Recently, mystery and thriller writer Christopher Rice posted a piece on the Daily Beast’s book section entitled Why Crime Novelists Don’t Get Woman.

You see, as Rice relates, he has a new book out, The Moonlit Earth.  When he was first contemplating the book, he knew he was going to have a female protagonist and wanted to give her more heft than how female characters are often portrayed in books by men. He singled out four types of women he wanted to see eliminated from the genre.  These are: the long-suffering cop’s wife who just doesn’t understand her husband’s call to duty (often, in the past at least, this was also the girlfriend of the private eye); the babe assassin (well, sorry Christopher, you simply can’t deny the appeal of foxy vampire slayers like Anita Blake, Jane Yellowrock or Damali Richards); the ice queen bureaucrat (agreed); the token lesbian cop (ditto).

Now given this is a belated Mother’s Day post by a mystery writer, and the aforementioned slayer chicks don’t have children – though I think they fool around with studly shirtless vampire beefcakes now and then, it’s appropriate to give a brief lowdown on mothers who sleuth.

For instance a particular favorite of Dr. Pop was a couple of books, Going Nowhere Fast and Bad News Travels Fast, by friend and fellow mystery scribe Gar Anthony Haywood.  Joe and Dottie Loudermilk are a retired couple (she a professor and he a cop) who like to travel with their Airstream trailer to various national landmarks. Their wanderlust was inspired in part to get away from the troublesome grown children though invariably their kids would get the parents involved in some damn mischief.

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