Poison Pen Letters Detective Novels

Three famous female detective novel writers have written on this subject, incidentally featuring female detectives.

Agatha Christie has written "The Moving Finger" (1942-3) featuring Miss Jane Marple as the detective who solves the case in the quiet town of Lymstock. Only after two deaths, a blackmailing followed by an attempt at murder, is the case resolved by Miss Marple.

Dorothy Sayers, wrote "Gaudy Night" (1935) setting it intriguingly in a women's college at Oxford. However no murders take place in the novel, the spotlight being on women's higher education. The discussions among the female dons give ample scope for display of Sayers' erudition & her detective Miss Harriet Vane solves it with a little help from Lord Peter Wimsey.

"Poison in the Pen" (1955) by Patricia Wentworth features her detective Miss Maud Silver solving a spate of Poison Pen letters & a suicide in the village of Tilling Green. Some reviewers felt it was even better than Christie's book.