As Stephen King fans well know, pretty much every single small town in New England is scary as hell. So it was no surprise that when FBI agent Audrey Parker (Emily Rose) wound up in the Maine burg of Haven in this adaptation of King's The Colorado Kid, that she might find enough weirdness to keep her there awhile.
Thus Parker entered the pantheon of pop-culture’s female detectives, a host of women in official and unofficial investigative capacities who have solved crimes, answered mysteries and sussed out supernatural shenanigans. Here are some of our favourites.
10. Velma Dinkley
Jinkies! With her trademark orange sweater, thick glasses, and rumoured lesbianism (or so Kevin Smith would have you believe) the geekiest of the Scooby Doo gang was also the meddling kid who most often prevented the bad guy from getting away with it.
9. Olivia Dunham
Though Anna Torv’s portrayal of Fringe’s Scully-esque FBI agent seemed stiff at first, over the course of two seasons she’s turned Dunham into a still-reserved but now-fascinating detective whose sleuthing eventually brought her into an alternate dimension (where she is now trapped).
8 Jane Tennison
Before Helen Mirren played the queen and got declared a GILF, she won Emmys as Scotland Yard’s Detective Chief Inspector in the UK series Prime Suspect for seven seasons. Each centered on a different case as Tennison navigated sexual and racial politics as well as her own alcoholism and other policing-related personal demons.
7. Barbra Gordon
The daughter of Gotham’s police commissioner, Barbra began her crime-fighting career as Batgirl. But in one of the most shocking Batman stories ever, Alan Moore's The Killing Joke, she was kidnapped and crippled by Joker. In the aftermath, she reinvented herself as Oracle, an invaluable computer-savvy ally in the Dark Knight’s caped crusade and leader of Birds of Prey.
6. Nancy Drew
Since the 1930s, kiddie girl detective Nancy Drew has been besting bad guys (and those damned hardy Boys, too) in hundreds of ghostwritten novels that have sold over 80 million copies. Almost as many women's studies term papers have been written about her role as a feminist icon.
5. Lisbeth Salander
The cyber-punk Pippi Longstocking is currently the star of Stieg Larsson’s posthumous publishing phenomenon the "Millennium Trilogy," a Swedish film series and soon an American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. As a private investigator, she uses her Asperger syndrome to brilliant effect as a hacker who helps uncover crimes.
4. Dana Scully
Sure, it was frustrating in the early years of The X-Files to see this otherwise capable FBI agent refuse to believe the facts in front of her face, but her skepticism was a good counter-point to Mulder’s puppy dog approach to the alien conspiracy. Not to mention that she was a great actress and totally geeky-hot.
3. Jessica Fletcher:
Angela Lansbury’s nosy crime novelist was always at the wrong place at the right time in her long-running series Murder, She Wrote. Or maybe she just lived in the wrong town, since folks died at a surprisingly high-rate in quaint little Cabot Cove. Or maybe she was killing them all? I smell a Dexter-inspired revival!
2. Miss Jane Marple:
Created by master mystery-spinner Agatha Christie, the senior citizen crime-solver St. Mary Mead uses her spinster status to her advantage while cracking cases. Miss Marple also used her faux flightiness to lower suspect defences, a tactic later borrowed by Columbo. On a side-note, one of the actresses to portray her on film was none other than Angela Lansbury.
1. Veronica Mars
Just a high-schooler when her eponymous three-season series began, Veronica Mars was an instantly iconic detective who was equal parts smarts and snark. Despite the schoolyard setting, the show was true to its noir roots, with V cracking episodic cases while solving such arcing concerns as her best friend’s murder, her own rape and the deaths of a busload of students.