Archives
Murder in High Provence by George Bellairs
Murder in High Provence (John Giffords, 1957) by George Bellairs, the 27th case of Inspector Thomas Littlejohn, opens with a visit to the Littlejohn home by the Minister of Commerce, Spencer Lovell. Lovell’s only brother Christopher and his wife Elise were killed...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: My Late Wives by Carter Dickson
One of the later Sir Henry Merrivale mysteries by Carter Dickson, My Late Wives (Morrow Mystery, 1946; Heinemann, 1947) starts in 1934 when a serial killer known under various names meets and marries young women who disappear after signing over their modest bank...
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...
