Medora Field (1892-1960) was born in Georgia and began her career at The Atlanta Journal Constitution where she wrote a weekly advice column. She was a close friend of Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949), author of Gone with the Wind (1936). In addition to her journalistic efforts Field wrote an authoritative book on the antebellum homes in Georgia; White Columns in Georgia was published in 1952. While its intent was to document the history of the mansions still standing nearly 100 years after the Civil War, by describing the houses and their original owners, Field also unconsciously detailed a time and a place far removed from the present. For more about Field and her work, see The Literary Career of Medora Field Perkerson, A Southern Twentieth Century American Writer by Kathleen Ann DeMarco (Mellen Press, 2012).
Her obituary is here: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-atlanta-constitution-medora-field-pe/53836566/?locale=en-US
Field also wrote two popular mysteries. Who Killed Aunt Maggie (Macmillan, 1939; Coachwhip, 2020) is set near Roswell, Georgia, north of Atlanta, in one of the mid-19th century homes Field loved. Republic Pictures filmed the story in 1940 and the Associated Press bought the serial rights, publishing Aunt Maggie in more than 300 newspapers.
Sally Stuart inherited Wisteria Hall, built in 1836, from her grandmother. She and her husband Bill had been gradually renovating it to use as a weekend retreat. When Claire Harper called to tell Sally that she and Bob Dunbar were engaged, Claire talked Sally into having an impromptu weekend party. Originally just Sally and Bill with Claire and Bob, attendance grew rapidly to include Bob’s sister Alice and Kirk Pierce. Sally’s Aunt Maggie invited herself as did Eve Benedict. The presence of Eve was going to be a problem, as she had pursued Bob relentlessly and could not be happy about his forthcoming marriage.
Sally arrived early, expecting to find Aunt Maggie already well dug into the family records kept in the library and the servants readying the house for visitors. Instead Wisteria Hall was completely empty. Isolated from the nearest neighbors and set away from the road, Sally found the stillness unnerving.
When people began drifting in, the servants laden with last-minute purchases, Aunt Maggie chattering about her research, and Eve slinging verbal barbs almost from the moment she arrived, Sally forgot about the eerie atmosphere of the empty house and began trying to keep prickly personalities separated. She managed pretty well through dinner. When the company scattered afterwards, Sally went to the kitchen to discuss the breakfast menu with the cook. From there, Sally exited through the far end of the kitchen to reach a staircase at the back of the house that would take her down to the new games room. There at the foot of the stairs that led to the upper story lay Aunt Maggie, marks on her throat clearly in view.
When the group tried to call a doctor, they discovered the phone line was dead. A few minutes later all of the lights in the house went out. Sending one of the servants in a station wagon was fruitless: construction on the road had made it impassable. They spent an uneasy night with candles and reached the police the next morning.
Field was really good at evoking a suspenseful environment. Creaky floorboards, footsteps in the night, doors opening and closing, all could be explained away in a house that old but were nonetheless frightening. The victim’s compulsion to delve into old family papers uncovered a secret or two and Aunt Maggie couldn’t resist talking about what she knew or suspected.
The ending was completely out of the blue, even though a clue, obvious in retrospect, had been planted early. I anticipated a story strong on characters and on atmosphere, I was not expecting a well-constructed plot too. A surprisingly good whodunit.
The print version has an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.