Archives
Death of an Old Girl by Elizabeth Lemarchand
Elizabeth Lemarchand (1906-2000) was a teacher in girls’ schools, becoming headmistress before her early retirement due to illness. She took up writing short stories and then detective novels, basing her style on the Golden Age mysteries she admired. She published...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Pattern for Murder by Ione Sandberg Shriber
Elaine Mathilda Sandberg was born in Emeigh Run, Pennsylvania, on November 28, 1911, and relocated with her family to Akron, Ohio, in 1919. She died in Deerfield Beach, Florida, on 7 January 1987. See her full obituary here:...
The Goldfish Bowl by Laurence Gough
In my search for Canadian crime fiction writers, I discovered Laurence Gough. Gough wrote 13 books in his series about Vancouver police detectives Jack Willows and Claire Parker. The first title is The Goldfish Bowl (St. Martin’s Press, 1987), which won the Arthur...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Seven Black Chessmen by John Huntingdon
Gerald William Phillips (1884-1956) graduated from Oxford and took orders, then became a teacher and a Shakespearean scholar. The following biography is taken from the archives of Westminster School in London,...
Murder at the Blue Owl by Lee Martin
Anne Wingate (Martha Anne Guice Wingate) (September 4, 1943 – September 2, 2021) wrote multiple mystery series, including one of my all-time favorites. Under the name Lee Martin, she created the memorable character of Deb Ralston, a detective on the Fort Worth...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Death at Four Corners by Anthony Gilbert
Lucy Beatrice Malleson (1899-1973) was a British author most well known for her creation of Arthur G. Crook, an entertaining lawyer whose ethics do not bear scrutiny. Crook had some 50 adventures published under the pseudonym Anthony Gilbert. Malleson also used the...
With Flowers that Fell by M. R. D. Meek
Margaret Reid Duncan Gilloran (1918–2009) was born in Scotland. She worked in an office for a few years before attending law school and practicing as a solicitor. After her retirement she combined her love of crime fiction with her legal experience and began...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Who Killed Aunt Maggie? by Medora Field
Medora Field (1892-1960) was born in Georgia and began her career at The Atlanta Journal Constitution where she wrote a weekly advice column. She was a close friend of Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949), author of Gone with the Wind (1936). In addition to her...
Vintage Hollywood Crime
Originally published in Mystery Readers Journal, Volume 40, Number 1, Spring 2024 Crime will occur in any field that generates large amounts of money, as Peter King had his Gourmet Detective explain in one of his mysteries about the restaurant industry. Motion...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Dangerous Sea by David Roberts
I don’t know that these books are forgotten as much as no one seems to have heard of them to begin with. After working as an editor at Chatto and Windus, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, and Michael O'Mara Books for several years, David Roberts became a full-time writer,...
