Golden Age Detective Novels set in Female Educational Establishments

One of Agatha Christie's more intriguing novels is "Cat Among the Pigeons" set in a fictional prestigious girls' school, Meadowbank, whose headmistress is the legendary Miss  Bulstode & her co-founder Miss Chadwick. Miss Vansittart is a minor edition of Miss Bulstode. The milieu of a girls' boarding school is lovingly evoked until tragedy strikes with the murder of the games mistress. After another murder also takes place, in spite of police called in after the first, a little schoolgirl, Julia Upjohn, gets a clue, uses her brains & rushes off to see Poirot, whom she knows through her aunt. The scene where she unrolls her stockings & produces a cascade of diamonds, leaves even Poirot, speechless!

The other novel is Dorothy Sayers' last detective novel, "Gaudy Night." It is set in the fictional all-female College, Shrewsbury in Oxford. It is the alma mater of Harriet Vane, fiancee of Lord Peter Wimsey. No murder takes place in this book, which is quite long. But the atmosphere of a women's college is meticulously evoked. Though only some acts of vandalism take place, Harriet Vane, as a former alumni, is called in, because of her occupation as a mystery writer. But the mystery is finally solved only after the arrival of Lord Wimsey. The side-effects of women's education & employment also come into play.

The almost exclusive feminine cast of both these novels provide a refreshing change as both the authors are ladies!