This profile appears also in Part 21 of the Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. Some of the dates of the Australian editions of Afford’s book were revised and reported on in Part 5, then Fender Tucker (of Ramble House fame) came along and added the first US editions of most of the titles.

   So much new data to include, in other words, that it necessitated a complete revamp of his entry, and here it is.

AFFORD, MAX. Working name of Malcom R. Afford, 1906-1954. Born in Adelaide, noted playwright and radio producer with a biennial award given in his name to young Australian dramatists. Author of more than sixty radio and stage plays, with six crime novels and two books of plays included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV; see below. This now constitutes the author’s complete entry. Series character: Jeffery Blackburn (JB). Blackburn is a freelance sleuth who continually offers his services to Chief Inspector William Read on some very interesting cases.

      Blood on His Hands! John Long, UK, hc, 1936. (JB) Setting: Melbourne, Australia. Add US edition: Ramble House, pb, 2006. Also published as: An Ear for Murder, Johnson (Sydney, Australia), ca. 1947. Correction of tentative publication date of Australian edition. “A thriller with ‘impossible’ overtones, including a locked room murder.”

      The Dead Are Blind. John Long, UK, hc, 1937. (JB) Add US edition: Ramble House, pb, 2007. [A locked room murder takes place in a radio studo while a mystery play is being broadcast.]

      Death’s Mannikins. John Long, UK, hc, 1937. (JB) Also published as: The Dolls of Death, Johnson, Australia, 1947. Correction of publication date of Australian edition. Add US edition: Ramble House, pb, 2006. “ … about a country manor where every member of the family has a mannikin that looks like him. When one turns up, the person dies, horribly.”

       _The Dolls of Death. Sydney, Australia: Johnson, pb, 1947. Correction of publication date. Previously published as Death’s Mannikins (Long, 1937).

      _An Ear to Murder. Sydney, Australia: Johnson, pb, ca.1947. Correction of publication date. Previously published as Blood on His Hands! (Long, 1936).

      Fly by Night. John Long, UK, hc, 1942. (JB) Also published as: Owl of Darkness (Angus, 1942; Ramble House, 2006). Add the latter as the first US edition.

      Lady in Danger. Sydney, Australia: Mulga, pb, 1944. [This edition with Afford alone.] Later edition in collaboration with Alexander Kirkland and some variations in text: French, 1946. [3-act play]

      _Lady in Danger [with Alexander Kirkland]. French, pb, 1946. Revised from 1944 Mulga edition written by Afford alone.

      Mischief in the Air. Australia: University of Queensland Press, pb, 1974. Collection of plays. Add complete listing, below. Those criminous are indicated with an asterisk (*).
         Consulting Room
         *Lady in Danger
         Lazy in the Sun
         *Mischief in the Air
         William Light–The Founder

      _Owl of Darkness. Angus, Australia, hc, 1942. Previously published as Fly by Night (Long, 1942). Add US edition: Ramble House, pb, 2006. “A classic impossible crime novel about a villain dressed as an owl terrorizing a quaint village.” Shown is the cover of a Collins paperback reprint with a photograph of the author on the front.

      The Sheep and the Wolves. Sydney, Australia: Johnson, pb, 1947. (JB) Setting: Australia. Correction of publication date.

      Sinners in Paradise. Sydney, Australia: Johnson, pb, 1946. Setting: Australia. Correction of publication date.

   I don’t know about you, but I’ve always had a fondness for the traditional kind of mystery with a long list of characters before the story begins and/or with a final scene in it with the detective in the case confronting the suspects and one by one points out why they might have done it, and how. One of those isolated manor houses, English, most likely, in which one of the people trapped somehow inside must have been the killer, but who?

   There aren’t many covers that do something similar, but H. R. F. Keating’s The Murder of the Maharajah was one, with small portraits of 12 of the characters shown on the front in some detail.

   And here’s another, with 12 more possible suspects (or additional victims) depicted on the cover. No artist is credited, which is too bad, as this is one that certainly caught my eye.

DELL. Paperback reprint, September 1990. Hardcover edition: Scribner’s, 1989. UK edition: Collins, 1989.

      From the back cover:

Des Capper, landlord of Saracen’s Head, a splendid Elizabethan inn, had been called a bore, a snoop, and other things not fit to print. Currently he was provoking his newest arrivals, the performers of the Ketterick Arts Festival — as rowdy a group as ever trod the boards. Des thought knowledge was power and was busily digging up secrets to “get” someone good. The brilliant conductor with the Casanova complex … the gorgeous Russian soprano with a taste for bit players … the theatrical couple with a marriage so open it had a revolving door … all of them — and scads of others — soon had the urge to kill Des. Finally someone did. But why would be the best-kept secret of all.

“HARD TO RESIST … MY, BUT IT’S FUN TO READ ROBERT BARNARD.”   — The New York Times Book Review

“IRREVERENTLY HUMOROUS, INVENTIVE BARNARD CAPTIVATES READERS WITH HIS LATEST EFFORT … [YOU] WILL EXULT IN THE KICKER THAT ENDS THIS SEDUCTIVE STORY.”   — Publishers Weekly

   For some reason that I’ve never been able to explain — not that I’ve ever tried — there has been a long-standing connection between Christmas and the crime story, and not just in the short story format. Back when Mystery*File was still an in-print journal, I published a checklist of all of the crime, mystery and detective novels that took place on or around Christmas. It was long in its initial form, and it kept getting longer and longer as additional suggestions continued to pour in. Figuratively speaking, of course.

   I’ll be taking the day off from blogging tomorrow. I sincerely hope that you will have family and friends nearby, or at least within a phone call away. In the spirit of the season, with a dose of Alfred Hitchcockian humor thrown in — well, more than a dose, I’m afraid, but the cover is nicely done — I offer you the following. Mark Hess is the artist.

MYSTERIOUS PRESS. Paperback reprint, December 1992. Hardcover edition, 1991.

      Stories, all apparently first appearances:

Charlotte MacLeod — Counterfeit Christmas    [Peter Shandy]

Reginald Hill — The Running of the Deer    [Joe Sixsmith]

Elizabeth Peters — Liz Peters, PI    [Liz Peters]

Medora Sale — Angels    [Inspector John Sanders]

John Malcolm — The Only True Unraveller

Dorothy Cannell — The January Sale Stowaway

Bill Crider — The Santa Claus Caper    [Carl Burns & Pecan City police chief “Boss” Napier]

Patricia Moyes — Family Christmas

Evelyn E. Smith — Miss Melville Rejoices    [Susan Melville]

Eric Wright — Two in the Bush

Mickey Friedman — The Fabulous Nick

Robert Barnard — A Political Necessity

Margaret Maron — Fruitcake, Mercy, and Black-Eyed Peas    [Deborah Knott]

   I decided to fill in some of the gaps in Part 9 last night, but time was limited, and I didn’t get very far. I discovered that one of the authors whose career I chose to look into, Charles Beardsley, wrote a list of titles as long as your forearm, but Al Hubin is correct, only two of them qualify for inclusion in Crime Fiction IV.

   Beau Riffenburgh, another of the authors covered in this posting, is one of those people whom you wonder about. How can they find so much time in the day to do all they do? Read on.

BATTYE, GLADYS STARKEY. 1915-1975. Add year of death. Pseudonym: Margaret Lynn, q.v.

BEARDSLEY, CHARLES (NOEL). 1914-1994. Date of death confirmed. Pseudonym: Jocelyn Radcliffe, q.v. Born in California; held many jobs around the world, including those of port representative in the Philippines and engineering reports writer in Khuzestan. He became a full-time writer in 1968. Under his own name, the author of many novels, most often as US paperback originals; two early thrillers are included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
            Baksheesh and Roses. Mayflower, UK, pb, 1968.
            A Raging Wind. Davies, UK, hc, 1961. Setting: Morocco.

BEAUFORT, SIMON. Joint pseudonym of husband-and-wife writing team Elizabeth Cruwys, 1958- , and Beau Riffenburgh, 1955- , q.v. Add year of birth for the latter. Under this pen name, the authors of two historical mystery novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below. Add series character in each: Sir Geoffrey Mappestone, a Medieval knight whose first brush with murder occurs while on a Crusade. Since 2000 there have been at least three more titles in the series. Dr Beau Riffenburgh and Dr Elizabeth Cruwys have also been editor and assistant editor for Polar Record, an internationally refereed journal of polar research. Note: On her own, Elizabeth Cruwys also writes historical mysteries as Susanna Gregory.
      A Head for Poisoning. St. Martin’s, hc, 1999. Setting: England, 1101 AD.
      Murder in the Holy City. St. Martin’s, hc, 1998. Setting: Jerusalem, 1100 AD.

LYNN, MARGARET. Pseudonym of Gladys Starkey Battye, 1915-1975, q.v. Add year of death. Under this pen name, the author of six novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. First published in the UK, all six were reprinted in the US, five in hardcover. When published in the US in paperback editions, the books were generally considered to be a gothic romantic suspense novels.

RADCLIFFE, JOCELYN. Pseudonym of Charles Beardsley, 1914-1994, q.v. Confirm date of death. Under the pen name, the author of one gothic romantic suspense novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Blackwood. Curtis, pb, 1974. Setting: California. “Blood ties turned into a stranglehold of horror in a place where a kiss could kill.”

RIFFENBURGH, BEAU. 1955- . Add year of birth. Joint pseudonym with Elizabeth Elizabeth Cruwys, 1958- : Simon Beaufort, q.v. He is not only a mystery writer, but both a historian specializing in polar exploration and a noted expert on American football, with many publications to his credit.

   I’ve missed this year’s Winter Solstice by a day, but no matter. This cover gives me the chills every time I look at it. Those of you who live in more temperate climes simply don’t know what you’re missing. (Or you do, and that’s why that’s where you are.)

   Unfortunately, I can’t find any indication of who the artist is who did the cover.

AVON. Paperback original, June 2005.

      From the back cover:

In a historic, if isolated, New England hotel, some of the most respected names in archaeology are coming together to celebrate the work of Julius Garrison, a legend in the field. It’s a conference Emma Fielding is determined to attend — braving a furious winter storm to get there — even though Garrison is no friend to her or her family. And when the honoree’s lifeless body is discovered outside the snow-bound inn, Emma suddenly finds she is a murder suspect, along with a surprising number of the other guests. The bitterness widely spread by a cantankerous old man has had fatal consequences, forcing Emma Fielding to put her archaeological skills to forensic use to uncover the truth. But a strange series of thefts and attacks — and eerie rumors about a ghostly prowler — suggest that truth may be more deadly than Emma imagines.

   I decided to finish up the W’s in Part 9 this morning, which quickly required backtracking and filling in details for two prolific and popular but now relatively forgotten authors, Patricia Matthews and Alan Sewart, along with their various pen names. (Along with, of course, the rest of the W’s.)

BRISCO, PATTY. Pseudonym of Patricia (Anne Klein) Matthews, 1927-2006, q.v. Add death date. Under this pen name, the author of four gothic romantic suspense novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, all in unstated collaboration with her husband, writer Clayton Matthews. One of these is shown below (Avon, pb, 1973).

MATTHEWS, PATRICIA (ANNE KLEIN) (née ERNST). 1927-2006. Add year of death. Pseudonyms: Patty Brisco, Laura Wylie, qq.v. Married Marvin Owen Brisco, 1946, divorced 1961; married writer Clayton Matthews, with whom she often collaborated, 1972. Best known for her historical romance novels, with titles such as Love’s Avenging Heart, beginning in the late 1970s; also a prolific writer of Gothic and romantic suspense novels, with over 15 included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV under her own name and two pen names. Series character Casey Farrel, at least in one book a female member of the Governor of Arizona’s task force on crime, appeared in four books, each in collaboration with Clayton Matthews. The cover image of one is shown below (London & New York: Severn House, 1994).

NASH, PADDER. Pseudonym of Alan Sewart, 1928-1998, q.v. Under this pen name, the author of eight detective novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. Published between 1982 and 1986 by Robert Hale in the UK, all eight feature Sgt. Boggis as the primary series character, but that each of them has the word “Grass” in the title indicates the stories are told through the eyes of a professional informer. One of these is shown below (Hale, 1982).

SEWART, ALAN. 1928-1998. Add year of death. At one time Chief Inspector of police in Bolton, Lancashire, UK. Pseudonyms: Padder Nash, Alan Stewart Well, qq.v. Under his own name, the author of 24 detective and thriller mysteries included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. Published only in the UK by Robert Hale between 1978 and 1986, the starring character in five of them is Sgt. Harry Chamberlayne, while Chief Superintendent Evans appears in another four. (Neither appears in the novel shown below, Hale, 1979.)

WELL, ALAN STEWART. Pseudonym of Alan Sewart, 1928-1998, q.v. Add year of death. Under this pen name, the author of four mystery novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, all published in the UK by Robert Hale between 1980 and 1984.

WHITE, VALERIE. 1915-1975. Add both dates and the following biographical data: Born in South Africa; trained as a commercial artist; stage and television actress, mostly in England. Author of three mystery novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Case. Arthur Barker, UK, hc, 1954. SC: John Case.
      Case for Treachery. Arthur Barker, UK, hc, 1955. SC: John Case. “A nuclear thriller.”
      Lost Person. William Heinemann, UK, hc, 1957. Add SC: John Case. [The beautiful wife of one of the richest men in the world first disappeared from her hotel in Cannes in 1935.]

WILLIAMSON, GEOFFREY. 1897- . Year of death not known. Author of one marginally crime-related novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      -The Lovable Outlaw. William Heinemann, UK, hc, 1930. Add setting: India.

WISE, ERNIE. 1925-1999. Add year of death. Born Ernest Wiseman, he changed his name when he went into show business at a young age. As a comedian, well known as part of the comedy duo, Morecombe and Wise, considered by Wikipedia as “an institution on British television.” With Eric Morecambe, co-author of one book included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The Morecambe & Wise Special. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, UK, hc, 1977, hc. A humor miscellany, including a short Sherlockian parody: “The Whitechapel Murders: A Tale of Sheerluck Holmes and Dr. Wits-end.”

WYLIE, LAURA. Pseudonym of Patricia (Anne Klein) Matthews, 1927-2006, q.v. Add year of death. Under this pen name, the author of one novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The Night Visitor. Pinnacle, pb, 1979. Reprinted as by Patricia Matthews, Severn House, 1988. Delete series character: Casey Farrrel does not appear, even though so stated in the CD version of CFIV.

   As I promised a couple of days ago, here’s a small collection of some other paperbacks that Victor Kalin did the artwork for. I’ve admired his paintings for quite a while, but I really don’t know very much about him, other than he was born in 1919.

   There are a couple of websites you could look into, both dealing with the sale of original art, a hobby I regret I never got into. The first is

http://www.askart.com/askart/k/victor_kalin/victor_kalin.aspx

      and the second is

http://new.artnet.com/artist/651160/victor-kalin.html

   Other than the covers he did, that’s about all I know about him. If you know more, please drop me a line.

   And of course, here below are only a small fraction of the covers he did.

   In the limited time I had today to spend working on Part 9 of the Addenda, I was in the W’s, but branched out from there as usual. No big names this time around, but they all wrote crime fiction, in one form or another.

MOREL, DIGHTON. Pseudonym of Kenneth Louis Warner, 1915-1990, q.v. Under this pen name, the author of one title in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV perhaps more science-fictional than crime related. See below.
      -Moonlight Red. Secker & Warburg, UK, hc, 1960. Add the dash. Ned Brooks provided the following description of the book, based on the author’s entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, by Donald H. Tuck: “An apocalyptic disaster novel in which an epidemic drives everyone mad.”

PALMER, JOHN. Pseudonym of Edgar John Palmer Watts, 1904-1988, q.v. Add year of death. [Note: This is not the John Palmer who with Hilary St. George Saunders wrote under the joint pen name of Francis Beeding.] Under this byline Watts wrote four crime adventure novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below. Series characters Guy Plant and Freya Matthews (P/M) appeared together in two of them.
      Above and Below. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hc, 1967. Setting: Ship. (P/M)
      The Caves of Claro. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hc, 1964.
      Cretan Cipher. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hc, 1965. Setting: Crete.

      So Much for Gennaro. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hc, 1968. Setting: Ship. (P/M)

SELWYN. Pseudonym of Selwyn Victor Watson, 1912-1989, q.v. Add both dates. Under this pen name, the author of one mystery novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Operation Ballerina. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hc, 1953. A review in Punch begins: “The secret agent. The blonde. The gun. The coincidences. The brutality … ”

WANDER, KEITH W. 1941-2001. Add year of death. Born in Buffalo NY, lived after retirement north of Traverse City MI. Author of two works of Christian fiction, both mysteries included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. Add the one marked with an asterisk (*) below.
      Brothers for Life. Illinois: Crossway Books, pb, 1991. Add setting: Michigan (Leelanau County).
      (*) Last Resort. Illinois: Crossway Books, pb, 1990. Setting: Michigan (Leelanau County).

WARNER, KENNETH LOUIS. 1915-1990. Correct spelling of middle name and add year of death. Pseudonym: Dighton Morel, q.v.

WATTS, EDGAR JOHN PALMER. 1904-1988. Add year of death. Pseudonym: John Palmer, q.v.

WATSON, SELWYN VICTOR. 1912-1989. Add both dates. Pseudonym: Selwyn, q.v.

   In the comment he left to my Cover Gallery post for paperback artist Darcy (who turned out to be pulp artist Ernest Chiriacka), Juri Nummelin admitted being a known leg-man.

   Juri, This may not be exactly what you meant, but when I saw this rendition of Nancy Bush’s heroine Jane Kelly, I immediately thought of you.

   The artist is not identified, but in terms of catching a would-be buyer’s eye, or at least mine, the cover is yet another example where simpler is better.

KENSINGTON. Paperback reprint, September 2007; hardcover edition: October 2006. [The same artwork is used on each.]

      From the back cover:

Take today. Jane Kelly, thirtysomething ex-bartender, current process server, and owner of The Binkster, a pug, is dutifully putting in slave-labor hours working for Dwayne Durbin, local “information specialist” (i.e., private investigator), and on the road to becoming a P.I. herself. Next thing she knows, she’s socializing with the Purcells, a rich, eccentric family with a penchant for going crazy and/or dying in spectacularly mysterious ways.

From what Jane can tell, the Purcells all want Orchid Purcell’s money. And when Orchid turns up in a pool of blood, the free-for-all has just begun. Then when Jane finds a second body, it seems weird city is about to get even weirder … and a bit more deadly.

In her second smash outing, Nancy Bush’s wickedly funny heroine, Jane Kelly, proves herself a worthy successor to Stephanie Plum, but with a wit, style, and dog that are definitely all her own.

   I continued to work in Part 9 this afternoon, still in the S’s but getting into the T’s. As you’ll quickly see, this entailed some backtracking to fill in the cross-referencing that developed.

BOUNDS, SYDNEY JAMES. 1920-2006. Add year of death. Pseudonyms: Max Storm, George Sydney, qq.v. Other pseudonyms: Maxwell Chance, V. L. Scott. Born in Brighton, England. An early science fiction fan and writer, he later branched out into other fields: crime novels, westerns, war stories and others. Much of his mystery fiction was written under house names; included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV are nine such novels, the bylines being Brett Diamond, Earl Ellison, Rick Madison, Rex Marlowe, Desmond Reid & Peter Saxon. One of these is shown below: White Mercenary [as by Peter Saxon], Amalgamated Press, UK, pb, 1962. SC: Sexton Blake. [Rewritten by W. Howard Baker.]

KEY, L. J. Pseudonym of Daniel Tamkus, 1934- . Add confirmed year of birth. Under this pen name, the author of one marginal crime-horror novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      -The Spawn. Dell, pb, 1983. [The Royces – a special family, a privileged clan living in a closely guarded enclave, a paradise of wealth and tradition no stranger could penetrate. They thought themselves safe…]

STORM, MAX. Pseudonym of Sydney James Bounds, 1920-2006, q.v. Add year of death. Under this pen name, the author of one paperback original included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Murder Be My Mistress. Badger, UK, pb, 1959. Also published as: The Set-Up, as by J. K. Baxter (Badger, 1962).

SWIFT, FRANCINE MORRIS. 1938-2007. Add both dates. Described as a true Sherlockian, a long-time member of the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes (“Hatty Doran”); received her investiture in the Baker Street Irregulars in 1994. One short work is included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The Hound’s Tale. London: Sherlock Holmes Society, pb, 18 pages, 1992. SC: Sherlock Holmes. [A chapbook offering a “decidedly canine view of the events on Dartmoor.”]

SWIFT, RACHELLE. Pseudonym of Jean Barbara Lumsden, 1916-1998. Add year of death. Under this pen name, author of a number of romance novels; two with mystery content are included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      The House at Green Bay. Robert Hale, UK, hc, 1969. Setting: New Zealand.
      A Taunt from the Past. Robert Hale, UK, hc, 1970. Setting: Wellington, NZ.

SYDNEY, GEORGE. Pseudonym of Sydney James Bounds, 1920-2006, q.v. Under this pen name, the author of one Sexton Blake novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Countdown for Murder. Amalgamated Press, UK, pb, 1962. SC: Sexton Blake. Note: According to a website devoted to the character, the book was revised by W. Howard Baker & George Paul Mann.

TACK, ALFRED. 1906-1993. Add year of death. Born and lived in London, England. Besides a number of non-fiction books on marketing and business management, Tack was the author of 16 mystery novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. Of these books, published between 1946 and 1975, only four have been reprinted in the US. A series character named John Harley appeared in four of his earliest mysteries, including his first, shown below (Herbert Jenkins, 1946). In this book Harley, formerly of the Royal Artillery, is a new salesman for a firm whose managing director has just been murdered.

TALBOT, HAYDEN. 1892- . Add year of birth; date of death unknown. Born in New York NY. Father of Betsy Talbot Blackwell, editor-in-chief of Mademoiselle between 1937 and 1971. A grandson, James Madison Blackwell IV, was on the staff of Newsweek from 1963 to 1985. Playwright and author of one work included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      It Is the Law. Allen & Unwin, UK, hc, 1923. Silent film: Fox, 1924 (scw: Curtis Benton; dir: J. Gordon Edwards). A play by Elmer Rice was earlier based on Talbot’s original story (1922). (The link leads to a full synopsis and review.)

TAMKUS, DANIEL. 1934- . Add confirmed year of birth. Pseudonym: L. J. Key, q.v. Under his own name, author of story or screenwriter for two Hollywood films.