shows the struggle for women writers of the time period in being taken seriously for their craft and their intelligence beyond who they are married to.

Thank you to #NetGalley for this book in exchange for an honest review. This was my first Marie Benedict novel and I thought it was written really well. I was pleasantly surprised that it was a murder mystery. I really liked the use of real historical figures as well.

London, 1930, five of the most successful female mystery writers band together to secure entry into the male only Detectives Club. Since women are not generally welcome in the all-male club, in order to do so they need to prove their worth (apparently their best sellers are not enough) and so they find a real-life crime to solve. They find the case of May Daniels, a young nurse who has gone missing since she went to France with a friend. The women work well together and investigate even though one of the women starts to receive threats and is put in danger.

I really enjoyed this one, I love when real-life people are characters (Agatha Christie is one of the authors) and the mystery was fun to see it reveal itself throughout the book. Both the twists of the mystery storyline and learning about the characters made this a fun read. I loved listening to a good portion of this book because the narrator was great (always love a good accent), although at points it got a little confusing and I'm glad I had the book to refer back to and read. I have loved the Marie Benedict novels I have read so far (I finished the Mitford Affair after this one) and I will look to her backlist for more while I patiently wait for her next novel.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ARC to review

This was just scrummy! Grab a cup of tea and a scone and settle in your most comfy chair for this cozy mystery about female mystery writers solving a real life mystery. Come on! What could be better!

Historical fiction author Marie Benedict has once again written a compelling story about strong females. 1930 in London, crime writer Dorothy L. Sayers brings together four more of the greatest female crime writers to try and show the men that they are their equals. Becoming a group known as the “queens of crime”, Sayers along with these other female crime writers, believe that they only way to show the men of the day their worth is to solve a real crime.

Benedict spins together a compelling story featuring mid-way crime writers in the style of a mid-war crime (using a true murder from the time period) novel, à la the Scarlet Pimpernel, Poirot, Miss Marple, etc.

The detective story lover in me just loved this! A fantastic cast of characters, and a joy to listen to, and the narration by Bessie Carter, famous from Bridgerton, was perfection. Brava!

@netgalley
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Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers were some of my favorite authors growing up. I've read their full oeuvres over the years. So it was fun to see them as the main characters in murder mystery and think about how their personalities - and experience writing murder mysteries - would lend themselves to solving one.

The murder itself was a bit generic. I think the personalities of the Queens of Crime and their growing friendships are really what made this book such a fun read for me. I was sad to say goodbye them to them at the end of the book, but I did learn some new things about their lives that I didn't know.

This was excellent on audiobook. The narrator did a wonderful job.


A huge thank you to the author and the publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

I haven’t found a Marie Benedict book that I haven’t enjoyed. Her latest, The Queens of Crime was a great listen.

The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict (Goodreads Author)
Narrated by: Bessie Carter
Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
Release date: 02-11-25
My rating: 3 of 5
Bookshelves/tags: 2024, audio, crime-mysteries, england, feminism, france, historical-fiction, netgalley, read, women-centered.

I really appreciated the strong female and feminist theme of this mystery on audiobook. I yearn for novels that give accurate historical information, but also novels which convey the lives of intelligent women who existed in our societies because it is critical and important. I thank Marie Benedict for her devotion to this theme, her research and uncovering of their lives, and her sharing of them in historical fiction. I feel the style of Benedict's verbiage and writing tells the story in a way that we readers "read" about the events in detail, rather than experience, feel or visualize the characters, their circumstances, dilemmas, and outcomes.

This novel begins in 1930's London featuring actual female mystery writers, including: Dorothy Sayers, her rival Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. These women are regularly faced with misogynistic mystery authors, who barely tolerate the women and really don't want many (or any) women in "their" group. These strong women then decide to form their own group called "The Queens of Crime" and decide to solve an actual murder. and prove their worth.

The story is loosely based on a real-life murder where a young nurse, May Daniels, vacations in France and disappears just before departing for home on the ferry back to England. May Daniels turns up a few months later murdered in a park.

I'm not sure if it was the style of writing or the narrator reading the writing, but something didn't click for me and I had really hoped it would. I know many people are huge fans of this author and narrator, and they will more than likely enjoy this novel and audiobook.

NOTE TO GR LIBRARIANS: There isn't an option on GR to choose "audiobook" and I hope someone will add one. Many thanks.

My sincere thanks to St. Martin's Press, Net Gallery, and the author for my ARC. My review and opinions are mine.