Zola Helen Girdey Ross (1912 –1989) taught writing at the University of Washington and the Lake Washington schools in Kirkland, Washington. She wrote Western historicals, children’s fiction, and crime novels. Her mysteries were published under Z. H. Ross and the pseudonyms Helen Arre and Bert Iles. Ross wrote a series of children’s mysteries with Lucile Saunders McDonald of The Seattle Times. With McDonald she established the Pacific Northwest Writers Association.
WorldCat lists these adult mysteries under the three names she is known to have used:
Z. H. Ross: Three Down Vulnerable (1946), Overdue for Death (1947), One Corpse Missing (1948)
Helen Arre: The Corpse by the River (1953), No Tears at the Funeral (1954), Write It Murder (1956), The Golden Shroud (1958), Murder by the Book (1960)
Bert Iles: Murder in Mink (1956)
Her books are out of print but I was able to find a copy of Ross’s second mystery Overdue for Death (The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1947). Set in Seattle, it is written from the perspective of Penny Love, the secretary to Bryson Menard, the manager of the West Coast sales office of Pioneer Electric Shaver Company. Penny is bubbly and outgoing and is the confidant of everyone in the office, which isn’t a happy place. Menard is charismatic when he chooses to be but often he doesn’t bother. The sales representatives don’t believe they get their fair share of the large bonuses the office earns, and the technical service engineer is underpaid. Menard has two adult children and an ex-wife, along with a second wife he plucked from a Las Vegas show floor. He is not on speaking terms with his children and neither wife is happy with him.
After a day of dealing with an office full of fractious people, Penny goes home to her aunt, a long-time resident with friends in high places. They are awakened in the night by the telephone: the night watchman is calling Penny to say he found Menard strangled with a shaver electric cord. Motives for murder abound and alibis offered to the police are of the shakiest sort. Everyone is hiding something, including Penny, but the police don’t have enough evidence to charge anyone. The potential that Menard was committing business fraud complicates matters. Then the second murder occurs.
I have been trying to decide if the mystery here is fairly clued; I think it probably is. I realized who the culprit was near the end, although I could not tell for most of the story. The investigation got caught up in various relationship dramas, which slowed the narrative. The wet Seattle setting is authentic, as are the characters. I liked the regional mid-century flavor of the story. So: good plot, good setting, uneven pacing. Well worth looking for her other mysteries. I am a little surprised that these books haven’t been picked up for reprint.