Wattpad brings you a guest post from Milda Harris, author of Adventures in Funeral Crashing:
When I sat down to write Adventures in Funeral Crashing, my general premise was that I was writing a book about a girl who liked to crash funerals and somehow in the throes of the 3-Day Novel Contest that I was writing it for, Kait Lenox also turned into a female teen sleuth solving a murder mystery. While I had always been a fan of female sleuths, I had never really thought about writing a mystery book. Now, since I have, I have a secret to share - it’s really great fun to write them! Female sleuths rock!
And, here are my top five favorite female sleuths:
1. Veronica Mars, played by Kristen Bell, from the television show of the same name that aired from 2004-2007: Not only did teenage Veronica solve mysteries every episode, the most well known one being a season arc where she solved the murder of her best friend, but Veronica also always had a great witty line to make the dialogue super snappy and snarky. One of my favorites - “98 out of 100 people at that party would walk over my corpse for free gum.” Hilarious…and true.
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2. Nancy Drew from the books published under the name Carolyn Keene, but ghostwritten by a number of authors: Nancy Drew is a teen detective and so many books have been written about her over the last eighty some years that she has undergone a lot of changes, depending on which books you read. Still, Nancy was my childhood favorite and Nancy Drew mysteries were the first mysteries I ever read. I even remember the name of the first one I picked up and couldn’t put down. It was The Hidden Staircase where the teen detective solves the case of mysterious happenings in an old stone mansion. I was hooked after that and made my dad buy me a slew of subsequent Nancy Drew books.
3. Heather Wells from the books by Meg Cabot, starting with Size 12 Is Not Fat: Heather is a former teen pop star who lost all of her money and fame and is now in her twenties and working in a college dorm, when a murder takes place, and her sleuthing skills kick in. What I love most about Heather is that what goes through her mind is just what goes through yours - she’s not a hardboiled detective, she’s just a girl in her twenties trying to figure things out as she goes along from money to romance to mysterious murders at the dorm she works in. Heather makes me laugh. The books are funny.
4. Kinsey Millhone from Sue Grafton’s books starting with A is for Alibi: These are old school structured detective novels and Kinsey is serious about the work she does as a private investigator. No laughing matters here and the crimes are very serious, but I really enjoyed trying to figure out what was going on along with Kinsey as she pieces a case together. She’s very methodical.
5. Stephanie Plum, created by Janet Evanovich, starting with the book One For The Money which was also just made into a movie starring Katherine Heigl: Stephanie Plum is a female bounty hunter and is called a spunky cross between Nancy Drew and Dirty Harry. I’ll admit it. I haven’t actually read the books yet, but I’m dying to. I want to see the movie too, but am conflicted because I so want to read the book first! I have heard from numerous sources that the books are laugh out loud funny and great reads. Actually, in writing this article and talking to my cousin Lauren who absolutely adores mysteries, I found out that she is appalled that I haven’t read this series yet because years ago I got her to read it when I gave her one of the books as a Christmas present! Go figure! So, Stephanie Plum is on my list because she’s the next female sleuth that I’m really, really looking forward to reading.
That’s my top five favorite female sleuths! I hope you enjoy the sleuthing ventures and wacky teenage ramblings of Kait Lenox in Adventures in Funeral Crashing!
