Archives
Angel Without Mercy by Anthea Cohen
Anthea Cohen was the pseudonym of Doris Simpson (1913-2006), a UK author who worked for twenty-five years as a nurse in hospitals and as a private nurse. She has written about medicine and hospitals, contributing to Nursing Mirror and World Medicine journals. She...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: One Murdered, Two Dead by Milton Propper
Milton Morris Propper (1906-1962) was an American writer of early police procedurals, publishing 14 novels between 1929 and 1943, all with the same series character Tommy Rankin, a detective in the Philadelphia Homicide Bureau. He joined the Pennsylvania...
Murder Superior by Jane Haddam
Jane Haddam was the pen name for Orania Papazoglou (1951-2019), a college professor, magazine editor, and full-time author. Her first mystery about Patience Campbell McKenna, a romance novelist who became an investigator, was nominated for the Best First Novel...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy L. Sayers & Jill Paton Walsh
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957) is anything but forgotten but the focus of mystery readers is on her full-length novels and the collections of short stories, where Mr. Montague Egg, one of my favorite Sayers characters shines. No one talks much about the...
For Kicks by Dick Francis
For Kicks (Michael Joseph, 1965; Harper & Row, 1965) is an early stand-alone from former steeplechase jockey turned author Dick Francis (1920-2010) who wrote nearly 50 books and won multiple awards. It starts with Daniel Roke, a successful horse breeder and...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Dead Man Manor by Valentine Williams
Valentine George Williams (1883-1946) was a British journalist and author. His father was G. Douglas Williams, the chief editor of Reuters News Agency, giving Valentine exposure to writing, journalism, and literature from his cradle. As a Reuters journalist...
Death’s Bright Angel by Janet Neel
Death’s Bright Angel by Janet Neel (Constable, 1988), the first of seven books about Detective Chief Inspector John McLeish and Francesca Wilson, a civil servant in the Department of Trade and Industry Ministry, won the John Creasey New Blood Dagger for an...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Murder in the Moor by Thomas Kindon
Murder in the Moor by Thomas Kindon (Methuen, 1929; E.P. Dutton, 1929) is the only known mystery by Kindon, who himself is an enigma. The manuscript was entered in Methuen’s Prize Competition for Detective Fiction and achieved third place. Just who Kindon was and...
The James Joyce Murder by Amanda Cross
Why do we not talk about the Kate Fansler mysteries these days? Contemporary readers are missing out on a wonderful character, sound plots, and witty, literate writing. These books are positive gems. I read the series years ago and found a copy of the second one...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Padded Door by Brian Flynn
Brian Flynn (1885-1958) is another of those forgotten authors from the first part of the 20th century whose work has been resurrected after diligent effort on the part of a few people. It doesn’t help that books were rarely reprinted then and initial print runs...
