THE BIG BOOK OF FEMALE DETECTIVES is a collection of stories featuring women sleuths from the beginnings of the detective story to the current day by the most successful practitioners of the form, featuring familiar and beloved characters such as Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone, Sara Paresky's V.I. Warchawski, Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan, and Jeffrey Deaver's Kathryn Dance, as well as those largely forgotten today but who were of enormous historical significance.

Characters, written by both female and male authors, range from grandmotherly snoops to hard-boiled dames, from private detectives to members of a police force, from curious amateurs to professional seekers of justice, from the 19th to the 21st century. An introduction to each of the stories places the author and the character in historical perspective, and the book's overall introduction provides a history of women crimefighters.