'Private Inquiries is a must-read - a riveting mythbuster, with its revelations of the real histories of women PIs.' - Val McDermidThe female private detective has been a staple of popular culture for over 150 years, from Victorian lady sleuths to 'busy-body spinsters' and gun-toting modern PIs. But what about the real-life women behind these fictional tales?Dismissed as 'Mrs Sherlock Holmes' or amateurish Miss Marples, mocked as private dicks or honey trappers, they have been investigating crime since the mid-nineteenth century - everything from theft and fraud to romance scams and murder.In Private Inquiries, Caitlin Davies traces the history of the UK's female investigators, uncovering the truth about their lives and careers from the 1850s to the present day. Women like Victorian private inquiry agent Antonia Moser, the first woman to open her own agency; Annette Kerner, who ran the Mayfair Detective Agency on Baker Street in the 1940s; and Liverpool sleuth Zena Scott-Archer, who be