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Friday’s Forgotten Book: Death Breaks the Ring by Virginia Rath
Virginia McVay Rath (1905-1950) was born in northern California near San Francisco and graduated from the University of California. She taught high school before marrying and beginning her literary career during which she published thirteen novels. She has two...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Shackles by Bill Pronzini
Bill Pronzini is a spectacularly high-volume author, having written more than 300 short stories and more than 100 novels. He’s also compiled a large number of anthologies of mystery, science fiction, and Western short fiction. But he’s mostly known as a writer of...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Murder in Black and White by Evelyn Elder
Evelyn Elder was a pseudonym used by Milward Kennedy, which was the writing name of Milward Rodon Kennedy Burge (1894 –1968). Burge was an English civil servant, journalist, literary critic, and author of crime fiction. He was London editor of the Empire Digest and...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: One Last Hit by Nathan Walpow
I was fortunate enough to see the Summer of Soul documentary released earlier this year, restored footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival and interviews with both singers and attendees. I had forgotten about some of the bands: Sly and the Family Stone in...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Case in the Clinic by E. C. R. Lorac
Between 1931 and 1959 Edith Caroline Rivett (1894–1958) published more than 70 mysteries under the names E. C. R. Lorac and Carol Carnac. Nearly all of the E.C.R. Lorac titles, about 45 of them, feature Chief Inspector Robert MacDonald, a Scot...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Weekend at Thrackley by Alan Melville
Alan Melville (1910-1983) was a man of many parts, not least of which was an author. Weekend at Thrackley (Skeffington, 1934; reprinted by the British Library, 2018) was his debut mystery. In the introduction to the British Library’s release of this book, Martin...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: What Dread Hand? by Elizbeth Gill
I love mysteries set in theaters, so opened What Dread Hand? by Elizabeth Gill (Cassell & Co., 1932; reprinted by Dean Street Press, 2017) with great anticipation. Julia Dallas is the main character, a young woman newly engaged to Lord Charles Kulligrew, a...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Tipster by Gerald Verner
Gerald Verner (1897-1980) was born John Robert Stuart Pringle. He also wrote under the names Donald Stuart, Nigel Vane, Derwent Steele, and Thane Leslie. His literary output was prodigious: More than 120 books, many of which were adapted for films, radio, and stage...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Gently Between Tides by Alan Hunter
Alan Hunter (1922 – 2005) was born in Norfolk, England, where he lived most of his life. After working on his father’s farm and serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II, he became a bookstore manager before publishing his first novel Gently Does It...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: the Arsenal Stadium Mystery by Leonard Gribble
Leonard Reginald Gribble (1908-1985) was an incredibly prolific English writer, beginning in his twenties. Gribble also wrote as Sterry Browning, James Gannett, Leo Grex, Louis Grey, Piers Marlowe, Dexter Muir, Landon Grant, and Bruce Sanders. He wrote...
