Introduction. Gender and genre : the woman detective and the diffusion of generic voices -- Amelia Butterworth : the spinster detective / Joan Warthling Roberts -- The detective heroine and the death of her hero : Dorothy Sayers to P.D. James / SueEllen Campbell -- Gray areas : P.D. James's unsuiting of Cordelia / Nicola Nixon -- Questing women : the feminist mystery after feminism / Sandra Tomc -- From spinster to hipster : the 'suitability' of Miss Marple and Anna Lee / Glenwood Irons and Joan Warthling Roberts -- Nancy Drew : the once and future prom queen / Bobbie Ann Mason -- Feminist murder : Amanda Cross reinvents womanhood / Jeanne Addison Roberts -- Murders academic : women professors and the crimes of gender / Susan J. Leonardi -- Talkin' trash and kickin' butt : Sue Grafton's hard-boiled feminism / Scott Christianson -- The female dick and the crisis of heterosexuality / Ann Wilson -- 'Friends is a weak word for it': female friendship and the spectre of lebianism in Sara Paretsky / Rebecca A. Pope -- Habeass corpus: feminism and detective fiction / Kathleen Gregory Klein