CELIA FREMLIN – The Hours Before Dawn. Victor Gollancz, UK, hardcover, 1958. J. B. Lippincott, US hardcover, 1958. Reprint US paperbacks: Dell D422, 1961; Dell 3770, Great Mystery Library, 1966.

   Celia Fremlin has the unusual ability to take a perfectly normal, if not mundane, situation and create an atmosphere of sheer terror. The Hours Before Dawn, which won an Edgar for Best Novel of its year, introduces us to Louise Henderson, a sleep-starved young housewife with a fretful new infant that is causing complaints from both her family and neighbors.

   The only person who doesn’t complain is Miss Vera Brandon, the boarder the Hendersons have recently taken in. In fact, Miss Brandon is so self-effacing and quiet that at times the Hendersons don’t even know she is in the house.

   Soon the boarder’s actions begin to arouse Louise’s suspicions, and she finds herself doing all sorts of things she has never done before — attempting to search the woman’s room, contacting total strangers for information about her, and finally taking the baby for a nocturnal stroll in his pram, only to fall asleep and lose him in a park.

   The author skillfully weaves truly frightening events into Louise’s daily routine of meals, housecleaning, and childcare, and her superb characterization has the reader thoroughly on Louise’s side — and just as terrified as she is — by the time the story reaches its surprising conclusion.

   Other Fremlin titles of note: Uncle Paul (1960), Prisoner’s Base (1967), The Spider-Orchid (1978), With No Crying (1981).

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

CELIA FREMLIN, R.I.P. It was Martin Edwards who first made known the news of mystery writer Celia Fremlin’s passing, announcing it on his blog three days ago.

    She died this past summer in a nursing home in Bournemouth, on June 16th, with very few in the world of mystery fandom knowing about her passing until now.

    Besides Martin’s appreciative tribute to her work, plus a long array of followup comments, a longer obituary by Rebecca Tope can be found online here. She says in part, in one poignant paragraph:

    “Her personal life was, in fact, full of tragedy. From the death of her mother when she was seventeen, she went on to lose three children and two husbands, before going blind and slowly sinking into a twilight world that lasted for several years. Her books are light and humorous at first glance, but just below the surface is an acknowledgment of the truly terrible things that can happen to a person. Her style is distinctive and the books immensely enjoyable.”

   BIBLIOGRAPHY: Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

FREMLIN, CELIA. Pseudonym of Celia Margaret Goller, 1914-2009. UK publishers only, except for one case of a US retitling:
      The Hours Before Dawn (n.) Gollancz 1958.

      Uncle Paul (n.) Gollancz 1959.
      Seven Lean Years (n.) Gollancz 1961. US title: Wait for the Wedding, Lippincott 1961.
      The Trouble Makers (n.) Gollancz 1963.
      The Jealous One (n.) Gollancz 1965.

      Prisoner’s Base (n.) Gollancz 1967.
      Possession (n.) Gollancz 1969.
      Don’t Go to Sleep in the Dark (co) Gollancz 1970.
      Appointment with Yesterday (n.) Gollancz 1972. No US edition.

      By Horror Haunted (co) Gollancz 1974. No US edition.

      The Long Shadow (n.) Gollancz 1975.
      The Spider-Orchid (n.) Gollancz 1977.

      With No Crying (n.) Gollancz 1980.

      The Parasite Person (n.) Gollancz 1982.
      A Lovely Day to Die, and other stories (co) Gollancz 1984.
      Listening in the Dusk (n.) Gollancz 1990.
      Dangerous Thoughts (n.) Gollancz 1991.
       Echoing Stones (n.) Severn 1993.
      King of the World (n.) Severn 1994.

JON L. BREEN – The Gathering Place. Walker, hardcover, 1984; paperback, September 1986.

   I’m on record as having serious reservations about occult and horror fiction, feeling most works in those genres are “copouts” in which the authors do not play by the “rules” of reality.

   Jon L. Breen’s The Gathering Place contains one unexplainable element, the ability of its heroine, Rachel Hennings, to, without practice, imitate the signatures of famous authors like ErIe Stanley Gardner. The plot device of automatic writing doesn’t help what is otherwise a classic detective story, but it doesn’t hurt it enough to keep me from recommending thls book.

   The setting is a famous old bookstore, on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, recently inherited by Hennings from her uncle. There is real murder to go with the supernatural, and soon Rachel is acting as detective, with some help from a psychology professor, a reporter, and a Los Angeles Police detective.

   Hennings is a, strong enough character that she probably doesn’t need that many extra detectives. The mystery is crisply told and satisfactorily resolved, by strictly logical means. A real bonus is the atmosphere of an old-fashioned book store as seen through the eyes of an author who obviously loves old books.

   Bibliographic Data. [Expanded from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

HENNINGS, RACHEL
      The Gathering Place. Walker, hc, 1984.
      A Piece of the Auction. EQMM, July 1986. [Short story.]
      Starstruck. Murder in Los Angeles, Adams Round Table, Morrow, 1987. [novelette]
      Touch of the Past. Walker, hc, 1988.

      Rachel and the Bookstore Cat. Danger in D.C., ed. Martin H. Greenberg & Ed Gorman, Donald I. Fine, 1993. [short story]

   Some odds and ends this time, almost of them dealing with small typographical errors that have been spotted and corrected in Part 34 of the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.

COBB, (GEOFFREY) BELTON. 1892-1971. Son of Thomas Cobb, 1835-1932, q.v. Sales director for Longman’s publishers and a regular contributor to Punch and other magazines. His detective novels invariably involved one or more of three series characters: Inspector Cheviot Burmann (41 titles), Bryan Armitage (21 titles) and Superintendent Manning (6 titles), with some overlap. A small handful of stand-alone novels are also included in his entry in the Revised Crime Fiction IV.

DEHAN, RICHARD. Pseudonym of Clothilde (Inez Augusta Mary) Graves, 1863-1932, q.v. Under this pen name, the author of two story collections included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV; some of the stories are criminous.

FORSYTE, CHARLES. Joint pseudonym of Gordon Charles George Philo, 1920-2009, and his wife Mavis Ella (Galsworthy) Philo, 1920-1986, qq.v. Under this pen name, the author of four crime and/or espionage novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, three of them cases for Inspector Richard Left. Of special note is the following book, also in his CFIV entry:
      The Decoding of Edwin Drood. Gollancz, UK, hc, 1980; Scribner, US, hc, 1980. Discussion of previous attempts to complete the novel by Charles Dickens, 1812-1870, with a new ending by this author.

GRAVES, CLOTILDE (INEZ AUGUSTA MARY). 1863-1932. Add name in full (first named sometimes spelled Clothilde). Pseudonym: Richard Dehan, q.v. Born in Cork; actress, journalist, illustrator, poet and playwright. Under her own name, the author of one title included with a dash in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. See below. Other work, according to one source includes “humorous novels and stories of witchcraft and pagan religions.”
      -Dragon’s Teeth. Dalziel Brothers, UK, hc, 1891. Add setting: China. [A tale of daring adventure, hardship and love in China during a native uprising.]

HAMILTON, [LORD] FREDERIC (SPENSER). 1856-1928. Add biographical information: Was in Diplomatic Service, serving in Berlin, Petrograd, Lisbon and Buenos Aires. Member of Parliament; editor of Pall Mall Magazine. (Some sources say that he introduced the sport of skiing to Canada in 1887.) The author of one standalone novel in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, plus seven story collections involving series character Mr. P. J. Davenant. One of these is shown below (Nash, 1915). According to Lofts & Adley, Philip John Davenant was “a public school boy [whose] adventures took place while he was still a pupil at Tonbridge School […] In addition to an amazing bent to criminology [he had] a wonderful knowledge of the German language.”
      -Lady Eleanor, Private Simmonds, and Others. Hurst, UK, hc, 1919. Correct setting: Ireland.

HARDY, IZA DUFFUS. Ca.1852-1922. The author of “a large output of novels of a romantic cast. She set some of them in exotic places, and also wrote travel books and contributed stories and other pieces to periodicals.” To the thirteen titles previously listed in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, add the one below.
      Friend and Lover. Hurst, UK, hc, 1880; Harper, US, hc, 1880. Setting: England.

MACKENZIE, JOAN (NOBLE). Correct spelling of last name (from MacKenzie) and add middle name. Add: Born in Dumfries, Scotland, 1905. Included in her entry in the Revised Crime Fiction IV are five titles published between 1935 and 1951, four of them indicated as having only marginal crime content.

PHILO, GORDON CHARLES GEORGE. 1920-2009. Add year of death and biographical information: British diplomat stationed in Hanoi, Kuala Lampur, Ankara, Istanbul and London; long-time member of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. In literary circles, an expert on both Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling. Joint pseudonym with his wife Mavis Ellen Galsworthy Philo, 1920-1986: Charles Forsyte, q.v.

PHILO, MAVIS ELLEN (GALSWORTHY). 1920-1986. Add both dates and full name. Joint pseudonym with husband Gordon Charles George Philo, 1920-2009: Charles Forsyte, q.v.

SCOTT, EVELYN. 1893-1963. Pseudonym: Ernest Souza, q.v. Born in Clarksville, Tennessee; name at birth: Elsie Dunn. She changed her name to Evelyn Scott in 1913 when she began living with Frederick Creighton Wellman, an already married dean at Tulane University. After the mid-20s, she married British writer John Metcalfe. A celebrated novelist, playwright and poet of her day.

SOUZA, ERNEST. Pseudonym of Evelyn Scott, 1893-1963, q.v. Under this pen name, the author of one adventure thriller included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. See below:
      Blue Rum. Cape & Smith, US, hc, 1930; Jonathan Cape, UK, hc, 1930. Setting: Portugal, Brazil (add the latter).

LYON MEARSON – Phantom Fingers. Macaulay, hardcover, 1927. Hutchinson, UK, hc, 1929.

   Damon Knight, I believe it was, once reviewed what he called an “idiot novel,” wherein the hero was an idiot and the heroine was an idiot, but fortunately the villain was a super-idiot. This novel qualifies for that description.

   The Grand Theatre in New York City is about to put on a new play. The management and the two stars receive threatening letters — signed variously “Pro Bono Publico,” “Constant Reader,” and “A Well-Wisher,” affording the only intentional humor in the novel. If the male lead attempts to make love to the female star on the stage, he Is doomed, says the threatener.

   The play takes place, and the male star does indeed die, being strangled and then having his neck broken by some invisible agency in full view of the audience and almost in full view of the detective in the case, Steve Muirhead, who would have seen it from the beginning if he had been paying attention.

   Muirhead is more alert on the second occasion when an understudy takes over the role and begins being choked on stage, again by an invisible hand. With a visible knife Muirhead stabs the invisible hand and saves the understudy’s life.

   Does Muirhead remember his brave and intelligent — his only one — act? No. He puts the knife away somewhere safe and is thus at the mercy of the villain.

   Murder and attempted murder, and Muirhead is the sole policeman involved in the investigation. The rest of the force is directing traffic, one gathers. “A fate worse than death” is mentioned often enough in regard to the heroine to make one suspect that the author was trying to titillate his readers since he couldn’t entertain them.

   The only mysteries worth thinking about here are how Muirhead’s man Briggs becomes Muirhead’s man Grigson a few pages later and how this wretched amalgamation of mystery and science fiction went into a third printing.

   How it got published originally I will let others ponder.

   Bibliographic Data:   [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

MEARSON, LYON. 1888-1966. Born in Montreal; educated at New York Law School; art critic for New York Evening Mail.
      Footsteps in the Dark. Macaulay, 1927; Hutchinson, 1928. [Murder mystery revolving around an “oriental” decorated house and a stack of gold.]

      Phantom Fingers. Macaulay, 1927; Hutchinson, 1929.
      The Whisper on the Stair. Macaulay, 1924; Hutchinson, 1924.

   More authors’ entries from Part 34 of the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.

Note: Thanks to Curt Evans in Comment #1 for pointing out the relationship of Thomas Cobb to Belton Cobb. (See the former’s entry below.)

CLARK, ELLERY H(ARDING). 1874-1949. Born in West Roxbury MA. Add: Educated at Harvard University; as an athlete, Clark is the only person to have won both the Olympic high jump and long jump, achieving the feat in 1896 at the first modern Olympics in Athens. Later a lawyer and a Boston city alderman; as an author, Clark has two books included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. Below is his complete entry:

      The Carleton Case. Bobbs, hc, 1910.
      Loaded Dice. Bobbs, hc, 1909. Silent film: Pathe, 1918 (scw: Gilson Willets; dir: Herbert Blache).

CLAUSEN, CARL. 1895-1954. Correction of birth date. Born in Denmark; died in Pennsylvania. Prolific story writer for the pulps and other magazines, circa 1917-1941; the author of two books included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. See below:
      The Gloyne Murder. Dodd, hc, 1930.

      Jaws of Circumstance. Dodd, hc, 1931; Lane, UK, hc, 1931.

CLEMENTS, COLIN (CAMPBELL). 1894-1948. Born 25 February 1894 in Omaha, Nebraska. Add: Educated at the University of Washington, Carnegie Institute of Technology and Harvard University. With his wife Florence Ryerson (Clements), 1894-1965, q.v., prolific co-author of over one hundred short stories, plays and screenplays. Included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV are five collaborative mystery novels and three plays of a criminous nature. Series character Jimmy Lane appeared in four of the five mysteries, including the one cited below:

      Blind Man’s Buff. Long & Smith, US, hc, 1933. [Thirteen people stormbound on lonely island are murdered one by one.]

CLEMENTS, FLORENCE RYERSON. 1894-1965. Working byline: Florence Ryerson, q.v.

COBB, THOMAS. 1853-1932. Add: Born and lived in London. Father of (Geoffrey) Belton Cobb, 1892-1971, q.v. Prolific author of some 78 novels and perhaps 300 short stories. Of these, over 60 novels are included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, many of them only marginally. Series character Inspector Bedison has a leading role in four of them.

RYERSON, FLORENCE. Maiden name and working byline of Florence Ryerson Clements, 1894-1965. Born in Glendale, California. Add: Educated at Stanford University, Radcliffe College, and Boston University. Contributor to numerous magazines; screenwriter for films in the Fu Manchu and Philo Vance series; most noted for being one of the co-writers of The Wizard of Oz. Included in her entry in the Revised Crime Fiction IV are five collaborative mystery novels and four plays of a criminous nature, most in tandem with her husband, Colin (Campbell) Clements, 1894-1948, q.v., whom she married in 1927.

   Prompted by the recent addition to the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, I’ve decided to begin annotating the entries again. I’ve been remiss in doing so since last December, in spite of strong admonitions to myself, and I’ve fallen way behind.

   All of the entries below are now online in Part 34. Posting the entries here on the blog means all the more visibility for them, however, and from past experience, the extra exposure never hurts. Comments, additions and/or corrections are not only welcome but strongly encouraged.

CHILD, HAROLD (HANNYNGTON). 1869-1945. Add: biographical information. Born in Gloucester, England; actor; literary and drama contributor to London Times from 1902; drama critic for Observer 1912-1920, with a number of writings on the history of drama. Also a novelist with many stories and articles contributed to newspapers and magazines of the day. Author of one book included marginally in the Revised Crime Fiction IV:

      -Phil of the Heath. Pearson, UK, hc, 1899. Setting: Bristol (UK), 1831. [A romantic tale of the Reform Bill period.]

CHILD, NELLISE. Add: Pseudonym of Lillian Lieberman Gerard Rosenfeld, 1901-1981, q.v. Born Lillian Lieberman, the author’s first husband was Frank Gerard, an automobile saleman; she later married Abner G. Rosenfeld, a Chicago real estate developer. A journalist and playwright, her work includes the Broadway play Weep for the Virgins. Under this pen name, the author of two detective novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. SC: Detective Lt. Jeremiah Irish, in each:

      The Diamond Ransom Murders. Knopf, hc, 1935; Collins, UK, hc, 1934.

      Murder Comes Home. Knopf, hc, 1933; Collins, UK, hc, 1933. [After writing a note to the L. A. police department, a collector of Spanish art is found dead in his library.]

CHILD, RICHARD WASHBURN. 1881-1935. Add: biographical information. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts; educated at Harvard Law School. Ambassador to Italy, 1920-1924; contributor of articles on political and social themes to magazines. The author of two novels (one marginally) and two story collections included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. Of the two collections, the one cited below includes a story which has been the basis for several film adaptations:

      The Velvet Black. Dutton, hc, 1921; Hodder, UK, 1921. Story collection. Silent film, from ss “A Whiff of Heliotrope”: Cosmopolitan, 1920, as Heliotrope. Also: Paramount, 1928, as Forgotten Faces. Also (sound film): Paramount, 1936, as Forgotten Faces. Also: United Artists, 1942, as A Gentleman After Dark. [Synopsis of the 1920 silent film: A prison inmate obtains his release in order to rescue his daughter from the clutches of a blackmailer.]

CHILDERS, JAMES SAXON. 1899-1965. Born in Birmingham, Alabama. Professor of literature, newspaper editor, and publishing executive. Add: Educated at Oberlin College and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Author of two espionage novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. See below:

      The Bookshop Mystery. Appleton, US, hc, 1930. Setting: England. “A double appeal will lure the reader of this mystery story on: in the mellow atmosphere of rare books and famous bookshops is played out a tense intrigue between the secret agents of great nations.”

      Enemy Outpost. Appleton, US, hc, 1942. Setting: Canada. “An action-packed story of adventure, intrigue, and romance which is guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your chair. A story of a desperate attempt by Nazi saboteurs to dynamite American industry.”

CHRISTIE, ROBERT (CLELAND HAMILTON). 1913-1975. Add as a new author. Lived in Montreal and Ottawa, Canada.

      Inherit the Night. Farrar, hardcover, 1949; Hale, UK, hc, 1951. Setting: South America. “An evil stranger destroys the serenity of an Andean village and eventually himself.” [The cover shown is that of the reprint Pyramid paperback, R279.]

   Now online, as of yesterday evening, is Part 34 of the Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. While some revisions and corrections were still being made as of earlier this morning, it’s always a work in progress, and you’re certainly welcome to stop by and look around.

   This installment may or may not appear in the 2009 version coming out soon on CD, but an announcement will be made here as soon as Bill Contento finishes it up and makes it available. As a text file this installment is a hefty 40 pages long, chock full this time with lots and lots of biographical information about older authors supplied by John Herrington.

   Even though the coverage of the Revised Crime Fiction IV ends with the year 2000, it’s more and more obvious that while the flow of relevant information may slow down eventually, there’s no way it will ever stop coming in.

E. BAKER QUINN – One Man’s Muddle. Heinemann, UK, hardcover, 1936. Macmillan, US, hardcover, 1937.

   Two years before Raymond Chandler introduced us to Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep (1939), E. Baker Quinn, a British writer, anticipated both his voice and his attempt to do something more serious with the detective novel with her first novel about former Scotland Yard sleuth James Strange, an accomplishment noted by critic James Sandoe in his famous list of notable hard-boiled writers.

   When we first meet her sleuth James Strange, he has fled to a “… tu’penny ha’penny inn a hundred miles from nowhere,” to escape his past. But he knows it’s hopeless. “Do a bunk to the jungles of Africa and ten to one you’ll meet your mother-in-law’s char coming around the first bush …”

   And for Strange it is much worse than his mother-in-law’s charwoman. He’s runs smack into the former Mrs. Boynton, now Mrs. Geoffrey Wharton, a former London snowbird, an addict, who knows all about Scotland Yard’s former bright young thing who has just completed four years in the pen for possession of illegal drugs.

   And of course Mrs. Wharton is promptly murdered, and Strange finds himself forced to help her husband cover up her past while trying to cover up his own and keep the police from finding the .32 caliber automatic hidden in his luggage, the gun he used in a manslaughter case he was acquitted in — but would rather not bring up again — and coincidentally, the same caliber Mrs. Wharton was shot with …

   His attempts to keep his head above water push him deeper into the mess, and force him back to his ex-fiancee in London and to Ratchet, the partner who ratted on him and testified against him as King’s evidence.

   That’s the set up for a novel that anticipates the style and voice of Chandler’s novels:

   Before it is over Strange will solve the case, but find himself facing another two years in prison.

   In later books Strange gets out of prison and goes to work as a private eye with his despised ex-partner Ratchet. The voice continues in the Chandler vein.

   Who Quinn was, and how she came to discover a voice and subject matter so close to Chandler is a mystery in itself. But her books are worth discovering and reading, and Strange a curious compliment to Marlowe and his world.

   Here are a few samples of Quinn and Strange:

   One Man’s Muddle and its sequels are an interesting look at a Marlowe that might have been, one of those curious side roads that sometime run parallel to a more successful track. And well worth reading and discovering as first rate mysteries by a writer who deserved more recognition than she got.

         Bibliographic data: [From the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin]

QUINN, E(LEANOR) BAKER

       One Man’s Muddle (n.) Heinemann 1936. Macmillan, 1937. [James Strange]
       The Dead Harm No One (n.) Heinemann 1938.    (**)
       Death Is a Restless Sleeper (n.) Heinemann 1940. Mystery House, 1941. [James Strange]

(**) While it seems likely that he is, it is not known whether James Strange is in this book or not.

DICEY DEERE – The Irish Cairn Murder.

St. Martin’s; reprint paperback, March 2003; hardcover St. Martin’s edition, 2002.

   Dicey Deere is a new name to me, and likewise her mystery-solving character, Torrey Tunet, a professional translator by trade, living in Ireland, and by all accounts, a continual thorn in the side of Inspector Egan O’Hare. This is her third case, and the first I’ve had occasion to read.

   It also occurred to me that whenever you pick up a new author, one so new that there’s no word of mouth out on him or her yet, there’s always some mental evaluation going on in your mind as you read the first few pages, trying to stay flexible, but weighing one aspect of the story versus another — yes, this is good — no, that wasn’t very well done.

   And then there comes a point when suddenly you realize that, yes! this is maybe going to be OK, that the author knows what he or she is doing, and you can sit back and enjoy the rest of the read.

   In this book it comes very early on, on page four as a matter of fact, where it’s learned that to keep her linguistic skills in cutting-edge form, Torrey reads a stack of Maigret paperbacks in whatever language she’s going to need to be fluent in next. In this case, it’s Hungarian.

   (Note to self: It’s been a long time since I’ve read one of Inspector Maigret’s adventures. It’s time to remedy that.)

   As for the mystery itself, the dead man seems to have been a blackmailer, and of course it’s the victim (the blackmailee) who’s the obvious suspect. Torrey is not so sure.

   Dicey Deere’s manner of telling the story takes a little time to totally get used to. It’s told in fits and starts, with numerous hints and nuances, jumping sometimes abruptly from one scene to another. Mysterious events are followed by mysterious conversations, with mysterious trips ensuing. John Dickson Carr would have been very proud.

   The overall atmosphere is much cheerier and lighter than in any of Carr’s works, I hasten to add. It’s the idea that the reader doesn’t have to be told everything right away that’s the key in this comparison.

   (Note to self: It’s been a long time since I’ve read one of Dr. Gideon Fell’s adventures. It’s time to remedy that, too.)

   Another stylistic feature I liked is a form of emphasis new to me, though maybe not to you, if you’re been reading different books than I have. I’ll illustrate with a random quote, this one from page 180.

     Bibliography: [Expanded from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

LA BARRE, HARRIET (ca. 1916- ). Pseudonym: Dicey Deere. Travel writer living in New York City.
      Stranger in Vienna. Popular Library pbo, 1986.
      The Florentine Win. Walker, hc, 1988; Ivy, pb, 1989.

      Blackwood’s Daughter. St. Martin’s, hc, 1990; Ivy, pb, 1992.

DEERE, DICEY. Pseudonym of Harriet La Barre. Series character: Torrey Tunet, in all titles.
      The Irish Cottage Murder. St.Martin’s, hc, 1999; pb, June 2000.

      The Irish Manor House Murder. St. Martin’s, hc, 2000; pb, August 2001.
      The Irish Cairn Murder. St. Martin’s, hc, 2002; pb, March 2003.
      The Irish Village Murder. St. Martin’s, hc, 2004; pb, March 2005.

ERICA QUEST – The Silver Castle. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1978. Reprint hardcover: Detective Book Club, 3-in-1 edition, Sept-Oct 1978.

   The discovery that Gail Sherbrooke’s father, who she’d thought dead for over twenty years, had just committed suicide in Switzerland sends the aspiring young artist off on a search to learn the truth about a man she had never known.

   Lying just beyond her reach she finds both mystery and romance — the type of story most readers surely find done far too often, and rather badly, too.

   That’s not at all the case here. With much of the charm and intricacy of a hand-made Swiss clock, this is indeed an uncluttered detective story that’s both haunting and wholly enchanting.

Bibliographic data:    [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin]

QUEST, ERICA. Pseudonym of John Sawyer & Nancy Buckingham Sawyer; other pseudonym: Nancy Buckingham

      The Silver Castle (n.) Doubleday 1978
      The October Cabaret (n.) Doubleday 1979
      Design for Murder (n.) Doubleday 1981
      Death Walk (n.) Doubleday 1988 [Kate Maddox]

      Cold Coffin (n.) Doubleday 1990 [Kate Maddox]
      Model Murder (n.) Doubleday 1991 [Kate Maddox]
      Deadly Deceit (n.) Piatkus 1992 [Kate Maddox]

   I believe the Sawyers were British, but their books as Erica Quest were published only in the US. I seem to have avoided the issue somewhat in my review, but if The Silver Dagger were to be assigned to a genre, I don’t believe it could be called a Gothic. “Romantic suspense,” perhaps, but with a solid core of detection involved, if I can rely on the statement made above by my younger self.

   (Bolstering the detective content of the Quest books is a discovery, made only this evening, that the series character who appeared in their last four books is actually Detective Chief Inspector Kate Maddox.)

   Many of the books the Sawyers wrote as Nancy Buckingham were published only in England; most of the ones that appeared in the US were published in paperback as Gothics by either Ace or Lancer. A typical title might be The Legend of Baverstock Manor (Ace, 1968), which was originally published in the UK as the noticeably less striking Romantic Journey (Hale, 1968).

   The Sawyers also wrote many straight romances, using the additional pen names Christina Abbey, Nancy John, and Hillary London for many of these. A list of these, along with some covers, can be found on the Fantastic Fiction website.