Sally Wood (1897-1985) was a native of Rochester, New York. Her papers reside in the Special Collections section of the University of Rochester library. A description of the papers and the following biography are on the university’s website: https://archives.lib.rochester.edu/repositories/2/resources/1093
“Sally Calkins Wood Kohn (1897-1985) was an author of some note who published under the name Sally Wood. A descendant of prominent Rochester families, she graduated from Wellesley College in 1918, enlisted in the Army Nursing Corps, and was stationed at Camp Devens in Massachusetts. After Armistice, she returned to Rochester, completed nurse’s training, and worked as a Public Health nurse among the impoverished. Her first marriage was to Stephen Raushenbush, an investigator of labor conditions in the Pennsylvania coal mines.
In 1924, the couple settled in New York’s Greenwich Village where Wood resumed her writing and met the Southern writers Caroline Gordon and her husband Allen Tate. The following year, Wood travelled to France to care for her brother Remsen who was seriously ill. After two years, she returned to the U.S. ill herself. Several years after Wood’s first marriage failed, she married Dr. Lawrence A. Kohn; their marriage ended with Dr. Kohn’s death in 1977. Wood published a short story, “Breakfast in the Country,” in 1934, wrote two mysteries and numerous short stories, and translated the poetry of Louis Aragon. In 1984, Wood published The Southern Mandarins, a selection of letters from Caroline Gordon from 1926-1937.”
Both mysteries feature New Englander Ann Thorne and both have been reprinted by Coachwhip Publications. The first one Murder of a Novelist (Simon and Schuster, 1941; Coachwhip, 2021) finds the middle-aged and unmarried Ann living quietly in her home town of Middlebury after an adventurous life as the daughter of a career diplomat. Her brother and his family live nearby in what I assume is Connecticut, since there is a reference to Hartford early in the story. Ann falls into the position of practically raising the motherless boy from next door as well as her niece Nancy, who is trying to escape her domineering mother.
Nancy’s latest form of rebellion against her mother is to develop an interest in her aunt’s neighbor. Tony Bayne is a well-known writer of unpleasant novels with a poor personal reputation. Ann dislikes Bayne and is relieved to learn at breakfast one morning that Bayne did not appear at the rendezvous Nancy had planned for the night before. She is less happy to hear from her housekeeper that the gardener has found Bayne’s body in the middle of her chrysanthemums, unquestionably murdered.
The sheriff focuses almost immediately on the famous writer visiting the Baynes, Adam Carthage. Carthage and Ann had a history going back to their service during the war, and to divert the sheriff’s attention she sets about examining the other individuals with a motive to murder Bayne, of which there are so many I had trouble keeping them straight.
Nicely plotted, the killer was completely unexpected but quite logical, considering the victim’s character. What I liked most about this book is the New England small town setting along with the exposition of the societal hierarchy, expectations, and customs of the time, all unconsciously conveyed of course because that is simply how people like Sally Wood lived. A bit of social history wrapped around a competent mystery.