Archives
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Death for Dear Clara by Q. Patrick
Q. Patrick was the pseudonym of Hugh Callingham Wheeler (1912-1987) and Richard Wilson Webb (1901-1966), who also published under the names Patrick Quentin and Jonathan Stagge. Webb wrote with Martha Mott Kelly under the name Q. Patrick for a few years before Webb...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Canary Murder Case by S. S. van Dine
S. S. Van Dine is the pseudonym used by Willard Huntington Wright (1888 – 1939) when he wrote detective fiction. Originally a literary and art critic, Wright read dozens of mysteries and crime novels during a lengthy illness, after which he...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Jacob Street Mystery by R. Austin Freeman
Richard Austin Freeman (1862-1943) was an English doctor who created the fictional forensic scientist Dr John Thorndyke. Freeman was born in London and received a medical degree from Middlesex Hospital Medical College. He moved to the Gold Coast of Africa to...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie
Mrs. McGinty’s Dead (Collins, 1952) is one of my favorite mysteries from Agatha Christie (1890-1976). Not forgotten exactly, more like overlooked in the prodigious output from this peerless author, it is the 28th volume in which Hercule Poirot, the retired Belgian...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: To Wake the Dead by John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) is one of the most well-known Golden Age mystery writers. He also wrote under the names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson, and Roger Fairbairn. He is celebrated for his beautifully complicated plots, often considered locked room crimes or...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Mark of the Crescent by John Creasey
John Creasey MBE (1908–1973) was an English author of crime, romance, and western novels, who wrote more than six hundred novels using twenty-eight different pseudonyms. Mostly he’s known for his crime fiction, though, of which there are over 400 books. He was...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Harassed Hero by Ernest Dudley
Vivian Ernest Coltman-Allen (1908 – 2006), known as Ernest Dudley, was an author, a screenwriter, an actor, and a journalist. He created the popular BBC radio crime series Dr Morelle that ran from 1942 to 1948 and the television series The Armchair Detective that...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Away Went the Little Fish by Margot Bennett
Margot Bennett (1912-1980) worked as an advertising copywriter, as a nurse and translator during the Spanish Civil War, and as a television scriptwriter. She wrote literary fiction, crime fiction, and science fiction. Compared to her Golden Age contemporaries, her...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Not All Tarts Are Apple by Pip Granger
A wonderful book told from the perspective of a child, Not All Tarts Are Apple by Pip Granger (Poisoned Pen Press, 2002) is set in London in 1953, which was awash with excitement over the approaching coronation of Queen Elizabeth. No one was more thrilled than...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Murder on the Bus by Cecil Freeman Gregg
Cecil Freeman Gregg (1898-1960) was a chartered secretary and accountant born in London. He published 42 mysteries between 1928 and 1960, with two main series characters, Inspector Cuthbert Higgins and Harry Prince. Harry Prince was a thief who was driven to a life...