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A Clowder of Cat Mysteries
Originally published in Mystery Readers Journal, Volume 39, Number 4, Animals in Mysteries II, Winter 2023. That cats and mysteries go together like peanut butter and jelly or shoes and socks is evident by the number of mysteries written about cats and the number...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Case of the Missing Sandals by Nancy Barr Mavity
Nancy Barr Mavity (1890-1959) was a U.S. journalist, author, and critic. Born Nann Clark Barr in Illinois, she was a reporter, feature writer, and book reviewer for the Oakland Tribune for more than 20 years. She also wrote about her solo trips to Japan,...
The Corpse Now Arriving by Margaret Hinxman
Margaret Hinxman (1924-2018) was a preeminent UK film critic who turned to writing crime fiction after a wildly successful journalistic career. Her obituary in The Guardian describes her cinematic work in detail:...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Footsteps at the Lock by Ronald Knox
Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (1888-1957) was a British cleric and author. He was the son of the Bishop of Manchester. His brother Evoe was editor of Punch magazine and his sister Winifred Francis Knox Peck wrote in a range of genres, including two mysteries which have...
Death of a Perfect Mother by Robert Barnard
Since I began looking at overlooked or forgotten authors, I have found one writer after another whose work was popular during his or her lifetime and then at death it promptly vanished from discussions about favorite books and must-reads. I fear that Robert Barnard...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Dark Angel by James Ronald
James Jack Ronald (1905-1972) was a prolific writer of pulp fiction, mystery stories, and dramatic novels. Raised in Glasgow, Ronald moved to Chicago at seventeen where he worked in a variety of jobs and then returned to the UK to pursue a writing career. His early...
The Big Killing by Annette Meyers
Annette Meyers was assistant to Broadway producer-director Harold Prince for sixteen years, and then she was an executive search and management consultant on Wall Street for as long. With her husband Martin Meyers she wrote a series of historical mysteries about...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: There’s Death in the Churchyard by William Gore
Godfrey Jervis “Jan” (1882-1944) and Cora Josephine Turner (1879-1950) Gordon were artists and authors, painting in Paris before World War I and then traveling to Serbia to work with aid organizations there when war was declared. Jan was appointed a Lieutenant in...
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:...
