The present study compares the depiction of female as well as male characters and their identities in American detective fiction at different times. In detail, it analyzes to what extent American hard-boiled detective fiction by and about professional women from the 1980s onwards reinvents the formula and the gender perceptions of their male forerunners in the 1920s and 1930s. It examines how the female authors alter the norms and ideologies of the male original and adjust the depiction of female as well as male characteristics and roles toward a less stereotyped, but more authentic presentation.