This article proposes a reading of crime by women in the contemporary African novel from Chrystèle Bellard’s work on female crime and publications on revenge. It builds on the novel Kouty, mémoire de sang by Aïda Mady Diallo. If women’s crime is rather rare in French-speaking African literature, one observes, in this novel, a writing that mixes historical, memorial and police stories. Indeed, this novel offers a particular experience of detective fiction writing that is a singularized view of the individual faced with violence and the desire for revenge. It will be shown that, in Kouty, mémoire de sang, this founding revenge not only allows to confront the values of tolerance and intolerance, and love and hatred, but also subjects Kouty’s approach to the tragic memories of the disappearance of her parents.