Archives
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...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Skeleton Key by Lenore Glen Offord
Skeleton Key by Lenore Glen Offord (1905-1991) was first published in 1943 by Duell, Sloan & Pearce. Felony & Mayhem re-issued the book in print and digital editions in 2015. The latter has an informative introduction by journalist and crime historian Sarah...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Murder in Melbourne by Dulcie Gray
Dulcie Winifred Catherine Bailey Denison, known as Dulcie Gray, (1915 – 2011) was a Renaissance woman: She was a British singer and actress on stage, film, and television; she wrote 18 mysteries between 1957 and 1979; and she studied butterflies. She was...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Clock Strikes Twelve by Patricia Wentworth
Mysteries set on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day are not as common as those set around Christmas, which seems to be a particularly lethal time of year. However, The Clock Strikes Twelve by Patricia Wentworth (Hodder & Stoughton, 1945) fits the current need...
Favorite Books of 2020
As of today I read 162 books during 2020, the large number partly because of the enforced seclusion brought on by the pandemic. A few were re-reads but most crossed my path for the first time. Following are the titles of the books I initially read during 2020 and...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Redemption by Jill McGown
Jill McGown (1947-2007) is most remembered for her tightly plotted and nuanced books about Chief Inspector Lloyd, whose first name is a running gag throughout the series, and Detective Sergeant Judy Hill, co-workers and lovers in East Anglia. In addition to the...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Twelve Deaths of Christmas by Marian Babson
Marian Babson was the pseudonym of American mystery writer Ruth Marian Stenstreem (1929-2017). She lived most her life in London, England, where she held a variety of jobs including librarian and editor of a knitting magazine. She received the Crime Writers'...