A couple of female fictional detectives who have broken the mould

With the notable exception of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, most fictional detectives tend to be men. They’ll either be heavy drinkers or smokers – or both – and come with a whole lot of baggage. Well, modern mystery fiction has seen many more female detectives take centre stage and here are a couple who have broken the mould.

Alex Morrow

Morrow features in a five-book series by Scottish novelist Denise Mina. Morrow makes her first appearance in the novel Still Midnight, which is described as ‘Tartan Noir’. She is called in todeal with what initially seemed like an armed robbery in the home of a respectable Asian family in the Glasgow suburbs, but which quickly escalated into a botched kidnapping. Trying to zero in on the bigger issues at play, Morrow must also fight a battle of her own for credibility among her mainly male colleagues.

Not only that, but DS Morrow has a family at home to juggle as well as she seeks to prove her capability and carve out her own space.

Darlene O’Hara

In many ways, O’Hara epitomizes the hard-boiled New York detective. Hard drinker, no-nonsense but deeply intuitive. In other ways, she couldn’t be further from a Chandler creation. O’Hara features in the novels of Peter de Jonge - Buried on Avenue B and Shadows Still Remain - exude a noirish sensibility combined with gritty, contemporary issues.

O’Hara became an NYPD detective after first being a teenage mother to sone Axl Rose and has a refreshingly relatable side to her otherwise brilliant and incisive character.

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