Friday’s Forgotten Book: They Tell No Tales by Manning Coles

Friday’s Forgotten Book: They Tell No Tales by Manning Coles

Manning Coles was the joint pen name used by British writers and neighbors Cyril Henry Coles (1899-1965) and Adelaide Frances Oke Manning (1891-1959). Between 1940 and 1958 they produced more than 20 lively spy stories featuring Thomas Elphinstone (Tommy) Hambledon,...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Go Down, Death by Sue Brown Hays

Friday’s Forgotten Book: Go Down, Death by Sue Brown Hays

Sue Brown Hays (1905-?) was the descendant of several generations of Mississippi and Louisiana cotton planters. Go Down, Death, which appears to be her only book, was published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1946 and by Hammond, Hammond & Company in 1948....
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Casual Slaughters by James Quince

Friday’s Forgotten Book: Casual Slaughters by James Quince

James Quince was the pseudonym used by James Reginald Spittal (1876-1951), an English clergyman who wrote three novels in the 1930s and then went on to other pursuits. As has been noted, it is a loss for crime fiction readers that he didn’t continue writing. Based on...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Error of the Moon by Sara Woods

Friday’s Forgotten Book: Error of the Moon by Sara Woods

Sara Woods took her barrister protagonist Antony Maitland out of the courtroom for his fourth adventure, Error of the Moon (Collins Crime Club, 1963; Dean Street Press, 2024). Considering the state of geopolitics in the early 1960s, when the Cuban Missile Crisis...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Farmhouse by Helen Reilly

Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Farmhouse by Helen Reilly

Helen Reilly (1891-1962) was an American novelist. She was born Helen Kieran and grew up in New York City in a literary family. Her brother, James Kieran, also wrote a mystery, and two of her daughters, Ursula Curtiss and Mary McMullen, were mystery...