The business of sleuthing is generally thought to be a man's game, but there is really no reason that it has to be true. Although it may not have been a popular thing to admit in generations past, the feminine mind can be just as analytical and deductive as a masculine one, perhaps more so.

What is surprising to discover about female fictional detectives is that they can be just as hardboiled as their masculine counterparts. We expect lady detectives to work in a "tea and crumpets" atmosphere like soft-boiled characters Miss Marple from Agatha Christie or Murder, She Wrote's Jessica Fletcher portrayed by Angela Lansbury. Lady gumshoes can be just as gritty and hardboiled as the men. Kinsey Millhone from Sue Grafton's "Alphabet series" usually dresses in faded jeans and a turtleneck sweater, only appearing in her little black dress when dressing up is unavoidable, trims her dark hair short with nail scissors, lives on fast food and suffers from tinnitus after shooting an attacker while hiding in a trashcan. Although Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski generally investigates murders related to white collar crimes, she grew up on the mean streets of southeast Chicago and is an accomplished and frequent street fighter who relies on karate as much as her nine-round Smith & Wesson automatic pistol.

Author, Sara Paretsky is one of the founding mothers of Sisters in Crime, an organization created to support and promote female crime and mystery writers. In 1990, she edited a collection entitled A Woman's Eye: New Stories by the Best Women Crime Writers, from which the stories in this collection are taken. In addition to V.I. Warshawski and Kinsey Millhone included are Nancy Pickard's "Jenny Cain", Liza Cody's "Anna Lee", Antonia Fraser's "Jemima Shore", Susan Dunlap's Kiernan O'Shaunessy, and Carolyn Hart's "Annie Laurance".