I occasionally search for Canadian mystery writers during the Golden Age and so far, Frank L. Packard (1877–1942) and Pearl Foley (1888-1953) are the only two names I have found. Foley doesn’t seem to be recognized by any crime fiction authority lists beyond Part 20 of Crime Fiction IV, which states only “FOLEY, PEARL (BEATRIX). 1895-1953”.
The Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory offers an extensive biography, including a different birth date and a different birth name, which was Charlotte Beatrix Foley. “Pearl” was apparently a nickname. The author of the CWRC article cites Canadian census and birth records, Canadian Crime Fiction: An Annotated Comprehensive Bibliography of Canadian Crime Fiction From 1817 to 1996, Checklist of Canadian Literature and Background Materials 1628-1960, and an article in the Toronto Daily Star from 1938. The article lists the following books by Foley:
- The Gift of the Gods (Toronto, ON: Allen, 1921)
- The Yellow Circle (Toronto, ON: Macmillan, 1927)
- The Octagon Crystal (New York, NY: Carrier, 1929)
- The Gnome Mine Mystery: A Northern Ontario Mining Story (London: Hamilton, 1933)
See https://legacy.cwrc.ca/islandora/object/ceww:b30cf87e-c155-433c-9c43-8235a2a6a4bb for the entire article, which is too long to reproduce here.
Her first book, a family historical saga, has been designated culturally significant and is in reprint. The last three books are mysteries.
The Octagon Crystal is set in New York, near the reservation of Naragansett Native Americans. Forrest Selwyn, the center of the story, carries a small piece of frosted glass with her everywhere, which becomes an object of interest to some strangers who happen to see it. Why they are so fascinated with it and how it connects to Forrest’s unknown parents is the basis of the story. A strong theme throughout is the mistreatment of Native Americans by invading colonizers, whose superior weapons overwhelmed the residents with prior claim to the land.
Add buried treasure, a Native American wife abandoned by her white husband, a second bigamous marriage, an abduction, and lots of fisticuffs, and the result is a lively story. Foley’s writing is polished and easy to read. I find it hard to believe she only wrote four books, that kind of skill requires steady practice to develop. Perhaps she also wrote short stories or magazine articles.
The “New Mysteries” column in The New York Times of November 3, 1929, says:
THE OCTAGON CRYSTAL. By Pearl Foley. 265 pp. New York: Louis Carrier & Co. $2.
The hero of this mystery tale is our old friend the noble Red Man, in the person of Chief Red Hawk, the last of the Narragansetts. It is he who makes clear the secret of the octagon crystal and tells why certain persons were so determined to gain possession of it. He tells, too, the secret of Forrest Selwyn’s birth (Forrest, by the way, is a girl) and shows the way to a happy ending for her and the man who loves her. Chief Red Hawk is not a detective. The greater part of the secret had been known to him for a long time, but no one had sufficient confidence in his inherent nobility to ask him about it. Apparently the other characters in the story did not know their Fenimore Cooper.
Foley seems to have taken poetic license in placing the action in the book, as the Narraganset tribe settled in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, not New York. Some resources indicate the Narragansets did not have any land at all in the early 1900s. Rhode Island categorized them as citizens of the U.S. in 1924 and not part of a separate group.
I was struck by the similarities of The Octagon Crystal to one of my all-time favorite Gothic mysteries, The Red Castle Women by Margaret Widdemer (Doubleday, 1968), also set in New York and involving a mistreated Native American girl and another girl of unknown parentage.
Used copies are readily available in the secondary market. Students of Canadian crime fiction and women mystery writers from the early 20th century will want to add Foley’s books to their TBR list.