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Mystery Authors (M)



David MacDuff



David MacDuff was the pseudonym of Alan Wilson Marshall (1905-1962), who was born in Scotland, educated at St. Andrews and University of California, and among other occupations tried his hand at riveting, circus press agent, journalist, and milkman.



Murder Strikes Three



Death strikes at academia, not once, not twice, but three times. The local police have their eye on some faculty members, who are none too certain about the police. With gangsters jumping into the case, it's hard to tell exactly who is on the side of justice.


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Harold MacGrath



Harold MacGrath (1871-1932) was born in Syracuse, New York. He worked for the Syracuse Herald until the 1890s, when his first novel was published. He went on to write forty novels along with short stories and screenplays.



The Blue Rajah Murder



One fabulous blue diamond with a deadly history. Two stories of crime that surround it as greed leads to treachery and revenge. A man seeks revenge for his father, but will a beautiful woman destroy his plans? A Machiavellian plot may destroy a man’s life, or will he discover what living truly means?


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virgil markham



Virgil Markham (1899-1973), was the son of famed poet Edwin Markham. He wrote eight mystery novels between 1928 and 1936.



Death in the Dusk



Alfred Bannerlee, antiquarian, searching for an ancient ruin in the Welsh hills, stumbles upon a manor house hosting a pre-nuptial ‘Bidding Feast’ for an American bride and an Irish groom. Finding the host an old acquaintance, Bannerlee is welcomed as a guest, though the party’s tense atmosphere puzzles him. A guest is missing, and superstitious rumors of an 800-year-old wizard, Parson Lolly, troubles the native help. A death and a storm lay the groundwork for an eerie murder investigation, as Bannerlee’s diary documents the strange events.


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Sara Elizabeth Mason



Sara Elizabeth Mason (1911-1993) was born in Alabama. She earned degrees from the University of Alabama, University of Chicago, and Peabody College. She taught high school to American students in Germany, later working in public and academic libraries. She wrote four novels (mysteries and thrillers) in the 1940s.



Murder Rents a Room / The Crimson Feather



Murder Rents a Room: Cliff's Edge mansion, in historic Greene County, Alabama, is a bit run down, to be sure, but a line had been drawn at dead bodies—at least until now. When drop dead gorgeous vamp Kitty Leigh Bolling—on her third husband and already on the lookout for a fourth—turns up at the old ancestral home, temperatures run high and the fur starts to fly. With southern passions proving positively murderous and bodies piling up at Cliff's Edge, can attractive widow Kate Frazier, trying to recover from the untimely death of her husband and to make a go of things at Cliff's Edge by taking in paying guests (including wanly handsome visitor Alex Dexter), avoid becoming Murder's next victim?


The Crimson Feather: Convalescing artist Ann Bartley has returned home to wartime Tuscaloosa, Alabama, from Chicago at the urgent though cryptic plea of her married adopted sister, Jean Tolliver. In Tuscaloosa Ann finds tensions running high among the Tolliver family. When Jean's wealthy father-in-law dies a highly suspicious death during a hunt in neighboring Greene County, Alabama, it's up to local sheriff Bill Davies to put an end to one vicious slay ride by catching yet another clever killer. While Sheriff Davies scents the clues to a dastardly crime, can Ann save her sister's sanity—not to mention her own life?


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The House that Hate Built / The Whip



The House that Hate Built: When widowed bank president James Clark weds a second time, to the previously married Margaret Branch, mother of glamorous divorcee Margo Branch, it was a dark day for James Clark's blue-blooded spinster sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, who made it clear to Margaret that she was beneath their notice socially. Margaret retaliated by having her husband build her a house right next door to the Clark sisters, so that the two women would have to look at that house every single day for the rest of their lives. However it's Margaret who dies first, viciously stabbed to death in her house—the house that hate built. Suspects are myriad, and it will take all of Monroe sheriff Frank Garner's wiles to bring the vicious crime—and the ones that follow it—home to the culprit.


The Whip: In Chicago Carla Ives stands accused of the poisoning murder of her diabetic widowed great-aunt and guardian, Mrs. Sarah Willingham, whose every cruelly barbed word was like the lash of the whip to her vulnerable ward. Tasked with determining whether Carla, who has confessed to the heinous crime, is criminally insane, psychiatrist Dr. Mark Sargeant persuades the beautiful young woman to tell him the story of the miserable years which she spent under her cold guardian's "care." What he learns convinces him that Carla could not have been Mrs. Willingham's murderer—yet who was it, in that case, who killed the hateful old woman?


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John T. McIntyre



John T. McIntyre (1871-1951) was better known for his early works starring detective Ashton-Kirk and later mysteries featuring Philadelphia private investigator Jerry Mooney (the latter published under the pseudonym Kerry O’Neil). The Museum Murder was first published in 1929.



The Museum Murder



Duddington Pell Chalmers is a young man of taste, class, and girth. As trustee for a local art museum, he is called in by police when the troublesome curator is murdered and soon finds himself at odds with the official enquiry. There is no shortage of suspects among local artists, art dealers, and collectors, while motives become muddled when it is discovered that murder was not the only crime. Chalmers knows that time is of the essence, or the police will arrest his artist friend, bringing ruin to a bright career, but can he follow the clues to unmask the murderer?


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F. Burks MCKINLEY



Mary Frances Burks McKinley (1907-1978) was born in Tennessee. Frances earned her BA and MA from Vanderbilt University. She was 26 years old when her only mystery was published.



Death Sails the Nile



"Imagine nine tourists cooped up on a small, light-draft boat on the Nile, hot and uncomfortable by day, cold by night, suddenly thrown into panic by the knowledge that one of them is a murderer; that even if he desired to, the desperate brute could not leave the boat because of the barrenness of the land about them. So they must associate with the criminal until they could get back to more-populated country.


"The first murder was that of a beautiful girl as she stood before the hideous statue of Anubis, King of the Dead, in the Sudan, with its rock-hewn tombs of ancient Egypt. Her death was due to the bite of a deadly asp, which had been placed in her jacket pocket. Then came the murder of a native deck steward, who seemingly knew too much. And still there was no actual knowledge of who had been the criminal. Each passenger suspected his or her neighbor, even the captain coming under suspicion. And it remained for a young girl, a girl with a newspaper training, to eventually solve the hideous mystery. Miss McKinley has made her story one that is terribly realistic, with much of the enchantment and mystery of Africa, flavoring the tense excitement." (1933, Boston Globe)


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Dorothy Cole Meade



Dorothy Cole Meade (1893-1979) wrote three detective novels in the 1930s. She was raised in New York and New Jersey, and married adventurer Captain Patrick Meade in the 1920s. Living in exotic locations, including Southeast Asia, Dorothy was able to infuse credible details in her Malaysian mysteries.



Murder in Malaya: Fatal Shadows / Death Over Her Shoulder



When murder takes place in the hot, steamy shadows of Malaya among the British and Americans far from their native home, colonial police know to call for Ismael, "the smartest detective in the East." A canny, native member of the force, Ismael knows that the same passions and desires flow beneath the surface of all men (and women), secret though they may be. Playing the unassuming native, Ismael uncovers the truth and the killer. Two mysteries featuring Ismael are included in this volume.


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Kirke Mechem



Author Kirke Mechem (1889-1985) was the Executive Director of the Kansas State Historical Society, and brought his wealth of knowledge and love for Kansas scenery to this, his only published mystery novel.



The Strawstack Murder Case



Kansas oil man Ralph Loundon is found murdered and dumped on a strawstack, and there is no end of suspects. Steven Steele, crack amateur detective, is on the case! First published in 1936 as A Frame for Murder, The Strawstack Murder Case offers a baffling mystery in an unusual setting for a Golden-Age mystery. An oil well fire, Jamaica ginger, a furry primate, and White Castle hamburgers all make appearances in this fun mystery.


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Alfred Meyers



Alfred Louis Meyers (1906-1963) was born in Oregon. He received his B.A. and M.A. in English from Notre Dame University, and was a music lover (even singing in the San Francisco Opera chorus after moving there when his father died).



Murder Ends the Song



Marina Grazie, coloratura soprano, had at least one thing in common with the old gray mare—she wasn’t what she used to be when she was the darling of the Metropolitan. One characteristic, however, she had retained—“a gift for inspiring impulses to violence.” These impulses boiled to the surface among her entourage when she came out of a well-deserved retirement to join the Monte Calvo Opera Company on a tour of the Pacific Coast. Each of them jealously guarded the secret of his own past, but all were united by their bitterness toward the aging prima donna who ruled their lives with a whip of fear. On a sentimental pilgrimage to Lucifer’s Pride, a grim, half-finished castle on the banks of the Columbia River, Marina’s last aria was ended with that homely implement of which Hamlet soliloquized—“a bare bodkin.” During the next twenty-four storm-tossed hours, Tony Graine, the tenor in her company, uncovered a story of intrigue, jealousy, blackmail and revenge as wild as the blizzard which whined around the ancient castle. No police and no detectives were present to delay his brilliant quest of the solution to the deadly riddle.


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Will Mitchell



This may or may not be a pseudonym. No details about the author are known.



The Goldfish Murders



Chris Lash had seen a lot of corpses in his years as Lieutenant of Detectives in Homicide, but never one as beautiful as the blonde with a goldfish on her chest. But that was only the beginning, as more goldfish were found on more corpses. And Chris swore that he would solve the murders if it cost him his own life. It nearly did . . .


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Hopkins Moorhouse



Herbert Joseph Moorhouse (1882-1960) was a Canadian journalist and author.



The Addison Kent Mysteries



These two novels tell the story of Addison Kent, mystery writer, who becomes embroiled in mysteries of his own, and who runs into international jewel thief Alceste. Alceste is a man of mystery, dangerous and cunning, who steals the finest of gems. These novels are full of twists and turns, as Kent solves mysteries of murder and theft and tries to run Alceste to ground.


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dermot morrah



Dermot Morrah (1896-1974) was born on the Isle of Wight. He was educated at Winchester College and at New College, Oxford, where he was a mathematical scholar. From 1921 until 1928 he was a fellow of All Souls but ceased to reside there after 1922 when he entered the Home Civil Service as Assistant Principal in the Mines Department. His early writings were chiefly confined to professional contributions to government blue books, but he later wrote articles for the Times, the Daily Mail, and other papers. The Mummy Case Mystery was his only detective novel.



The Mummy Case Mystery



The Commemoration Night ball at Beaufort College, Oxford, is disturbed first by a strange prank with a professor’s mummy, then by a tragic fire that kills the professor—or did it? If he died in the fire, what happened to the mummy? Professors Sargent and Considine take it upon themselves to investigate when the coroner rules accidental death, leaving them with unanswered questions. Dermot Morrah creates a picture-perfect Oxford environment filled with characters that draw the reader into those grounds of academia. This fun, breezy mystery will entertain the amateur detective mystery fan.


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