LEE CROSBY – Too Many Doors. E. P. Dutton, hardcover, 1941. Thriller Novel Classic #25, no date [1944], as Doors to Death (condensed). Belmont Books, pb, 1965.

   Wendal Crane, head of the Crane family and the family’s doll factory, has invited the entire family to hear a special announcement.

   What happens instead is that the great hurricane of 1938 cuts the house off totally from the outside world and murders begin taking place. Not to mention the voices from the walls and the little Malay figurines who may be coming alive.

   Fortunately, Dorcas Brown, a cousin of the Cranes, has brought with her Eric Hazard, psychologist and crime investigator. He gets it all straightened out in a novel that has nothing in particular to recommend it.

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

CROSBY, LEE. Pseudonym of Ware Torrey Budlong, 1905-1967; other pseudonyms: Meg Padget, Judith Ware and Joan Winslow
       Terror by Night (n.) Dutton 1938 [Eric Hazard]

       Too Many Doors (n.) Dutton 1941 [Eric Hazard]

       Midsummer Night’s Murder (n.) Dutton 1942

       Night Attack (n.) Dutton 1943
       Bridge House (n.) Belmont 1965

PADGET, MEG
       House of Strangers (n.) Lancer 1965

WARE, JUDITH
       Quarry House (n.) Paperback Library 1965
       Thorne House (n.) Paperback Library 1965
       The Faxon Secret (n.) Paperback Library 1966
       Detour to Denmark (n.) Paperback Library 1967

       The Fear Place (n.) Paperback Library 1967
       A Touch of Fear (n.) Signet 1969

WINSLOW, JOAN
       Griffin Towers (n.) Ace 1966

   The author was also a newspaperwoman, feature writer, editor, book columnist, foreign correspondent, short story writer. Her husband was Theodore Budlong, an advertising executive. At various times she lived in Upper Darby PA (1940s) and Bridgeport CT (1961).

   Her writing career was split into two parts, separated by a passage of some twenty years. When she began writing again in the mid-1960s, it was as part of the “Gothic romance” boom. Note that Too Many Doors was reprinted as one of the latter to take advantage of the tremendous, nearly unending demand for books in the category.