The Best Female Sleuths from Popular Culture

According to Sadie Trombetta,
for criminalelement.com

Yeah, I know...

In March 2016, criminalelement.com asked Sadie Trombetta to list The 13 Best Female Sleuths from Pop Culture. The list was sharp, to the point and just a whole lot of fun. So much so that barely two weeks later, Sadie provided The Best Female Sleuths in Pop Culture, Part II, which yielded another twemnty-three worthy gumshoes.

Sure, you can quibble at some of the choices, and some of the rankings (Dana Scully from the X-Files over Nancy Drew?) place undue weight on sleuths from television and film. It should also be noted that not all of the "detectives" are actually private eyes (or even detectives), but overall I thought both lists were a lot of fun, and Sadie gets extra points for venturing beyond the movie/TV world to include quite a few detectives from literature and other sources.

Here are both lists, but do yourself a favour and follow the two links above to catch some of Sadie's breezy but razor-sharp comments on each of these gumshoes...

THE 13 BEST FEMALE SLEUTHS FROM POP CULTURE

1. Miss Marple
2. Dana Scully
3. Nancy Drew
4. Olivia Benson
5. Jessica Fletcher
6. Clarice Starling
7. Women's Murder Club
8. Precious Ramotswe
9. Veronica Mars
10. Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles
11. Stephanie Plum
12. Lisbeth Salander
13. Harriet Welsch

THE BEST FEMALE SLEUTHS FROM POP CULTURE, PART IITwilight Shadows by Emilie Richards, featuring P.I. Kelley Samuels.

1. Phryne Fisher
2. Sharon McCone
3. Mrs. Bradley
4. Kinsey Millhone
5. Alex Morrow
6. Kate Beckett
7. Eve Dallas
8. Paddy Meehan
9. Lily Ivory
10. Flavia de Luce
11. Anna Lee
12. Amelia Peabody
13. Velma Dinkley
14. Mary Russell
15. Cordelia Gray
16. Jane Tennison
17. Laura Holt
18. Saga Norén
19. Vera Stanhope
20. Stella Gibson
21. Susan Grey
22. V.I. Warshawski
23. Ms. Tree