Sally Cline – After Agatha

Today, I am on the After Agatha Book Tour for Oldcastle Books and No Exit Press. Thank you for the copy of the book and my invitation to this tour.

From Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith to Val McDermid and JK Rowling, After Agatha is an indispensable guide to women’s crime writing over the last century and an exploration of why women read crime.

Spanning the 1930s to present day, After Agatha charts the explosion in women’s crime writing and examines key developments on both sides of the Atlantic: from the women writers at the helm of the UK Golden Age and their American and Canadian counterparts fighting to be heard, to the 1980s experimental trio, Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton, who created the first female PIs, and the more recent emergence of forensic crime writing and domestic noir thrillers such as Gone Girl and Apple Tree Yard.

After Agatha examines the diversification of crime writing and highlights landmark women’s novels which featured the marginalised in society as centralised characters.

Cline also explores why women readers are drawn to the genre and seek out justice in crime fiction, in a world where violent crimes against women rarely have such resolution.

The book includes interviews with dozens of contemporary authors such as Ann Cleeves, Sophie Hannah, Tess Gerritsen and Kathy Reichs and features the work of hundreds of women crime and mystery writers.

It is an essential read for crime fiction lovers.

I am not usually a Non-fiction reader, it just so happens that this particular week I have now been on two tours for non-fiction books. After Agatha being one. I was so curious about this book as an avid crime reader and particularly women’s crime fiction, too.

It’s very clearly a well researched book, and we find out about female crime writers from the early days of The Golden Age of crime writing. Authors such as Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey, and Dorothy L Sayers are included.

I found it to be a really interesting exploration of crime and thriller writing over the years. The fact that it spans the decades right up to modern noir fiction really means it is crammed with information. I did think that some of Sally Clines’ statements were rather sweeping, and one in particular, I didn’t agree with, but sometimes it’s good to read challenging material.

Although the book does focus on female authors, it also dedicates chapters to different areas, like, diversity in crime novels, using violence against women in writing. The different subject matter is quite wide ranging and made for a different read.

Overall, it is interesting, detailed, and informative book that I think plenty of crime readers will enjoy.