Charlotte Bronte as a detective?
(Still from the 1943 film Jane Eyre with Joan Fontaine in the title role.)

From private eyes to police detectives to determined amateurs like Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, there are many great women detectives in mystery fiction. A clever twist on the literary detective is turning a real historical figure into a sleuth. The meta value of seeing them as a detective increases the story’s appeal.

Elliot Roosevelt picked a well-known woman — his mother, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt — and re-invented her as a sleuth (write about what you know, right?). His series of books with Eleanor solving crimes ran from 1985 to 2005. The real Eleanor was courageously outspoken and tirelessly interested in people, plus she had what you’d call “great access” — excellent attributes for an amateur detective.

Some authors have been even more inventive by converting famous authors into detectives. Writer Laura Joh Rowland has Charlotte Brontë, the author of Jane Eyre, running down clues on the moors of Yorkshire in The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë. Stephanie Barron takes a similar tack by giving Jane Austen the task of not only writing a slew of great novels, but solving crimes, too. Barron has written 13  Jane Austen mystery novels, starting with Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor. Poor Jane must have been dead on her feet.

And then Carrie A. Bebris takes this trend and wraps around a famous fictional character of Austen’s. Bebris has Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy (nee Bennet) teaming with her husband in a seven novel series that debuted in 2004 with Pride and Prescience.

What other historical figures or famous authors would make an intriguing model for a sleuth?