Two more recently discovered deaths, the first in this post being that of spy fiction writer Owen John. Born in Wales in 1918, he passed away there in January 1995. Added also to his entry in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, is his first name, Leonard, unused in his byline for the following crime novels, the last three marginal (as usual, so indicated by a dash in front of the title):

JOHN, (Leonard) OWEN (1918-1995)

      * Thirty Days Hath September (n.) Joseph 1966 [Haggai Godin; Italy] Dutton, 1967; Paperback Library 63-127, pb, 1969.

      * The Disinformer (n.) Joseph 1967 [Haggai Godin; Canada] Paperback Library 53-773, pb, 1968.

      * A Beam of Black Light (n.) Joseph 1968 [Haggai Godin; Russia] Paperback Library 63-085, pb, 1969. “The story of a young British civil servant planted in a fantastic Russian secret laboratory in the wildest terrain in the world, is insidiously terrifying.”

      * Dead on Time (n.) Joseph 1969 [Haggai Godin; Middle East] Paperback Library, pb, 1969. “The Arab-Isaeli conflict is the setting for a tale full of action and tension … reality is blended with fiction, with great skill and dash.”

      * The Diamond Dress (n.) Cassell 1970

      * The Shadow in the Sea (n.) Cassell 1972 [Haggai Godin; Russia] Dutton, 1972. Fawcett Crest M1928, pb, 1973. “A mysterious Russian submarine is discovered patrolling off the coast of England — Haggai Godin was the one man who could stop it.”

      * Sabotage (n.) Cassell 1973 [Haggai Godin; Wales] Dutton, 1973. Fawcett Crest M2097, pb, 1974. “Two men meet at night on a dark road in Carreg Wales. In London, Roge Platt, Chief of Special Operations, and his agent, Haggai Godin, discover that a nuclear power plant somewhere in England may be sabotaged.”

      * Getaway (n.) Coronet 1976 [Haggai Godin]

      * -The Controller (n.) Hale 1978

      * -Festival (n.) Hale 1978

      * -McGregor’s Island (n.) Hale 1979 [Hebrides]

   Haggai Godin, presumably the young man pictured without a shirt in the paperback cover above, is the agent whose adventures took him all over the world.

   Another writer whose death Al Hubin has recently found out about is Henry Kolarz, who died in 2001. He was the author of one book included in CFIV:

KOLARZ, HENRY (1927-2001)

      * Kalahari (Fawcett Popular Library, 1979, pb) [Africa] Translation of “Kalahari” from the German. Frankfort, 1977. Reprinted in a Reader’s Digest hardcover collection of condensed novels, 1980.

   Kalahari is one of a extremely small number of crime novels to have taken place in Botswana. A description of the book, as provided by the Reader’s Digest edition:

   Kolarz was the author of at least one other work of crime fiction that was never translated from German into English, Nachts um 4 wird nicht geklingelt (1961), a novel based on an actual event, that of the escape of 19 prisoners from a North Carolina security prison in 1959.

   I’ve been falling behind in terms of pointing out the deaths of a number of mystery authors that Al Hubin has been uncovering recently. Sources that he uses to come up with the dates they died include Contemporary Authors and various sites on the Internet. Eventually the information will appear in the online (and ongoing) Addenda to his Revised Crime Fiction IV, but it’s my intention to post them here on the M*F blog as well, adding to their profiles as I’m able.

   There’s such a backlog now that it no longer makes sense to try to do them all at once. If I do only two or three at a time the task won’t seem so overwhelming, and even so, I’d better not put it off any longer.

   First in this particular post is Benedict Kiely, born August 15, 1919 in Ireland, author of two titles in CFIV, one marginally crime-related. He died on February 8th earlier this year.

KIELY, BENEDICT (1919-2007)
      * -The Cards of the Gambler (Methuen, 1953, hc)
      * Honey Seems Bitter (Methuen, 1954, hc) Dutton, 1952. Also published as: The Evil Men Do; Dell, 1954.

   Mr. Keily was a Irish journalist, writer and critic, and literary editor of the Irish Press beginning in 1950, overcoming the banning of three early novels, including Honey Seems Bitter. Under Ireland’s censorship laws at the time, the books were deemed to be “in general tendency indecent or obscene.”

   Moving to the US in 1964, he was the writer-in-residence and/or visiting professors at three different universities, returning the Ireland in 1968, later receiving the Award for Literature from the Irish Academy of Letters, and was awarded honorary doctorates by the National University of Ireland and the Queen’s University, Belfast.

   In 1996 he received the highest honour of Aosdána, the Irish artists’ body, when he was elected a Saoi, in recognition of his contribution to literature, his work displaying both “a deep affection for and exasperation with Ireland.” At the time of his death Benedict Kiely had become one of Ireland’s best-known broadcasters, storytellers and short story writers.

   The theme of Honey Seems Bitter is murder and in essence is a psychological study of the dark side of humanity bordering on existentialism. Without seeing the book itself, the blurb for the Dell paperback edition seems shallow in comparison: “Beautiful Lily Morgan had been murdered and defiled, yet even in death she held two men in an unnatural grip.”

   Mavis Eileen Underwood, learned to have died in January, 1987, was born 1916 in Guernsey, Channel Islands. She wrote one novel included in CFIV, a Crime Club mystery published under the byline of Sarah Kilpatrick:

KILPATRICK, SARAH; pseudonym of Mavis Eileen Underwood, (1916-1987 )
      * Wake All the Dead (Doubleday, 1970, hc) [England] White Lion, 1974.

      Again as Sarah Kilpatrick, she wrote a small handful of other books, one of which, Fanny Burney (David & Charles, UK, 1980), was a biography of the 18th century novelist of the same name. The blurb of Ladies’ Close (Gollancz, UK, 1967), one of three works of fiction, compares the novel to the work of Jane Austen except, as one bookseller puts it, “this is more sexual.”

      As for Wake All the Dead, it has to do with Rose Tallis, a newcomer to a small English village, a local pub, hippies, an ancient cemetery, drugs, and an old verger’s death.

   In an email to Al Hubin, subsequently forwarded on to me, mystery bookseller Jamie Sturgeon recently pointed out the existence of a website devoted to British spy and crime thriller writer Desmond Cory.

   Many of Cory’s “Johnny Fedora” novels of espionage and adventure were published as paperback originals in the US by Award in the 1960s during the height of the boom for James Bond and his many imitators — only Johnny Fedora had been there first. Walker published a number of others in hardcover around the same time, and many of these were reprinted in softcover by Signet.

   As available as his books were at one time, the fact remains that Desmond Cory’s fiction is now all but unknown in the US — and perhaps in the UK as well — even though the introduction to the previously mentioned website can arguably proclaim that –

   Here, with one addition, the year of his death, not known until now, is the complete dossier on author Desmond Cory as found in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. British editions only are given, unless published in the US under new titles:

CORY, DESMOND; pseudonym of Shaun McCarthy, (1928-2001); other pseudonym Theo Callas.

* Begin, Murderer! (n.) Muller 1951 [Lindy Grey; England]
* Secret Ministry (n.) Muller 1951 [Johnny Fedora]
* This Is Jezebel (n.) Muller 1952 [Lindy Grey; England]
* This Traitor, Death (n.) Muller 1952 [Johnny Fedora; Paris]
* Dead Man Falling (n.) Muller 1953 [Johnny Fedora; Austria]
* Lady Lost (n.) Muller 1953 [Lindy Grey; England]
* Intrigue (n.) Muller 1954 [Johnny Fedora; Italy]
* The Shaken Leaf (n.) Shakespeare Head 1954 [Lindy Grey; England]
* Height of Day (n.) Muller 1955 [Johnny Fedora; Africa]
* The Phoenix Sings (n.) Muller 1955 [England]

* High Requiem (n.) Muller 1956 [Johnny Fedora; Africa]
* Johnny Goes North (n.) Muller 1956 [Johnny Fedora; Sweden]
* Pilgrim at the Gate (n.) Muller 1957 [Mr. Pilgrim; England]
* Johnny Goes East (n.) Muller 1958 [Johnny Fedora; Tibet]
* Johnny Goes South (n.) Muller 1959 [Johnny Fedora; Argentina]
* Johnny Goes West (n.) Muller 1959 [Johnny Fedora; South America]
* Pilgrim on the Island (n.) Muller 1959 [Mr. Pilgrim; Germany]
* The Head (n.) Muller 1960 [Johnny Fedora; Spain]
* Stranglehold (n.) Muller 1961 [Mr. Dee; England]
* Undertow (n.) Muller 1962 [Johnny Fedora; Spain]
* Hammerhead (n.) Muller 1963 [Johnny Fedora; Madrid]
* The Name of the Game (n.) Muller 1964 [Mr. Dee; England]
* Shockwave (n.) Walker 1964; See: Hammerhead (Muller 1963).
* Deadfall (n.) Muller 1965 [Spain]
* Feramontov (n.) Muller 1966 [Johnny Fedora; Spain]

* Overload (n.) NEL 1966; See: Johnny Goes South (Muller 1959).
* Timelock (n.) Muller 1967 [Johnny Fedora; Spain]
* Mountainhead (n.) Award 1968; See: Johnny Goes East (Muller 1958).
* Trieste (n.) Award 1968; See: Intrigue (Muller 1954).
* Dead Men Alive (n.) Award 1969; See: Height of Day (Muller 1955).
* The Hitler Diamonds (n.) Award 1969; See: Dead Man Falling (Muller 1953).
* The Night Hawk (n.) Hodder 1969 [Spain]
* The Swastika Hunt (n.) Award 1969; See: Johnny Goes North (Muller 1956).
* The Nazi Assassins (n.) Award 1970; See: Secret Ministry (Muller 1951).
* The Gestapo File (n.) Award 1971; See: This Traitor, Death (Muller 1952).
* Sunburst (n.) Hodder 1971 [Johnny Fedora; Spain]
* Take My Drum to England (n.) Hodder 1971 [Spain]
* Even If You Run (n.) Doubleday 1972; See: Take My Drum to England (Hodder 1971).
* A Bit of a Shunt Up the River (n.) Doubleday 1974 [England]
* The Circle Complex (n.) Macmillan 1975 [Wales]
* Bennett (n.) Macmillan 1977 [Spain]
* The Catalyst (n.) St. Martin’s 1991; See: The Strange Attractor (Macmillan (London) 1991).
* The Strange Attractor (n.) Macmillan 1991 [Prof. John Dobie; Dr. Kate Coyle; Wales]
* The Mask of Zeus (n.) Macmillan 1992 [Prof. John Dobie; Dr. Kate Coyle; Cyprus; Academia]
* The Dobie Paradox (n.) Macmillan 1993 [Prof. John Dobie; Dr. Kate Coyle; Scotland]

McCARTHY, SHAUN (Lloyd) (1928-2001); see pseudonyms Theo Callas & Desmond Cory

* Lucky Ham (London: Macmillan, 1977, hc) [Oxford; Academia]

CALLAS, THEO; pseudonym of Shaun McCarthy, (1928-2001); other pseudonym Desmond Cory

* The City of Kites (Muller, 1955, hc) [Vienna]

   Quoting from the website —

   The Johnny Fedora series consists of 16 novels written over a period of twenty years, all taking place in exotic locations.

   In the first novel, Secret Ministry, Johnny Fedora is introduced as a secret agent whose forte is the ability to outshoot, outwit, and outmaneuver his Cold War opponents. In subsequent novels, he is often teamed up with Sebastian Trout from the Foreign Office. Johnny’s connection with British intelligence is unofficial, but is hired by them for specific assignments.

   Written at the same time as the early Fedora novels, the Lindy Grey series were entertaining private-detective thrillers, comprising over 4 titles.

   In Begin, Murderer! Lindsay Grey starts as an urbane man-about-town who solves murders that baffle the Oxford police. Self-described as “a one-time private detective of one-time private means”, Lindy (as he likes to be called) is not ashamed of living a dissolute life.

   In 1991, after a decade of dedicating his writing efforts to academic works, Cory returned to writing mystery novels, introducing a new series character, Professor John Dobie.

   The first Dobie novel, The Strange Attractor, introduces us to an absent-minded maths professor who stumbles into the world of computer hacking, high-tech thievery, and multiple murder. Through wit and a clever plot, Cory takes Dobie through an intriguing sequence of events where he is drugged, tied up and made to witness a murder. New characters such as his girl-friend Dr. Kate Boyle, and Detective Inspector Michael Jackson (Wacko Jacko) add further spice to this clever mystery novel.

   One novel, Deadfall, was made into a film starring Michael Caine as cat burglar Henry Clarke, who with his accomplices attempts to steal diamonds from the chateau of a Spanish millionaire.

   Chock full of other information about the author and his other standalone thrillers, the website is certainly worth a visit. Lots of great cover art, too, of which I’ve provided you with only a small sampling.

   On page 11 of the June 8-14, 2006, online edition of the Canadian newspaper The Express is a bittersweet article about author Rachel Kimor-Paine and the release of her first mystery novel, Death Under Glass, published by Killick Press. Between the time she finished the manuscript and the book itself was delivered to her door, she was diagnosed with lung cancer.

   And on February 1st of this year, as reported by The Gumshoe Site earlier this month, Ms. Kimor-Paine lost her two-year battle with the disease. She was 55. The manuscript of a second book in the series, Death in the Tai Chi Retreat, is said to be in the hands of her publisher.

   Death Under Glass introduces as a series character Olga Erdos, a retired lawyer from Budapest now living in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The murder of a high society woman (and real estate agent) who is poisoned with pesticide is the first of several deaths and suspicious accidents that she must solve.

   The following is excerpted from the short biography of her as posted on her publisher’s website:

   A longer tribute to Rachel Kimor-Paine, including much more information about her very interesting life, can be found in the online edition of The Globe and Mail.

   Jill McGown, best known as the author of a series of thirteen British police procedurals starring Chief Inspector Lloyd and Sergeant Judy Hill (later also Chief Inspector, and Lloyd’s wife) died last Friday, April 6th, after a long illness. This according to a statement recently posted on her website.

   She was 59 at the time of her death.

   Also on the website is a lengthy autobiography, where among many photos and details about growing up in Campbeltown, Argyll, Scotland, she says: “Campbeltown is on the Mull of Kintyre, made famous by Paul McCartney and Wings, and I knew the piper who plays the solo on the record, so there!”

   Also of interest, she says in passing: “From junior school, I went to Corby Grammar School, where I was taught Latin by Colin Dexter who went on to write the Morse books, though I didn’t know that when I wrote my first book.”

   Her detective stories bridge the gap between the meticulously plotted stories of the 1930s and 1940s Golden Age of mysteries, and the psychological crime stories of the 1950s, suggests one source. Not only do Ms. McGown’s series characters, Lloyd and Judy Hill solve the most deviously twisted crimes together, but they’re also lovers, their slow-moving romance part of the reason readers kept returning for the next installment.

   Excerpted from an online interview with Jill McGown:

How do you start your novels – do you have a character, plot, ending or title first?

   I start with a character, almost always. I then rummage in my mental plot drawer for a plot that might fit this character. My ‘plots’, if you can call them that, are minimalist to say the least, so that bit isn’t difficult. With Redemption, for instance, it was simply a joke someone told me.

   The character of the vicar came into my mind one night, complete with a daughter who had an abusive husband. I thought about the vicar and his family for a little while, and then saw how they could fit my ‘joke’ plot.

   The complexity comes as I write, and is dictated by the characters as they are revealed to me. The plot will always give way to the characters, so even I don’t always know how the story will end.

   The title usually emerges during the writing, but sometimes it’s the very last thing I think about. And it often has to be changed.

If someone was going to read one of your novels – which one would you recommend they start with?

   The Lloyd and Hill novels are, of course, each complete in themselves, but there is a continuing story and the characters develop through each novel, so I would recommend starting with A Perfect Match, being the first one.

   This is not, however, essential — the back-story is sketched in each time. That in itself is quite a challenge — finding new ways to explain the set-up to readers requires some ingenuity!

BIBLIOGRAPHY, as expanded from Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

McGOWN, JILL (1947- 2007); see pseudonym Elizabeth Chaplin.

      Lloyd & Hill titles:

* A Perfect Match (n.) Macmillan 1983
* Redemption (n.) Macmillan 1988 [US title: Murder at the Old Vicarage]
* Death of a Dancer (n.) Macmillan 1989 [US title: Gone to Her Death]
* The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale (n.) Macmillan 1991
* The Other Woman (n.) Macmillan 1992
* Murder Now and Then (n.) Macmillan 1993
* A Shred of Evidence (n.) Macmillan 1995
* Verdict Unsafe (n.) Macmillan 1997
* Picture of Innocence (n.) Macmillan 1998
* Plots and Errors (n.) Macmillan 1999
* Scene of the Crime (n.) Macmillan 2001
* Births, Deaths and Marriages (n.) Macmillan 2002. [US title: Death in the Family]
* Unlucky For Some (n.) Macmillan 2004

      Standalones:

* Record of Sin (n.) Macmillan 1985
* An Evil Hour (n.) Macmillan 1986
* The Stalking Horse (n.) Macmillan 1987
* Murder Movie (n.) Macmillan 1990

CHAPLIN, ELIZABETH; pseudonym of Jill McGown

   A Shred of Evidence was the basis of a TV movie entitled Lloyd & Hill, starring Michelle Collins as DI Judy Hill, and Philip Glenister as DCI Danny Lloyd. According to Ms McGown, it was for this film that Lloyd gained a first name.

[UPDATE] 04-15-07. For another tribute to Jill McGown, Jeff Pierce has one he posted earlier on The Rap Sheet. It’s excellently done, as usual, and one you should most definitely read.

   Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at the age of 84. In many ways, he was the Mark Twain of our time, and there are many other websites which will discuss his life, his writings, and his awards and accolades. What follows in this blog entry will be less an obituary, however, than a personal note or two about the author, no more or no less.

   Back in the mid-1960s, I responded to a poll in a science fiction fanzine which wished to know my Top Ten SF novels. I remember only my top two choices, Number One on my list being The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, which won the 1963 Hugo award for Best Novel of the Year.

   Number Two was Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Thinking about the book as soon as I heard the news last evening about Mr. Vonnegut’s death, I realized that besides being about the mysterious substance “ice-nine,” a dangerous alternative form of water, I no longer remember very much else about the book. I probably do not remember the details of very many other books I read 40 to 45 years ago, but no matter; this realization is jarring, and it means that I shall have to do something about that.

   From the Wikipedia page for Mr. Vonnegut, I have excerpted the following passage:

   That the author gave himself an “A plus” for Cat’s Cradle reassures me somewhat, that as a critic at the young age I was at the time, my judgment on a book’s worth was not entirely lacking.

   Very soon after writing Cat’s Cradle, Mr. Vonnegut declared himself not a science fiction writer, as I recall, nor (I suspect) did he ever consider himself to be a crime fiction writer. But one of his books, Mother Night (Gold Medal s1191, paperback original, 1962) is included in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.

   I have to confess that I’ve never read the book, and my records reveal that I do not even own a copy. Nor do I remember the movie made from it, a 1996 film starring Nick Nolte, Sheryl Lee and Alan Arkin. It seems to have come and gone having made impression on me whatsoever. Whether this was due to a limited release to a diminishing number of “art” theaters in the country, or my own lack of attention, I do not know, but once again, here is a situation that I see needs remedying.

   I’ve tried to understand the detailed synopsis of Mother Night which I found on Wikipedia, but perhaps Mr. Vonnegut’s are too complex to be summarized in a short detailed synopsis. Either you write a book about one of his books, or you try not at all. Or maybe you resort to only one line – this one, perhaps, from the IMDB page for the movie:

   One thing I’m sure of, or maybe it’s two. Mother Night was certainly not a typical Gold Medal book, nor was Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., a typical American author.

   There are events in the real world that you, I am sure, would find hard to believe if someone would take them simply as they happened and write them up as part of a work of fiction. Noted comic book writer Arnold Drake died in mid-March at the age of 83. Spy fiction author Leslie Waller died on March 29th, four days before his 84th birthday.

   The connection? In 1950 as “Drake Waller” the two men collaborated as the author of It Rhymes with Lust, considered to be the first graphic novel, a digest-sized work in comic book form. Of marginal interest as a crime novel, it nonetheless was recently added as a marginal entry to Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. See the online Addenda, Part 12.

   Two men, born within a year of each other, worked on one key book together in their 20s, went their own professional ways, and then died within weeks of each other. Destiny sometimes moves in mysterious ways.

   Not all of Mr. Waller’s bibliography consists of crime-related fiction, but a large portion of it is, with espionage, crooked bankers and Mafia elements predominant.

   He was in fact a Gold Medal writer, as a book simply titled “K” (Gold Medal, 1963) was a plot to assassinate Khrushchev during a visit to the US.

   His final work of fiction was Target Diana, a trade paperback with low distribution in which Princess Diana was murdered by a rogue agent, with the secret approval of the Royal Family.

   Excluding It Rhymes with Lust, but expanded to included Target Diana, Leslie Waller’s output as recorded in CFIV looks like this:

WALLER, LESLIE (1923-2007); see pseudonyms C. S. Cody & Patrick Mann.
      * “K” (n.) Gold Medal, pbo, 1963 [Chicago, IL]
      * A Change in the Wind (n.) Geis 1969
      * The American (n.) Putnam 1970 [Europe]
      * The Coast of Fear (n.) Doubleday 1974 [Italy; WWII]
      * The Swiss Account (n.) Doubleday 1976 [Switzerland]

      * Trocadero (n.) Delacorte 1978 [Paris]
      * Gameplan (n.) Bantam 1984
      * Embassy (n.) McGraw 1987 [London]
      * Amazing Faith (n.) McGraw 1988 [Europe]
      * Deadly Sins (n.) Heinemann. UK, 1992
      * Mafia Wars (n.) Onyx 1993
      * Tango Havana (n.) Heinemann, UK, 1993 [Havana, Cuba]
      * Manhattan Transfer (n.) Heinemann. UK, 1994 [New York City, NY]
      * Eden (n.) Severn, UK, 1997
      * Target Diana (n.) Transatlantic Publishers, pb, 2001.

CODY, C(harles) S.; pseudonym of Leslie Waller.
      * The Witching Night (n.) World 1952 [Indiana]
      * Lie Like a Lady (n.) Ace, pbo, 1955 [Chicago, IL]

MANN, PATRICK; pseudonym of Leslie Waller.
      * Dog Day Afternoon (n.) Delacorte 1973 [New York City, NY]
      * -The Vacancy (n.) Putnam 1973
      * Steal Big (n.) St. Martin’s 1981 [England]

   I haven’t happened to have found a cover image for Tango Havana (1993), but I did come across a description of the plot. Hoping to provide an idea of the kind of stories Mr. Waller wrote, I’ll include it here:

   And taken from the same book, here’s a short “About the Author” biography:

   Although some sources say Mr. Waller wrote several screenplays, IMDB mentions only his work as a writer for the TV show Falcon Crest, and that a non-fiction book he wrote, Hide in Plain Sight was made into a 1980 film starring James Caan. Not stated on IMDB, as Patrick Mann he also wrote the book which novelized the film Dog Day Afternoon. Either of these may be where the confusion arises.

   Even though it’s not included in CFIV, some of the behavior displayed on Falcon Crest was definitely criminous in behavior. Below you’ll find a image of the cover of the book, a novelization of the TV series written by Patrick Mann, a.k.a. Leslie Waller, once again the man behind the pen name.

[UPDATE] 12-02-08.   Based on a suggestion included in an email I received from Dan Bara today, Al Hubin agrees that the following two titles by Leslie Waller are crime-related and should appear in CFIV. The brief descriptions of each were found by me and helped Al make the call:

Descriptions from various sources:

The Family.

FROM THE FRONT COVER: Slashes deeper than the Godfather, “sex, sadism, violence, money, power, evil.”

“An explosive story that bares the link between the big-time bankers and big-time crime.”

The Banker.

The money man: He owned villas in France, Italy, Switzerland, England, Germany & the Caribbean–each outfitted with emperor-sized round beds …. He was a juggler of power & people, keeping an uneasy balance between the broads he bought, the men he bled, the Swiss bankers & mafia musclemen he did business with. He was one step ahead of the SEC, the IRS, & the Justice Department. He was the wheeler-dealer king of international finance.

Woods Palmer moves into the field of intrigue and counter-intrigue in the big business world of banking in America.

   After the news of Donald Hamilton’s death late last year was confirmed two days ago, the world of mystery fiction has been rocked a second time this week. Michael Dibdin, creator of the deeply idiosyncratic Venetian police detective Aurelio Zen, passed away last Friday, March 30th, only eight days after his 60th birthday.

   Rather than duplicate the effort, I strongly recommend you visit The Rap Sheet, where J. Kingston Pierce has done his usual excellent job of putting together a series of links and quotes about Mr. Dibdin, who certainly left us far too young.

   While his first book was a well-regarded Sherlock Holmes pastiche, one in which the master detective confronted Jack the Ripper, Aurelio Zen is the character Mr. Dibdin’s career has been centered around ever since. And from what critics around the world have said, his reputation, were it to depend on only this one creation, is secure for a long time to come. I’ll quote only one section of the obituary in the Telegraph, as posted by Jeff at The Rap Sheet:

   Michael Dibdin was born in England but lived in the Seattle area in the US since his marriage in 1995 to fellow mystery writer K. K. Beck. The following bibliography of his crime fiction, as expanded from Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, lists only the British editions:

      # The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (n.) Cape 1978 [Sherlock Holmes; London; 1888]
      # A Rich Full Death (n.) Cape 1986 [Florence; 1855]
      # Ratking (n.) Faber 1988 [Insp. Aurelio Zen; Italy]

      # The Tryst (n.) Faber 1989 [England]
      # Vendetta (n.) Faber 1990 [Insp. Aurelio Zen; Italy]
      # Dirty Tricks (n.) Faber 1991 [Oxford; Academia]
      # Cabal (n.) Faber 1992 [Insp. Aurelio Zen; Rome]
      # The Dying of the Light (n.) Faber 1993 [England]
      # Dead Lagoon (n.) Faber 1994 [Insp. Aurelio Zen; Venice]

      # Dark Spectre (n.) Faber 1995 [U.S. Northwest]
      # Cosi Fan Tutti (n.) Faber 1996 [Insp. Aurelio Zen; Naples]
      # A Long Finish (n.) Faber 1998 [Insp. Aurelio Zen; Italy]
      # Blood Rain (n.) Faber 1999 [Insp. Aurelio Zen; Sicily]
      # Thanksgiving (n.) Faber 2000 [Nevada]
      # Medusa (n.) Faber 2003 [Insp. Aurelio Zen; Italian Alps]
      # Back to Bologna (n.) Faber 2005 [Insp. Aurelio Zen; Bologna]

   Again according to the Telegraph: “Back to Bologna was Dibdin’s most recent title, but he has an 11th (and probably last) Zen novel, End Games, due out in the UK in July and in the States in November.”

   I refrained from posting this yesterday, in case it would be considered a particularly cruel April Fool’s joke if we were wrong. I also waited until we had obtained as much information as we could about what we have discovered, we being Al Hubin, Marv Lachman, Victor Berch and myself.

   First came an email from Al:

   Although I don’t recall any word about Donald Hamilton’s passing, it certainly appears that he has. Contemporary Authors gives his birth date as 3/24/1916, and there’s a Donald B. Hamilton in the Social Security death benefit records with this birth date who died 11/20/2006 in Ipswich, MA.

   From Marv Lachman:

   I think I can confirm that it was THE Donald (Bengtsson) Hamilton who died. He formerly lived in Santa Fe and was listed in our phone book as Donald B. Hamilton, though no street address was given. I checked our phone book today and there is [only] a Donald R. Hamilton, with a street address. I then spoke to someone at the library who knew him, and she says that he moved “back east.” That would account for his death in Ipswich, Mass.

   From Victor Berch:

   There was no obituary for Donald Hamilton in the Boston papers. There was even no death notice. This can happen since someone has to pay in order for a death notice to be inserted in the newspapers. If Hamilton was in a nursing home at the time or a hospital, neither institution would pay for such a notice.
   At any rate, I did find some information about Donald Hamilton. He was born in Upsala, Sweden. Came to the US aboard the SS Droltingholm on the 6th of October in 1924. He was the son of Bengt and Elise Hamilton. His father was a doctor and at that particular time was associated with the Childrens’ Hospital in Boston. He was also a professor at Harvard (probably Harvard Medical School). By 1930, the family had moved to Baltimore, MD.
   That’s about all I could dig up on his early years.

   From Al Hubin:

   I think it must be “our” Donald Hamilton, though it is surprising his passing went unnoticed for so long.

   So here is where we stand. You now know as much as we do. Obviously there are many questions as yet unanswered. Victor also suggested getting the death certificate of the Donald Hamilton who died, but at this point in time we have not done so.

   For a long retrospective look by John Fraser into the mystery and espionage fiction of Donald B. Hamilton, best known as the creator of secret agent Matt Helm, go to https://mysteryfile.com/Hamilton/Hamilton.html.

   Highly recommended also is a followup piece that Doug Bassett did for Mystery*File, a nicely done in-depth comparison of Matt Helm with Travis McGee, the colorful series character created by John D. MacDonald.

      Cover art by Tim Gabor.

[UPDATE] Early this afternoon Charles Ardai confirmed the death of Donald Hamilton. Charles is the man behind Hard Case Crime, who reprinted Hamilton’s Night Walker in January 2006. […] Charles has now left a comment to this effect. In a separate email to me he added, “We are very proud to have worked with Don and to have published one of his books. He was one of the giants, and he’ll be missed.”

   Every one of author Gladys Greenaway’s 11 books listed in CFIV are indicated as having marginal crime content.

   Those with double asterisks were reprinted in the US by Ace in paperback form, suggesting that they were published as “gothics” at a time when gothics ruled the paperback book business. Gladys Greenaway has a number of other titles to her credit, continuing on to 1982, if not longer. Presumably these are straight romances, with no criminal content to speak of.

   It was John Herrington again who has confirmed her year of death as 1991. Other than her books being offered for sale on the Internet, a Google search brings up no additional information about her.

[UPDATE] 03-31-07. To demonstrate that research into the writing careers of mystery authors never ends, John Herrington has pointed out that Gladys Greenaway’s middle name and initial are “Ivy M.”

   Also, while looking for copies of her books online, or other information about her, I discovered that Girl on the Heights, a title not listed above, was described by one bookseller as a “Inspector Henry Mason novel.” Even with only this one line, it was immediately obvious that this is a book that should be included.

   I sent the information on to Al Hubin, and he immediately agreed. Not only that, well, read his reply:

   The hunt for new facts and data never ends!