From Agatha Christie to Gillian Flynn: 50 great thrillers by women
In response to a list of the 100 best crime novels that had only 28 female authors, Ann Cleeves, Val McDermid and Dreda Say Mitchell and other leading writers nominate some alternatives
When the Sunday Times picked its 100 favourite crime and spy novels published since 1945 last weekend, only 28 were by women. “Seeing the chronic conscious and unconscious bias against work by women is enraging,” wrote Marian Keyes on Twitter. “Yeh, and don’t @ me, saying that men are just better, don’t be that tool.”
Keyes got the ball rolling with some suggestions of books that could have been included. So we asked some of the UK’s best female crime writers for further suggestions, just to get us up to 50 and even the scales.