Another installment of telling
you a bit about the 100+ new authors added to my main
list last October. Those authors included at least 16 who wrote one or more
volumes of mystery or suspense, some of them quite intriguing. I would say I'm
surprised to still be finding so many interesting authors at this stage of the
list, but after six years of making fairly regular updates and additions I'm
not really very surprised at all!
The biggest mystery in this
post is the identity of JANE BOYD
herself. This was the pseudonym used on a single mystery novel, Murder in the King's Road (1953). The
publisher noted that this was the pseudonym of "a crime writer of
distinction," but no one has yet determined which one.
I enjoyed it and reviewed
it here,
where you can also see a sample of the writing as well as my brainstormed list
of possible author-suspects. But my speculations have been to no avail thus
far—can you do better?
Next up is a prolific and
talented author of mysteries whose work is currently being reprinted by my
friends and colleagues at Dean Street Press. MORAY DALTON wrote 29 mysteries and thrillers beginning with The Kingsclere Mystery (1924). Fifteen
of these feature her series character Inspector Hugh Collier. In her non-series
titles, she occasionally made forays into other genres, including the
post-apocalyptic The Black Death
(1934) and the wartime adventure Death at
the Villa (1946). Other titles include The
Shadow on the Wall (1926), One by One
They Disappeared (1929), The Night of
Fear (1931), The Strange Case of
Harriet Hall (1936), Death in the
Forest (1939), The Art School Murders
(1943), and The House of Fear (1951).
Curtis Evans wrote about her life and writings here
when the first batch of Dean Street reprints appeared. A second batch has just been released.
A title by MARGARET SCUTT has also been recently
published. Scutt was a schoolteacher who published only two novels in her
lifetime—I Do But Follow (1947) and And Some There Be (1950), the latter of
which is historical in theme though details are lacking.
But she apparently wrote
several more novels that have remained unpublished. The first of these, Corpse Path Cottage, a mystery set in a
Dorset village, was written in the 1960s but only published in 2018. Has anyone
come across it yet?
I can find no trace of a CAROLINE COMSTOCK in public records,
which makes me wonder if the name is a pseudonym (and could she have written
other books under other names?). But her one and only novel (under this name at
least), The Bandar-Log Murder (1956),
subtitled "A Museum Street Thriller," sounds rather intriguing. The Observer said it was a "[c]hattily
readable little London mystery set among the futilitarian, un-dead,
neo-delinquent, mews-dwelling, contemporary youth." One hardly knows what
to think of that description, but the book's cover is also eye-catching and a
bit bewildering, so I might have to sample the book to ease my curiosity.
And then there's FELICITY SHAW, who published 25 mysteries
under her pseudonym Anne Morice, most featuring her actress sleuth Tessa
Crichton. Curtis Evans wrote about her family history here
and discussed her mysteries here.
Her sister Angela was an actress and, having married actor and agent Robin Fox,
produced a line of successful actors, including Laurence Fox of Lewis fame (who is now working with
great determination to destroy his career by making an ass of himself on
British talk shows).
Shaw had earlier published two satirical novels under her
own name. The Happy Exiles (1956) is
a sendup of dying British colonialism set in an apparently unspecified tropical
colony—the Philadelphia Inquirer
said, "For all its sting, Mrs. Shaw's way of telling a story is witty, her
eye for detail devastatingly observant, her commentary on the social aspects of
British colonial policy shrewdly apt. The
Happy Exiles is wondrous summer entertainment." Her second novel, Sun Trap (1958), also has a tropical
setting.
BERYL SYMONS
also started out writing non-mysteries. Her first three novels—A Lady of France (1910), The Roses of Crein (1912), and Prince & Priest (1912)—were all set
in medieval France. She then fell silent for well over a decade before returning
with a cheerful romance, Daffodil Jane
(1928), and then turning her hand to thrillers, which included The Leering House (1929), The Opal Murder Case (1932), Haunted Hollow (1934), and Through a Glass Darkly (1938). It's her
five final novels, however, that sound the most intriguing, and feature
spinster detective Jane Carberry (and perhaps some wartime settings as well?).
Those titles are Jane Carberry
Investigates (1940), Jane Carberry:
Detective (1940), Magnet for Murder
(1941), Jane Carberry and the Laughing
Fountain (1943), and Jane Carberry's
Week-End (1947).
And finally, last but not
least (or possibly least as well for all I know), comes JOAN MACKENZIE, who published five novels—The Homeward Tide (1935), The
Deadly Game (1939), Linda Walked
Alone (1944), All for the Apple
(1948), and The Wayward Heart (1951).
From a short review, Deadly Game is
clearly a thriller, and a blurb explains that All for the Apple is "about a girl who takes up a job in a
country house down in the Scottish Borders, owned by a famous and wicked
surgeon." Ooh, famous and
wicked!
I'm whimpering with desire for all of these! And as far as Laurence Fox ... I've been saving reruns of the entire Lewis oeuvre to get me through the 2020 elections, but I'm not sure Sgt. Hathaway will be quite so "dishy" to me this time. Why do people make such asses of themselves?
ReplyDeleteIndeed, I'm more intrigued by his aunt now than by him!
DeleteSome lovely books and authors. One thing that occurred to me, if you can't identify Jane Boyd, then I suppose it is also impossible for Furrowed Middlebrow/Dean Street Press to get permission to reissue Murder in the King's Road, which I would very much love to read.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post.
Jerri
Actually, there's what's called an Orphan Works License which allows you to publish works whose rights holders can't be identified. I usually leave the mysteries to Dean Street's mystery expert, though, but who knows!
DeleteThat it good to know. Either Dean Street alone or with you.
DeleteJerri
A left-field hypothesis for you: Caroline Comstock is a character in the book 'Keep my secret' by Jane Dorset (1946). Jane Dorset wrote at least 13 novels between 1945 and 1953. Is it feasible that she then wrote The Bandar-Log Murder using the Caroline Comstock name because it was a thriller rather than a love story? I can't find Jane Dorset on your site or on Ancestry.
ReplyDeleteWonderful tidbit! Could be pure coincidence, or it could be a clue. I'll certainly look more closely at Dorset, though. Her books don't happen to have any museum settings, do they???
DeleteI've been enjoying all the Moray Dalton books available, and have the new batch on pre-order!
ReplyDelete