TVs Toughest BabyBoomer Women Detectives

Angela Lansbury Jessica FletcherMurder, She WroteMystery writer Jessica Fletcher was a pretty calm woman, considering that she lived in Cabot Cove, Maine, where at least one person got murdered every week. Murder, She Wrote ran for twelve seasons on CBS as Jessica navigated her way through a series of killings involving every kind of character from roguish spies to jealous wives. Because shed learned so much about crime in writing her books, she knew every twist and turn in the killers plan. Sometimes Jessica didnt know it until the episode was almost over, but she always knew it ahead of the well-meaning but bumbling detectives, sheriffs and troopers she had to work with. And she was a model of politeness: always well dressed, never at a loss for words and not afraid to make an awkward but crucial point when she had to.

Mariska Hargitay Detective Olivia BensonLaw & Order: SVUHerself the child of a rape, Olivia Benson knows first-hand the lasting trauma that sex crimes can cause. As she works on a NYPD squad that specializes in solving such horrific crimes, Benson has a difficult balancing act. She needs to show enough empathy for the victims to confide in her while keeping the professional coolness required to solve a crime. Sometimes her sympathy for the victim gets the better of her, though, and she occasionally fails to keep her head. And her tormented, more-than-friends-less-than-lovers relationship with her partner Eliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) doesnt help. But the two, working together, usually catch the perp and free the victim. Even after a victory, though, they dont smile. They know theres always another horrifying case just around the corner.

Kyra Sedgwick Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh JohnsonThe CloserDeputy Chief Johnson really doesnt care if the suspects shes questioning think shes a slow-as-molasses Southern girl. In fact, she prefers it. That way, shes able to close - get a confession - before the bad guys even realize theyve talked. Johnson came to the Los Angeles Police Department via a long, roundabout road. After being trained as an interrogator with the C.I.A., she went to the Atlanta Police Department and got framed in an ethics investigation. Moving on to L.A., she faced a hostile squad of detectives, much like Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect. (In fact, Sedgwick has acknowledged her debt to that particular character.) But while Tennison boozes it up, Johnsons shameful habit is sweetsas in cupcakes, cookes and candy. Johnson, whos married to an FBI agent, eventually wins over her squad through a combination of deadly persuasiveness, brilliant investigative insights and a willingness to stay just this side of actual ethical violations in the pursuit of justice. Her trademark phrase: Thank yew, thank yew very much. That means shes won. Again.

Holly Hunter Detective Grace HanadarkoSaving GraceIn the first Saving Grace episode, when Grace Hanadarko called for help from God, he sent an angelin the person of Earl, a scruffy sixtysomething guy with real wings. Earl told a drunken Grace, who thought she had just killed someone with her Porsche, that she was headed for hell unless she turned her life over to God. And although Grace said yes to that, she slipped. A lot. She was passionate about solving major crimes in her territory, Oklahoma City, but she seemed just as eager to drink herself into the ground and have way too many one-night stands with skeevy guys. And then there was the ongoing affair with her police partner. In other words, Earl had his work cut out for him. Throughout the TNT series, Grace fought to understand how faith, and God, can exist in a world of horror. (Her sister was killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.) At the end of the series, it looked as though she might have found an answer. Spoiler alert: Do not watch Season 3 first.

Sharon Gless, Tyne Daly Detective Christine CagneyDetective Mary Beth LaceyCagney & LaceyThe team of Cagney & Lacey began working major cases in Manhattan during the early 1980s, when New York City was still mired in a gritty, dangerous era. Sometimes it was discouraging work: As Lacey once said, memorably, I feel like the cruds winning. Despite their differences, they were a terrific team: Mary Beth, the practical mom who went home at night to Queens and her husband Harvey, and Christine, the single blonde who liked to go out on the town. They believed in solving cases through painstaking work, not macho posturing, and they supported each other against the well-meaning but occasionally sexist men they worked with. The show lasted six seasons, but Cagney and Lacey couldnt be kept apart: They reunited in the mid-1990s for a quartet of TV movies that were marketed as The Menopause Years. As Lacey might say: What a bunch of wise guys.