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Mystery Authors (S)



Ruth Burr Sanborn



Ruth Burr Sanborn (1894-1942) wrote over 100 short stories and three novels between 1923 and 1942. She was born in New Hampshire and earned degrees from Radcliffe College. In 1925 she and her parents moved to Southern Pines, North Carolina.



Murder by Jury / Murder on the Aphrodite



Murder by Jury: “If there is any place one would think himself safe, it would be in a jury room, locked up with fellow members of a jury, considering a verdict. Yet that, strangely enough, is the place Miss Sanborn chose for her victim. Naturally it takes an unusual bit of scheming on her part to make the murder plausible, and to set the stage so that the killer goes undetected long enough to fill the volume. Yet she manages it without false leads, or last-minute introductions of new characters. . . . It’s well told, and is interesting in the portrayal of the characters of the story.” (Birmingham, Alabama, News, April 3, 1932)


Murder on the Aphrodite: “A houseboat is a pretty fair place on which to stage a murder mystery, and Ruth Burr Sanborn uses such a locale to good advantage. When Mrs. Christine Van Wycke is killed while a psychologist is conducting an experiment to show that no persons notice the same things during a moment of stress, Bill Galleon finds himself wondering if Jane Bridge, or Jane Barron as he once knew her, has anything to do with the murder. Before the solution is reached, Bill has some bad moments about his suspicions, but naturally the romance ends happily and the murder is solved in an ingenious manner.” (Minneapolis, Minnesota, Star, October 19, 1935)


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lawrence saunders



John Burton Davis (1893-1970) and Clare Ogden Davis (1892-1970) wrote three mystery novels in the 1930s under this pseudonym. They met as newspaper reporters in Texas, married, and collaborated on a number of books.



Smoke Screen



Smoke Screen is a detective story without a genius detective—only a keen-witted society girl who walks into a maelstrom of murder. Sally Lomax, down in Houston, Texas, daughter of a wealthy family, sister of a District Attorney, anxious to do something more interesting than going to dances and teas, manages to get herself onto the staff of a daily newspaper. She leads a dull life until she blunders into a fire, coming back from a midnight tour of bootlegging roadhouses with Johnny Rorke, star of the staff. In the partly burned house they find the bodies of an old man and a handsome young woman. Sally stumbles onto evidence that proves the fire was set—then the tale begins to unfold.


The story moves along rapidly as the authors behind ‘Lawrence Saunders’ (John Burton Davis and Clare Ogden Davis) invest the threads of their murder mystery with an authentic atmosphere of local politics and newspaper reporting.


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The Columnist Murder



Nels Lundberg, special duty fireman, started to make his rounds after the intermission on the opening night of Rebel Rose, at the New Netherlands Theatre. In the men’s lounge, underneath the staircase, were three telephone booths. In one of them sat a slight man with iron-gray hair. Nels waited for the man to leave, but he sat there, motionless. Finally Nels opened the door—the man toppled out, dead! Discovering a murdered man, an important newspaper critic, is just the start of Nels’ night, as he finds himself carried along by a rapid-fire murder investigation. Will those long evenings reading detective novels pay off for Nels?


The husband-and-wife newspaper journalists behind ‘Lawrence Saunders’ (John Burton Davis and Clare Ogden Davis) infused their second mystery novel with the charm and foibles of the New York theater district.


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Roger Scarlett



Dorothy Blair (1903-1976) and Evelyn Page (1902-1977) of Massachusetts wrote five mystery novels under their pet bulldog's name Roger Scarlett.



The Beacon Hill Murders / The Back Bay Murders



Inspector Norton Kane of the Boston Police uses his keen intellect to grapple with mystifying murders.


The Beacon Hill Murders: A stock market gambler tries to climb the social ladder, hosting a small dinner party with a few influential guests. When he ends up dead, there is only one obvious suspect, but could she really have committed such an egregious social faux pas?


The Back Bay Murders: Nobody in the boardinghouse believes him when a neurotic young man claims that someone is out to get him, but when he actually turns up dead, who is to blame?


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Cat's Paw / Murder Among the Angells



Cat's Paw: A wealthy but despotic uncle rules the roost and pocketbooks of his young relatives. On the occasion of his birthday, an important announcement is forthcoming, but so is murder . . .


Murder Among the Angells: Two aged brothers and their families live in separate wings of the same mansion, tied together by a poorly-devised will leaving the entirety of their father's estate to the surviving brother. No surprise, Death is also in the wings . . .


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In the First Degree



In the First Degree: Inspector Kane is recovering from the flu when he is enticed into investigating threats against an elderly man living in an historic Boston mansion. The unthinkable happens, and murder occurs right under the Inspector's nose. Will he unravel the strange threads of a dark family drama?


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Marian Gallagher Scott



Marian Gallagher Scott (1892-1943) wrote scores of pulp crime stories and five well-received detective novels. Leaving her job as a typist in Topeka, Kansas, Scott took up acting as a circuit Chautauqua performer, appearing with her husband, Earl, on stages across small-town America. In the late 1920s the couple retired from acting and turned to crime fiction as their occupation. With the flair of a natural entertainer Scott offers readers exciting stories with interesting characters and intriguing puzzles.



Dead Hands Reaching / Death's Long Shadow



In Dead Hands Reaching (1932), dark clouds gather as actress Dallas Gentry returns to Willow Valley seeking a divorce from her tyrannical older husband. (A Courtney Brade mystery.)


The brutal Minnesota slaying of a mysterious hermit woman in Death's Long Shadow (1946) leads investigators back to decades-old misdoings in a forbidding New England town. (A Courtney Brade mystery.)


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Tall Man Walking / The Attic Room



Murder mars a small-town New England wedding in the highly-praised Tall Man Walking (1936). Sophisticated psychiatrist Kenneth Borden investigates as the bodies pile up and a lack of material clues stymies the police.


A peddler’s murder upsets the peaceful environs of Alder Valley, as shameful secrets come to light in The Attic Room (1942). (A Courtney Brade mystery.)


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Eleanore Kelly Sellars



Eleanore Kelly Sellars (1903-1972) grew up in Monessen, Pennsylvania, graduated from Wellesley College, and worked as a copywriter in a Manhattan department store before marrying. Murder a la Mode was her first mystery, winning Dodd, Mead’s Red Badge $1000 prize for best mystery by a new author for the fall of 1941. She wrote a few short stories and a play, but sadly no more mysteries.



Murder a la Mode



There were the makings of murder in that dinner party, all right. If you had been sitting at that beautifully ap­pointed table as a stranger, you would have thought such a group could hardly be matched for smartness, for culture, for beauty and wit in the women, for keen­ness and force in the men. But there were no strangers at Martin Cole's table, and each one suspected that behind those clever animated expressions lay greed and jeal­ousy, fear and arrogance and ruthlessness.


Set against the background of the execu­tive offices of a large, modern Fifth Ave­nue department store, this tale of subtle intrigue and murder moves with swiftness and precision. And, in following it, the reader finds himself constantly surrounded by the fascinating inner world of merchan­dising fashion, learning the ways of models and buyers and promoters, watching from behind the scenes the extravagant private showings, and sitting in on the councils of the high-powered executives.


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susannah shane



Susannah Shane was the pseudonym for Harriette Cora Ashbrook (1898-1946), originally from Mitchell, Nebraska. Ashbrook wrote six mystery novels as Shane and seven under her own name. Reviewers noted that her mysteries are well-plotted with enjoyable characters and a keen sense of humor. Graduating from the University of Nebraska, Ashbrook started out as a newspaperwoman. She worked in Lincoln (NE), Calgary, the west coast, Boston, and New York. Besides writing mystery novels, she authored numerous popular magazine articles and became a publicity agent for Coward-McCann book publishers. Living for some time in New York, she claimed that the bustle and activity of a large city made it much easier to write a mystery, but illness forced her to return to Nebraska, where she finished her later books. It was after moving home to Nebraska that she started using the pseudonym Susannah Shane, first using it to win the $1,000 Red Badge Mystery Prize with Lady in Lilac. She died at her parents’ home in Mitchell, NE, in 1946, leaving behind a legacy of enjoyable detective novels.



Lady in Lilac



It was a strange impersonation—one young girl with an air of dauntless gallantry assuming the name and personality of that other girl, who was so done in, so beaten in spirit! Begun half in jest and a dare, this transition led the tired girl (she thought) to obscurity and quiet. It brought the adventurous one to a sumptuous room at the Waldorf, a new lilac gown and dinner with a glamorous, unknown escort. Before she knew it, she had been brought face to face with grim Death, where a man lay on the rug before her—a smoking gun in her hand and his blood staining the toe of her new lilac slipper. . . . Here is a swift, staccato mystery which moves with breathless pace and bewildering surprises.


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willoughby sharp



William Willoughby Sharp (1900-1956) graduated from Harvard University and started writing crime stories for pulp magazines. In the mid-1920s he became a member of the New York Stock Exchange, but after the crash moved his family to Bermuda for a few years. It was there that he started writing again with Murder in Bermuda. Murder of the Honest Broker followed shortly after. Unfortunately, a third mystery he was writing never appeared in print.



Murder of the Honest Broker



Willoughby Sharp wrote two excellent fair-play mysteries, but rather than highlighting a master private detective, these are well-plotted police procedurals with characters that bring lively interaction to their pages.


Murder of the Honest Broker opens with two murders of a similar strange nature, but with little else to connect them. Inspector Bullock is on the case, a no-nonsense and brash police detective who sorts the clues and follows the leads by the book. Amusing and puzzling, the NY Times Book Review called it.


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Murder in Bermuda



Murder in Bermuda takes us to that lovely island, where a murder jars the local police force into surprised but efficient action. Is the murderer a tourist, a local, or a passing sailor? And what does it have to do with a New York kidnapping?


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P. R. Shore



Mystery fiction researchers have determined that P. R. Shore was a pseudonym for Helen Madeline Leys (1892-1965), who also wrote as Eleanor Scott. The Bolt was published in 1929, while her second mystery (also as by P. R. Shore) was The Death Film, published in 1932.



The Bolt



The story is laid in Ringshall, a small English village, rich in tradition, superstition, and folklore. Squire Godfrey Harrington, land-rich and coffers-poor, has married a wealthy widow who intends to push the village towards progress and culture whether they like it or not. A town fair, set up on Foakes Green despite the villagers’ misgivings, culminates in bad blood—when a murder is discovered, death by ‘elf-bolt’, there are plenty of motives. As Miss Marion Leslie, narrator-turned-sleuth, and her curate friend Roger Cartwright discover, the dead woman made many enemies and preserved her own secrets.


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ida shurman



Ida Shurman (1916-1997) graduated from Hunter College and the Juilliard School of Music, and during the war worked as Junior Professional Assistant in Radio Physics at Fort Monmouth. She composed the music that is featured in Death Beats the Band. She married sociologist Dr. Jesse J. Frankel and spent many years collaborating on his research.



Death Beats the Band



Andy Parker’s swing band was getting in the groove with Andy’s featured vocal solo number, Headlined in my Heart, when a shot rang out and Andy fell to the platform—dead. With both the orchestra and the guests of the Log House marooned by a blizzard, the task of solving the bandleader’s murder fell to Jack Coler, the bass, fiddle player and a newcomer to the band.


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addison simmons



Addison Simmons (1902-1972) wrote only two mystery novels, but numerous short stories and radio plays. Born in Boston and educated at Harvard, he was also a talented musician. He got a law degree, but decided to go into writing instead. He spent most of his career in radio.



Death on the Campus



A killer is loose on campus! Amateur criminologist Professor Philip Yerkes has been found shot dead in his locked office at Chatham House, and the dread digit of suspicion is now pointing at two of Yerkes’ own university colleagues, John Hardwick Bailey, one of the country’s foremost Shakespeare scholars, and Thaddeus Davis, noted authority on English poetry. Can young Professor Ben Ingram, who discovered the dead man’s body and is desperately in love with Professor Bailey’s beautiful daughter Mary, exonerate his friends—when even he has reason to doubt their innocence? What does neurotic youngster Leonard Crane know about the affair? Or smoothly handsome Guido Luciano? And just where is that odd janitor, Schultz? Can Professor Meade, the scandal-averse university president, keep those blundering police flatfoots at bay in the bloody groves of academe as Professor Bailey tries to find a satisfactory solution to the case? For those who have wondered whether the pen is mightier than the gat, read on to the shocking conclusion of Death on the Campus and see.


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Dead Weight



Ed MacIntyre and Walt Tuttle, harried creators of the hit Chicago radio soap opera serial Home Town, all about the heartrending traumas endured by the good (and sometimes not so good) people of the fictional town of Stedham, have decided to quit the radio rat race and retire to Walt’s quiet little home town in Massachusetts. There they can enjoy the laid-back country life while managing, along with Ed’s wife Binnie, the local pharmacy, which comes complete with a spiffy soda fountain. What can go wrong? Lots, as it turns out! Not long after their arrival in Hamsted, Walt is discovered late at night shot dead in a booth at the pharmacy, a scrap of paper clutched in his hand and an overturned glass of strawberry soda spilling pink froth on the table before him. Who whacked Walt at the pharmacy? Could it have been someone from Walt’s and Ed’s old Chicago life, or was it someone with a local grudge? What does the town simpleton, the strawberry soda-guzzling “Dodo” Brown, know about the crime? And is he really as simple as he appears? Ed and Binnie find themselves trapped in a real-life mystery melodrama as strange as anything Ed and Walt ever concocted for Home Town—one that puts them in peril of their own lives!


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robert a. simon



Robert A. Simon (1897-1981) was born in Manhattan and attended Columbia University. He wrote only one mystery (and one additional novel), later focusing on music writing.



The Week-End Mystery



A young man, recently jilted, is given a strange prescription from his doctor: detective stories . . . Quickly becoming an enthusiast, he reads every mystery he can get his hands on, and starts to put into practice the art of deduction. When he is invited on a weekend jaunt to a house party in the country, though, he finds his newfound interest sorely tested when his host is found dead. Can he match the clever sleuthing of his literary heroes? Or will the police win out?


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Madelon St. Denis



Very little is known about the author, Madelon St. Denis. The use of ‘St. Dennis’ on her two traditionally-published books appears to be a change by her publisher to accommodate marketing of those titles, as ‘St. Denis’ is often used on her six magazine novels and foreign translations. ‘St. Denis’ is also how her name appeared on a 1930 U.S. Census form, which noted she was born in 1885 in Massachusetts, and had been married at the age of 23. (She was 45 at the time of the census, lodging in New York.) One of her books, The Death Kiss, was made into a movie, so her name appears in conjunction with that in the 1930s, but she appears to have stopped writing by the end of the decade.



The Hollow Tree Mystery



Tam O’Brien, as a young female detective, breaks more than a few of the literary cliches of Golden-Age Detective Fiction.


Lynn Trevor, president of Cedarcliff’s bank, has disappeared, and his father hires Tam O’Brien (professionally known as Tam o’ Shanter) to investigate. She goes undercover as a nurse, and soon finds there is more than enough reason for grave concern. Multiple professional and personal motives arise for getting rid of Trevor, and when a body is finally discovered, Tam must use all her skill and resources to uncover the truth.


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The Jekyll-Hyde Murder Case



Tam O’Brien, as a young female detective, breaks more than a few of the literary cliches of Golden-Age Detective Fiction.


A beautiful society woman is found dead, covered only in gauze, her body staged and lit up in a macabre tableau, in a beachfront summer house as a country club dance is in progress. Two young men stumble upon her, while a curious Tam O’Brien finds herself shortly on the scene. The local coroner, not well-acquainted with murder, welcomes her aid in a professional capacity: Tam o’ Shanter, private detective. Motive and opportunity are complicated by clues pointing to a local drug operation, and Tam finds herself in a deadly situation as a killer strikes once again.


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The Perfumed Death



A young man dies with a peculiar scent on his lips, drawing Inspector Fisk into an investigation into a strange series of murders with no apparent motive and the same lingering perfume. When Fisk’s playwright friend Sidney Traherne finally joins the hunt, his impartiality uncovers a clue that helps put the case in perspective—and the killer in their sights.


The Perfumed Death (also published as The Perfumed Lure), was first published in 1931 in Complete Detective Novel Magazine, later in book format.


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The Death Kiss



An odd, pulsating trail of murders and sudden deaths takes place with fiendish cunning and regularity, right under the nose of Inspector Fisk of the Homicide Bureau. Sidney Traherne, the Inspector’s best friend, follows the ruthless criminal, the Panther, through the labyrinth of a magnificent office building, elaborate penthouses, and the secret passages of a strange exotic night club. A double life must be exposed in order to unmask the murderer.


The Death Kiss was first published in 1932.


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clinton h. stagg



Clinton H. Stagg (1888-1916) created a fascinating character in detective fiction before being killed in a car crash at the age of 26. We are left with only 8 short stories and one novel (all collected in this volume) of Thornley Colton, the well-to-do blind man who solves criminal mysteries for the sheer enjoyment of it (and calls himself a problemist, not a detective).



The Problemist



Along with Max Carrados, and a few one-shot mystery novels by other authors, Thornley Colton is one of an early fictional niche built around blind sleuths who use their other (often hyper-sensitive) senses to solve crimes that befuddle the police


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Douglas Stapleton & Helen A. Clarey



Douglas Stapleton was born Samuel Granville Staples (1907-1972), growing up in Virginia. According to one news article, Stapleton “started out as a song-and-dance man with Eleanor Powell, . . . became historical correlator for the Encyclopedia Britannica, advertising man with General Foods, program manager for a radio station and radio commentator and (in Washington) administrator for the W.P.A. and later Radio Expert for the executive office of the president.” After a stint in the naval reserve, he worked as an advertising executive in New York. Stapleton wrote books, articles, short stories, radio plays, and television comedies. While working in New York he married his third wife, Dorothy, in 1941. Dorothy Tucker Aden (1917-1970) was from Bastrop, Louisiana, where she had worked as a political speechwriter, theatrical company press agent, licensed engineer, radio station operator, film director and producer, and creator and writer for an army radio serial. She moved to New York to become director of radio, TV and films for Grey Advertising, where she met Douglas. While on their honeymoon, they co-produced a Broadway play and wrote The Corpse is Indignant. For only this mystery, Dorothy used the pen-name Helen A. Carey. In future collaborations, the pair went by Douglas and Dorothy Stapleton. They continued to work together on radio shows and other projects. Their mystery novel writing ended after the mid-1950s (though short stories were published into the 1960s), and they appear to have lived their final years in Los Angeles, California.



The Corpse is Indignant



Congenial Judge Massie, former congressman and current small-town lawyer, takes time out from reeelaxin’ long enough to putter his way through a murder without a corpse and a corpse without a murder until he finally puts one of his pudgy fingers on the guilty party. You’ll find the most unexpected corpse you’ve ever run across. It is indignant at being called a corpse. It goes walking in spats, carries a cane, even whistles—and it dies three deaths at once. The Corpse Is Indignant is anything but gentle. Nevertheless, the native good humor that streaks its pages will give you many a laugh as you go through one of the most astonishing series of crimes ever told in a book.


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Late for the Funeral



“You’ll be late for your funeral,” called Bill Taylor to his bride as he left for a business meeting, because she wasn’t yet dressed to accompany him downtown. It was only a few hours later, though, that Penny was found brutally murdered. The police have their suspicions, but Bill has the support of elderly hurricane Miss Emily Cole, who plans to do some investigating of her own . . .


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Corpse and Robbers



The formidable Miss Emily Cole returns to aid the police of Virginia Beach when a wealthy man with shady connections is murdered after being humiliated by the town's upper crust.


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The Crime, The Place, and The Girl



Her face was captured on film at a Hollywood premiere, and it wasn't long before she was wanted by the studio head to turn her into a star; and by the police, for murder!


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peter storme



Peter Storme was the pseudonym for Philip Van Doren Stern (1900-1984), better known as an editor, anthologist, and respected historian-author (particularly about the Civil War). He was a proud alumnus of Rutgers University (being the first in his family to attend college). He is best known as the author of the short story, “The Greatest Gift,” which was later filmed as It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).



The Thing in the Brook



Busy working on a summer project, a young biologist and his wife find themselves at the center of a rural town's murder. A miserly neighbor is found dead, hanging from a tree, but the autopsy shows he was first strangled then struck on the head. Enter the friendly amateur detective, a friend from the city who is eager to try his hand at a puzzling crime. But he'd better work quick, because there are more deaths coming . . .


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kay cleaver strahan



Kay Cleaver Strahan (1888-1941) lived in Oregon. She wrote a number of short stories for magazines, and at least ten novels. Many of the latter were mysteries. Her series detective was Lynn MacDonald, who first appeared from her first (The Desert Moon Mystery) to last (The Desert Lake Mystery) mystery titles.



The Desert Moon Mystery



Three murders and a suicide plague the Desert Moon Ranch—one of them a lovely girl with a secret. No clues, yet clues everywhere. Days and nights of suspense, danger, suspicion. Rancher Sam Stanley, his housekeeper Mary Magin, and the rest of the household were getting along fine until the arrival of the twin girls, Danielle and Gabrielle. When death appears on the ranch, confusion and suspicions mount; it is not until the arrival of Miss Lynn MacDonald, detective, that the strange puzzle is solved.


The Desert Moon Mystery was published in 1928.


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The Desert Lake Mystery



Two old friends, the Sheriff of Oakman County, Nevada, and blustering Adam Oakman, ex-senator and county boss, find themselves at odds when death strikes Adam's gathering of family and hangers-on at a deserted resort on the shore of Memaloose Lake. The Sheriff tries to keep his young friend Brigid, ever inquisitive, out of harm's way, while Adam seems to be working at cross-purposes to truth and justice. Missing bodies don't help the matter. Lynn MacDonald is brought in to help bring the case to a conclusion.

The Desert Lake Mystery was published in 1936.


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