Mystery Monday: Ruth Sawtell Wallis Anthropologist and Novelist

Mystery Monday: Ruth Sawtell Wallis 

Anthropologist and Novelist

Better known in the academic world of anthropology for her research and discoveries, Ruth Sawtell Wallis wrote mystery novels. Her first, Too May Bones, was published in 1943. She received an undergraduate degree in English from Radcliffe College, after which she traveled to Europe as part of her graduate program in anthropology at Columbia University. A brilliant scientist, Ruth went on to receive her doctorate and began to teach at the University of Iowa. A year later, she married Professor Wilson Dallam Wallis, and as was typical of the era, lost her job as a result. Over the years she was able to work in her field intermittently, and she also collaborated on books with her husband.

According to her obituary written by a colleague, Ruth began to write mysteries in 1940 while recovering from a serious illness. Her books involve academic settings, and anthropology plays an integral part in the solution to the crimes. Set in a museum, Too Many Bones won the Red Badge Prize for best mystery of the year. When her novels were written, there were no “sub-genres” in the mystery book industry, however, hers may very well be the first in that now popular sub-genre.

Check out the map from the back of the dust jacket! Perhaps another first in the mystery genre.

Ruth conveys her feelings about women’s treatment in academia, especially wage differences, through her main character, Kay Ellis. Unusual for the time, Ruth also includes two African-American characters who have their own subplot. Unfortunately for readers, she only published five novels during a ten year period. The good news is they can be found for reasonable prices at any number of online sites.

Mystery Monday: The Reilly Ladies

Mystery Monday: The Reilly Ladies

As an undergraduate Psychology major, I read more than my fair share of “nature vs. nurture” papers and textbooks (e.g. is a child an artist because he or she was born of artistic parents or did the parents nurture the skill?). Most experts agree that individuals are a mixture of both, and the Reilly family is a prime example.

Part of a literary family (her brother was an author), Helen Kieran Reilly was a prolific mystery writer who lived from 1891 to 1962. A graduate of Hunter College, she married artist Paul Reilly with whom she had four daughters. She published dozens of novels, at one point becoming the main breadwinner in the household. Her books were among the first police procedurals written, a result of conducting extensive research into the NYC Homicide squad. Inspector Christopher McKee is her most popular character.

Like their mother Ursula Reilly Curtiss and Mary Reilly Wilson (writing under the name Mary McMullen) became well-known mystery authors. Winner of the Red Badge Award for best first novel, Ursula tended to write neo-Gothic romantic suspense with an amateur sleuth as the protagonist. Initially a columnist for the “Fairfield Connecticut News, she moved into working as a fashion copy writer. Her career as an author began after she married John Curtiss in 1947. Winning the Zia award as New Mexico’s outstanding novelist in 1963, she published nearly two dozen books in her thirty-six year career before passing away of cancer in 1984.

Sister Mary also had a successful career. Winner of the Edgar award for best first novel in 1952, Mary took a twenty-two year hiatus before publishing an additional eighteen novels. Described as distinctive, elegant, and fast-paced, her books did not seem to follow any sort of pattern, however, many did draw from her experience in the fashion world. Highly descriptive, the books immerse readers into the setting which forms an integral part of each plot. She published her last book in 1986, the year she passed away.

Have you read any of these gals’ books? 

Mystery Monday: Mignon Eberhart, A Storied Career

Mystery Monday: Mignon Eberhart - A Storied Career

Author Mignon Eberhart is a distant memory for many and unheard of by many more. However, at one time she was the third highest paid mystery writer behind Agatha Christie and Mary Roberts Rinehart. Not bad for a girl who didn't finish her degree.

Spanning over sixty years, Mignon's career is one of the longest among the major mystery writers. Her first book, The Patient in Room 18, was published in 1929, and her last book Three Days for Emerald was published in 1988 when she was 89 years old! She wrote one series with Nurse/amateur sleuth Sarah Keate, but the majority of Mignon's books were stand alone novels. A prolific writer, she published novellas, short stories, and plays as well as over sixty novels, nine of which were made into movies.

Romantic suspense is a well-known sub-genre in literary circles, and there are many modern-day writers of note. But when when Mignon was publishing, romantic suspense had not yet come into its own, and she had a strong hand in developing it.

Critics of Mignon's writings have noted that her heroines are usually somewhat silly and her plot devices somewhat repetitive (her protagonists get knocked out quite often), but most agree that her settings are inventively eerie, and her prose vivid and evocative:

"The room was bare and hot and bright with electricity. Mina, in that incongruous ivory satin, sat down at her tall desk and drew a fat checkbook forward."  (The Dark Garden, 1933)

Solving the mystery is only a portion of Mignon's books. The other is finding true love against all odds. For Mignon, apparently it was not only about the good guys winning, but for love to find a way. With any luck your local library will have some of this author's gems in their fiction section.

Mystery Monday: Edwy Searles Brooks

Mystery Monday: Edwy Searles Brooks

Edwy Searles Brooks

Authors have always used pen names. Some do so for anonymity to protect their identity while others to write in another genre or topic. Edwy Searles Brookes was a British novelist who used countless nom de plumes: Berkeley Gray, Victor Gunn (perfect for a mystery writer!), Rex Madison, Carlton Ross, and Reginald Browne just to name a few.

Born in a suburb of London in 1889, Brooks found success early in life. His first publication, a short story titled “Mr. Dorien’s Missing £2000” was issued by the magazine Yes and No when he was 17. A 3,000 word piece, it was his first paid “gig,” and he earned thirty shillings. Three years later he was tapped by The Gem to write a serial named “The Iron Island.” The premise is that of a man who is marooned on an island by a gang of crooks. The man, Philip Graydon, manages to escape and return to England where he exacts revenge on the men who put him on the island. The story ran for two years!

Released from The Gem when the editor was let go, Brooks fumbled a bit to find other publishers who would take his stories. His personal papers includes numerous rejection letters from this time period. The following summer he was able to sell a series of Clive Deering detective stories to the magazine Cheer Boys Cheer, but sales for the next three years were intermittent.

Then came Nelson Lee and Sexton Blake. In 1915, The Nelson Lee Library was launched, and The Sexton Blake Library to his dossier. Brooks was a prolific writer, and he partnered with his wife Frances to complete each story. By all reports, he was a plotter, meticulously outlining each book. He created character “bibles” in order to keep an account of each one to ensure accuracy in any future references to them. An inveterate researcher, the shelves in Brooks’s office included train timetables and medical books – mostly about poisons.

At the time of his death, Brooks had written over one hundred books and more than two thousand stories!

 

 

 

Traveling Tuesday: Baltimore

Traveling Tuesday: Baltimore

I was born in Baltimore, but my family relocated to New Jersey when I was still a young child. However, my father’s family members are long-time residents, so I continue to have close ties with the city. I decided to set my latest story in Baltimore and have been immersing myself in Charm City’s history. What a fascinating project it has turned out to be!

The majority of my career was spent outside of Washington, DC in the Northern Virginia area where I worked for several of the “Beltway Bandits,” companies who contract with the Federal government. My first corporate job was with Boeing Computer Services (a division of The Boeing Company.) One of our competitors in bidding for projects was Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin).

I was intrigued to learn that Martin Marietta was the result of a merge of the American Marietta Corporation and the Charles L. Martin Company, a Baltimore-based aircraft company. Born in 1886, Martin was an aviation pioneer. He designed and built his own planes, and in 1912 founded his own company in California. He had great success during WWI with several bombers and won the coveted Collier trophy in 1932.

So how did he get to Baltimore? The Maryland Industrial Bureau approached him in 1925 to relocate his company to the Maryland. They were recruiting companies who could come and create jobs within the state. It took three long years of negotiating, but Martin finally moved his factory to Middle River in 1928.

During WWII, the factory was responsible for producing bombers, the most famous of which is the B-26 Marauder. Authorities were worried that the plant would be bombed by the Axis powers, so the 603^rd Camouflage Engineer Battalion was given the order to make it “disappear,” at least from the air. With the use of netting and other materials, the area was made to look like the surrounding fields. Truly a magical feat!

Mystery Monday: Meet Clyde B. Clason

Although less well known than S.S. Van Dine, Dashiell Hammett, or Raymond Chandler, Clyde B. Clason published ten books between 1936 and 1941. An advertising copy writer and editor, Clason was born in Denver, Colorado in 1903. Little is known of his personal life. In fact, every reference I found provided the exact same information word-for-word.

Those of you looking to read about unusual protagonist might enjoy any or all of Clason’s novels. They feature amateur sleuth Theocritus Lucius Westborough, an elderly scholar of the Roman Empire. Westborough is cultured, highly educated, and has an extensive knowledge of art. In each book, Westborough assists the police, stereo-typed as good natured, honest, and a bit “bumbly.” The stories themselves contain intricate plots, most of which are locked-room mysteries. Most of the crimes take place in high-end, museum-like homes which are described in great detail.

In his article comparing Clason to Van Dine, blogger Mike Grost postulates that “Clason, like Van Dine and many other writers of his school, was sympathetic to racial minorities, and his books contain protests against racism. In both writer, the anti-racist theme is linked to a respectful, knowledgeable treatment of world art, with equal admiration being given to art created by all races.”

A reminder that novelists have an opportunity to edify and influence their readers through well-crafted, entertaining story-telling.

What authors have you read who weave social causes into their writing?

Mystery Monday: Author Helen Eustis

At a time when mystery books seemed to be split into two schools – the hard-boiled detective story (think Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett) or the cozy whodunit (Agatha Christie), author Helen Eustis burst on the scene with a new type of mystery fiction – psychological suspense. Her books featured innovative plots and commentary on gender and class issues of the 1940s and 1950s.

Born in Cincinnati, OH on January 31, 1916, Ms. Eustis passed away in January of this year. After a stint in business school, she graduated from Smith College in 1938. She then pursued a doctorate in English at Columbia University before giving up her studies in favor of a writing career.

She was not a prolific fiction writer – only publishing seven novels during her career. But when she did write fiction, her work did well. Nineteen forty seven was a good year for her. The Horizontal Man won the Edgar for best first novel, and her short story An American Home received an O'Henry Prize. Her novel The Fool Killer was adapted into a 1965 film starring Anthony Perkins and Edward Albert.

When asked about her motivation in creating her characters in The Horizontal Man, a story in which a philandering English professor is murdered at a small college replete with psychologically unstable students and professors, she said she wrote it “because she knew so many people in college she would like to murder.”

In addition to her mystery novels, Ms. Eustis wrote for Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, The New Yorker and other magazines. In later years she translated books written in French by authors including Christiane Rochefort and Georges Simenon.

Consider picking up one of these fascinating reads.