Four crime novels featuring powerful female characters

Christopher Swann is a bestselling novelist and teacher. A graduate of Woodberry Forest School in Virginia, he earned his Ph.D. in creative writing from Georgia State University. He has been a Townsend Prize finalist, longlisted for the Southern Book Prize, and a winner of the Georgia Author of the Year award. He lives with his wife and two sons in Atlanta, where he is the English department chair at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School.

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At CrimeReads Swann tagged four crime novels featuring powerful female characters, including:

Cop Town by Karin Slaughter (2014)

Slaughter’s standalone is set in 1970s Atlanta. Kate Murphy is a brand-new police officer on a force that recently hired women but doesn’t want them there; being an attractive blond makes her harassment worse. On the surface Kate seems like a pretty, rich girl playing cop, and before her first day is over she wants to quit. But she is also a recent widow and Jewish, both of which deepen her character and her fortitude—most of her white male co-workers are misogynistic racists who are also suspicious of Jews, and an openly antisemitic cop killer roams the city streets. Kate gets partnered with Maggie Lawson, whose brother and uncle are also cops, although unhappy that Maggie wants to continue the family tradition. Both women must contend with colleagues who despise their presence, the aforementioned cop killer, and a shifting social and cultural landscape. Details like the uniforms the women are given—all deliberately too big, even the shoes—ground the story in a gritty realism. Cop Town is as much about Kate and Maggie’s growth and acceptance of themselves as police officers as it is a gripping thriller, and Kate’s journey especially makes for compelling reading.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue