Archives
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Police at the Funeral by Margery Allingham
Margery Allingham (1904-1966) was a prolific author of the Golden Age who did not fade into obscurity as many GAD authors did. So much has been written about her that I will only say that she published 18 novels featuring Albert Campion between 1929 and...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Odds-On Murder by Jack Dolph
Jack Dolph is the pseudonym of John Mather Dolph (1895-1962). He was a race horse trainer, an American writer of pulp crime novels, radio producer, television scriptwriter, and actor. He published five mysteries between 1948 and 1953, mostly about horseracing, then...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Deductions of Colonel Gore by Lynn Brock
Lynn Brock (1877-1943) was the pseudonym of Alister McAllister, an Irish writer. He first wrote plays as Anthony Wharton and then turned to crime fiction using the name Lynn Brock. He created the character of Colonel Gore who starred in five books and a...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Hopjoy Was Here by Colin Watson
I finally got around to picking up another title in the Flaxborough Chronicles by Colin Watson. Why I waited so long I do not understand. I loved the first one I read and I loved Hopjoy Was Here (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1962), the third in the series of 12 gently...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Sunken Sailor by Patricia Moyes
Patricia Moyes (1923-2000) published 19 traditional British detective stories featuring Henry Tibbett, a Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard, and his wife Emmy between 1958 and 1993. While they were popular during the last half of the 20th century, they were not...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Game Without Rules by Michael Gilbert
Michael Francis Gilbert (1912 – 2006) was an English solicitor and well-known author of crime fiction. His work includes 30 novels and approximately 185 stories in 13 collections, as well as stage, radio, and television plays. He was made a Commander in...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: When I Grow Rich by Joan Fleming
Joan Margaret Fleming (1908–1980) was a British writer, turning out children’s stories first and then moving on to crime fiction, publishing about 30 books in that field. Her novel The Deeds of Dr Deadcert (Hutchinson, 1955) was made into the...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Night at the Vulcan by Ngaio Marsh
Ngaio Marsh (1895-1982) is called one of the Queens of Crime, along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Margery Allingham. She published 32 books featuring Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard. Marsh started out as an actor and was...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: There’s a Reason for Everything by E. R. Punshon
Ernest Robertson Punshon (1872-1956) was a prolific Golden Age author. Writing as E. R. Punshon, he released 35 books between 1933 and 1956 featuring Bobby Owen, an Oxford-educated policeman. Dorothy L. Sayers regarded Punshon’s work highly, saying that “all his...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Left-Handed Death by Richard Hull
Richard Hull was the pseudonym of Richard Henry Sampson (1896-1973), a British accountant who became a crime novelist, publishing 16 books beginning in 1934. During World War II he revived his accounting skills and became an auditor for the Admiralty. It is hard...