Watching My Inspirations: Women Sleuths from the Small Screen Who Influenced My Historical Heroine by Celeste Connally, author of All’s Fair in Love and Treachery

It goes without saying that there are many fictional female detectives I’ve read and wished that, one, I could walk in her shoes—or just be her sidekick—and, two, that have inspired me in writing my own female sleuths. Miss Marple is at the top, naturally. Nancy Drew, a close second. And Agatha Christie’s other lady detective, Tuppence Beresford, is a personal favorite. And I could name many, many more, especially from more recent times.

But I’m also a huge fan of television and movies, with TV shows taking the lead in my viewing affections, if I’m being honest. There have been a slew of detective shows airing on TV over the decades, too, with some of the most enjoyable employing female sleuths as the lead character.

What I don’t think I fully grasped until I began to think about my topic for this Criminal Element post, though, is just how much these shows positively affected me when it comes to crafting the personality and internal fortitude of my own main character, Lady Petra Forsyth.

And it doesn’t matter that Lady Petra lives and sleuths Regency-era England—1815, to be specific. She was created by me, a modern-day author who grew up both reading and watching excellent stories set in a variety of centuries, backgrounds, and locales. And I happily feel they all served to give my 19^th century sleuth a derring-do that defies the label of just one era.

What all my favorite small-screen female detectives have in common is a willingness to go against the norms of their time to search out the truth. They all seek to help others, especially other women, and they all have to fight to be taken seriously in their roles as investigators. (They also did all of this with flair and great hair, but that’s just a bonus.)

Yet each and every one of them, I now realize, had the most important thing, the aspect that put them on the screen in the first place, and made them one of my favorites to watch: a moxie that can’t be contained.

And thus, in order of their airing dates, here are six of my very favorite women sleuths from TV who inspire both me and Lady Petra with their confidence, adventuresome ways, and determination to continue solving cases above all else.

1) Sabrina Duncan, Kelly Garrett, Jill Munroe, etc., from Charlie’s Angels (Aired 1976–1981)

Premise: Three women, each with unique skills and strengths, are recruited to work for a detective agency run by the mysterious Charlie—whose voice we only ever hear on speakerphone.

This series is peak 1970s hair and fashion, and it was glorious. I loved how the three women worked together and had each other’s backs, and they were never anything less than strong and capable. Charlie’s Angels certainly helped inspire how my main character, Petra, learns to accept help from her three friends, and how they lift up each other’s strengths.

2) Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote (Aired 1984–1996)

Premise: Author-turned-amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher uses her intelligence and what she learns from writing books to solve mysteries in the charming small town of Cabot Cove, Maine.

What’s not to love about this cult classic show? But besides being the blueprint for every cozy mystery written since 1984, what I really loved about Jessica Fletcher was how she always kept a calm head in every situation, and never apologized for being both clever and a good writer.

3) Maddie Hayes from Moonlighting (Aired 1985–1989)

Premise: Former model Maddie Hayes reluctantly teams up with sarcastic detective David Addison to form the Blue Moon Detective Agency.

First, I loved that Maddie begins as a fish out of water and learns to be a detective, just like every good amateur sleuth. But what I loved most about this show was the incredible banter between the two leads. It’s some of the best snappy back-and-forth ever seen in television, and I can’t help but recall how much I loved their banter when I write scenes between Petra and her paramour, Duncan Shawcross.

4) Veronica Mars from Veronica Mars (Aired 2004–2019)

Premise:  A whip-smart teenager whose father is the former sheriff, Veronica uses her intellect, humor, and a fearless attitude to solve cases in the town of Neptune.

From the first episode, Veronica was nobody’s fool. She knew she had a particular set of skills, and could use them well. She was a 21^st century Nancy Drew, with an extra side of sass, and served as a reminder that youth didn’t necessarily equate to inexperience or a lack of mature intelligence when it comes to solving mysteries.

5) Phryne Fisher from Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (Aired 2012–2015)

Premise: In late 1920s Melbourne, Australia, Phryne Fisher makes for a chic, clever sleuth who carries a pearl-handled gun and a zest for life.

This show is, of course, based on the Phryne Fisher mysteries by Kerry Greenwood, and it was brilliantly brought to life. I adored the Roaring Twenties setting and that Phryne lived life on her own terms and happily stayed single—with romantic liaisons when she pleased, of course—all while solving mysteries. Phryne and her independent, single-woman spirit is definitely an inspiration for Petra’s determinedly positive outlook toward her scandalous situation of remaining unmarried and her unwillingness to let being single be a deterrent to having a love life.

6) Eliza Scarlet from Miss Scarlet and the Duke (First aired in 2020; currently in season 5 and renamed Miss Scarlet)

Premise: Eliza Scarlet uses the investigating skills she learned from her late father as well as her sharp, observational mind to forge a path as a lady detective in Victorian-era England.

This became one of my new favorite TV shows from its first episode. I love that Eliza must navigate the strict patriarchal society of 1882 England and does so by never letting anyone tell her no—including the detectives at Scotland Yard, whom she must constantly convince to work with her and not dismiss her just because she’s a woman. Eliza also remains unmarried in order to keep both her freedom and her detective agency in her own hands. Miss Scarlet is a show that delights in highlighting a clever female sleuth and continues to be a charming inspiration to my own Lady Petra in the Regency era.