The intriguing phenomenon of the female crime writer is explored in an account of the Grandes Dames of the traditional detective novel, D.L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh, with a chapter on Josephine Tey and consideration of many others. These women, who were of strikingly similar backgrounds, all lead lives which were similarly peaceful, conventional, conformist and 'respectable. But something gave them such violent imaginations and made them excel in what might seem a most unlikely field.