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Friday’s Forgotten Book: Gideon and the Young Toughs by John Creasey
Gideon and the Young Toughs and Other Stories by John Creasey (1908-1973) writing as J. J. Marric (Crippen & Landru, 2022) is most welcome to this George Gideon fan. I discovered the series in the late 1960s and raced through them, seizing the new ones off the...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Triple Play by Elizabeth Gunn
I was sad to learn this week that Elizabeth Gunn, author of one of my all-time favorite mystery series, died on 30 August at the age of 95. Gunn led an eventful life, managing an inn with her husband in Montana and then traveling extensively. She had a private...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Defense Does Not Rest by Edna Sherry
Stark House kindly sent me an advance copy of their new reprint of two books by Edna Sherry (1885–1967), to be released in October. After writing serials and short stories for pulp magazines and collaborating on a play, Sherry turned to novels. Her first book...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The House of Godwinsson by E. R. Punshon
The House of Godwinsson (Gollancz, 1948; Dean Street Press, 2016) is the 25th book about policeman Bobby Owen written by Ernest Robertson Punshon (1872-1956). Through his long career Owen worked in London and in a more rural part of the country, gradually climbing...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Keep Away from Water by Alice Campbell
Alice Ormond Campbell (1887-1955) was an Atlanta native. She was an expatriate, living in France for many years and setting several of her books there. Dean Street Press reissued the first 10 volumes of her crime fiction earlier this year. While DSP states she...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Overdue for Death by Z. H. Ross
Zola Helen Girdey Ross (1912 –1989) taught writing at the University of Washington and the Lake Washington schools in Kirkland, Washington. She wrote Western historicals, children's fiction, and crime novels. Her mysteries were published under Z. H....
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Lake of Fury by Robert MacLeod
William Knox (1928 – 1999) was a Glasgow journalist, television broadcaster, and author. He began writing crime fiction in the 1950s and published over 50 books. He released his 24 books about Colin Thane and Phil Moss, Glasgow Crime Squad officers, between...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Nobody’s Perfect by Douglas Clark
The name of Douglas Clark (1919-1993) cropped up in an online classic mystery discussion group recently as an example of a more contemporary author who wrote traditional detective stories in line with Golden Age mystery parameters. I looked him up and learned that...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Puzzle of the Blue Banderilla by Stuart Palmer
Charles Stuart Palmer (1905-1968) wrote 14 books and multiple short stories about retired schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers and Inspector Oscar Piper of the New York Police Department, starting in 1931. Withers turned out to be quite popular with the public and...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Murder in Blue by Clifford Witting
Clifford Witting (1907-1968) was an English crime fiction writer. He worked as a clerk in Lloyds Bank from 1924 to 1942 and served in the Royal Artillery and the Ordinance Corps during World War II. His experiences then informed some of the 16 mysteries that...
