The best mysteries for exceptionally quirky female sleuths

Fifteen-year-old, gawky, recently orphaned, Mary Russell meets Sherlock Holmes the afternoon she nearly steps on him on the Sussex Downs when he’s about to commit a crime against himself. Brilliant, Mary’s intellect captures Holmes’ interest immediately, and thus begins a markedly odd, if singularly fruitful, partnership between the two. She, an eventual Oxford student in Theology; he, the Consulting Detective of Scotland Yard, and sometime agent provocateur in Her Majesty’s Service via his beloved brother, Mycroft. Mary is smart as a whip, a singularly apt pupil, and unbeknownst to Holmes, finds a place for herself deep in his heart. For her part, she is enrapt and en-irked with Holmes by turns, growing into an elegant co-protagonist by hook, crook, bolt-hole, and disguise. They are enchanting together.

Emily Pollifax is struggling with her quiet life when she decides to take the train from New Brunswick, New Jersey, and her prize-winning geraniums, to Washington, D.C. where, like any ordinary retiree, she calls upon the CIA, volunteering her services as a spy. One case of slightly mistaken identity later, the higher-ups realize [horrified] she’s not their operative, and they’ve sent her to Mexico on a dangerous mission. The other books take her all over the world… to Turkey, Albania, China, Switzerland, Zambia, anywhere and everywhere her unique, grandmotherly brand of charm, nerve, wit, verve, and intrigue are needed. Mrs. Pollifax is the inspiration behind my intuitive investigator traveling the world for her cases, and Miss Marple has nothing on her.

On the surface, the sleuth in this series would seem to be mustachioed Jim Qwilleran, newspaperman, who, when he inherits a boatload of money with a condition, moves to Moose County—400 miles north of everywhere. Two Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum, in tow. It might seem that his male feline, Koko, is the sleuth; he’s the more vocal of the two. But when all’s said and done, no matter if he’s writing his weekly column, The Qwill Pen, acting in a community theatre production, or patronizing local artists, when it comes right down to it, Yum Yum, his little girl Siamese, is always the one who inadvertently points him in the direction of the miscreant. Clever girl.

Isabel Dalhousie is a moral philosopher by profession. She edits a journal on the subject. One of the most intriguing aspects of this series is that she’s always weighing the moral shoulds and shouldn’ts of her circumstances and her cases. What is her obligation to act? To speak? To pursue? Insatiably curious, her habit makes these books ripe with meaning. Set in a charming Edinburgh, between her bassoon-playing friend Jamie, her no-nonsense, Spiritualist housekeeper, Grace, and her slightly wild, deli-owning niece, Cat, Isabel has her hands and her mind full navigating what’s right, what’s wrong, and what’s in-between. Her constant self-scrutiny is part of what caused me to be as transparent as I am about the metaphysics in my own books.

Flavia de Luce, eleven, at Buckshaw in Bishop’s Lacey, a bucolic hamlet in the English countryside, has a passion for poisons. Bright, bored, and with a nose for trouble, Flavia begins to put together things that do not go together in a series of cases that showcase her mind, grow up her heart, and keep her busy whilst her body matures. There are secrets begging for revelation in her quiet home just as there are secrets in and amidst her own clan. Two older sisters, an absent-minded father, and not enough money go to create Flavia as ingenious, resourceful, and clever as they come. I never can resist a smart, smarter, smartest girl protagonist. She makes me laugh out loud. Sign me up—forever.