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If I say the name, Georgette Heer, it immediately conjures a certain set of images, doesn't it?

Debutants in ballgowns designed to have an empire silhouette, dashing men in flawless regency evening dress,

or else the military uniforms of the 17th or 18th centuries, opulent mayfair townhouses, beautiful country estates, Almax assembly rooms.

Those who have cracked open a few Hayer novels will know that they even have a unique and

distinctive vocabulary. A character might make a cake of themselves, have pockets to let, land someone

a facer, suspect that havey-kavy business is going on, or curse someone as a shuttlehead.

What does not come to mind is Golden Age detective fiction.

The interplay between alibi and motive, detective and suspect, clue and red herring, is not Georgette Heyer's realm.

That's a domain that belongs to Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and the

rest of the Detection Club. Or does it? For Hayer wrote a dozen crime novels of her own,

beginning in 1932, right in the middle of the interwar period so associated with classic crime.

She created a pair of recurring Scotland Yard detectives and wrote mysteries set in

country houses, suburban villas and London flats. Her sleuths tackle poisonings, shootings,

bludgeonings, the works. She would seem to have fulfilled all of the requirements of a golden

age crime writer, and yet we don't associate her with that period or genre at all.

Our question for today then is why isn't Georgette Heyer considered a detective novelist? Welcome to She Done It. I'm Caroline Crampton.

Before we get into the episode proper, I'd like to update you on the Shedanit Pledge Drive.

If you've listened recently, you'll know that every year at this time, I run this little campaign over four episodes,

with the aim of adding 100 new members to the Shedanit Book Club,

the podcast's paying membership scheme that supports everything I do here.

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