Best wishes for health and happiness in the upcoming New Year! This first post for 2008 originally contained the entries for only two authors from Part 22 of the online Addenda, but it soon became apparent that a reference to one additional writer was going to be needed. Then the entry for Mrs. Rinehart was combined with a previous one appearing in Part 3, which is where you will find the expanded entries for both her and for Stephen Vincent Benét.

BENÉT, STEPHEN VINCENT. 1898-1943. American poet, novelist and short story writer. To the two story collections previously cited in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, add the title indicated with an asterisk (*) below.
      (*) _The Bat: A Novel of the Play [by Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood]. Benét was the anonymous ghost-author of this title. See the entry for Mary Roberts Rinehart for more information.
      Tales Before Midnight. Farrar & Rinehart, hc, 1939. William Heinemann, UK, hc, 1940. Short story collection, some of them criminous.
      Thirteen O’Clock. Farrar & Rinehart, hc, 1937. William Heinemann, UK, hc, 1938. Short story collection, some of them criminous.

PROWSE, PHILIP. Since 1993 a full-time writer and freelance trainer, directing teachers courses overseas and in Cambridge where he now lives. All titles below intended for adults learning to read; add the ones indicated by an asterisk (*). Add series character: private eye Lenny Samuel, who has also appeared in several similar books published after 2000. This is now the author’s complete entry in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV.
      * Bristol Murder. Heinemann, UK, 1973, 80pp. Setting: Bristol. [A runaway boy’s uncle has been found dead.]
      Double Cross. Cambridge University Press, UK, pb, 1999, 64pp. [A politician survives an attempted assassination in Stockholm; secret agent Monika Lundgren is instructed to find the people responsible.]
      L.A. Detective. Heinemann, UK, pb, 1993, 16pp. (LS) Add setting: Los Angeles. [Lenny has to make the ransom exchange for a businessman’s kidnapped daughter.]

      * The Woman Who Disappeared. Heinemann, pb, 1975, 64pp. (LS) Setting: Los Angeles. [A beautiful blonde woman hires Lenny Samuel to find her missing sister.]

RINEHART, MARY ROBERTS. 1876-1958. Famed author of many mystery novels and short stories written between 1906 and 1953. Links are provided to online etexts of some of the following titles.
      -The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry. Bobbs-Merrill, hc, 1911. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hc, 1919. SC: Letitia (Tish) Carberry]. Collection of three stories. Add the dash to indicate only marginal crime content. Says Michael Grost of the Tish stories: “comic tale[s] … most of [them] are not constructed as mysteries.”

      The Bat [with Avery Hopwood, 1884-1928]. New York & London: French, pb, 1932. Published edition of the play based on Rinehart’s novel The Circular Staircase. The play ran for 867 performances between August 23, 1920 and September 1922. Add: TV movie [series episode/Dow Hour of Great Mysteries]: NBC, 1960 (scw: Walter T. Kerr; dir: Paul Nickell). [Note: Although this filmed version is not mentioned, many other adaptations of the book as a play and on film are discussed here on the Mystery*File blog.]
      The Bat: A Novel From the Play [with Avery Hopwood, 1884-1928]. George H. Doran, hc, 1926. Add: Cassell & Co., UK, hc, 1926. Novelization of the play, anonymously written by poet Stephen Vincent Benét, 1898-1943, q.v. The play was based on Rinehart’s novel The Circular Staircase. Also published as: The Bat Whispers (Grosset, 1926). Also note: Most later paperback editions do not mention either Hopwood or Benét as authors; credit is given to Rinehart alone.

      _The Bat Whispers. Grosset & Dunlap, hc, 1926. A Photoplay edition. See The Bat: A Novel from the Play.
      The Circular Staircase. Bobbs-Merrill, hc, 1908. Cassell, UK, hc, 1909. The basis for the play The Bat, with Avery Hopwood (French, 1932).
      -Two Flights Up. Doubleday Doran & Co., hc, 1928. Hodder & Stougton, UK, hc, 1928. Add the dash to indicate only marginal crime content.
      –Where There’s a Will. Bobbs-Merrill, hc, 1912. Add the dash to indicate only marginal crime content.