Not Dead Yet: Old Women are Killing it in Popular Culture

From Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple to the hit (s)quad of retired female assassins in Deanna Raybourn’s Killers series, from decommissioned spy Elizabeth Best, founder of the Thursday Murder Club (Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club series) to the reimagined television classic Matlock, wherein Madeline "Matty" Matlock leverages the invisibility assigned to her age to solve cases, older women have recently emerged as doyennes of mystery and death in heretofore unprecedented numbers. 

This presentation will examine a range of mysteries and thrillers in book and media format to trace the evolution of elderly female harbingers of mystery and death within the context of demographics, economics and time frame. Particular attention will be given to the foundational Miss Marple, and some of the more recent iterations in media and literature, including but not limited to: Jessica Fletcher of television’s Murder, She Wrote (which, like Matlock, is in reboot);  Gu Byeong-mo's  The Old Woman with the Knife (book and movie);  Mrs. Sihu Investigates by Suk Pannu (book and TV series); the Glory Broussard mysteries by Danielle Arceneaux; and the current trope tromping-and-romping peregrinations of the women of The Thursday Murder Club and Killers.