CAPAS DA COLECÇÃO VAMPIRO

As Capas dos Livros são, por vezes, pequenas obras de arte. A Colecção Vampiro (1947-2007) teve, pelo menos, dois Artistas a compô-las: Cândido Costa Pinto (1911-1976) - Capas até ao número 104; o pintor Lima de Freitas (1927-1998) - Capas até ao número 325; ver, para mais informação, (por exemplo): "Crimes de bolso - 60 anos depois das colecções policiais Escaravelho de Ouro e Xis" LUÍS MIGUEL QUEIRÓS 14/09/2010 - 01:22 - Público, ou o Blogue "Policiário de Bolso".

Lima de Freitas

José Lima de Freitas (Setúbal, 22 de Junho de 1927 — Lisboa, 5 de Outubro de 1998) foi um pintor, desenhador e escritor português. Lima de Freitas frequentou a Escola Superior de Belas Artes de Lisboa. Tendo aderido ao neorrealismo logo em 1946, iria desempenhar um papel importante e demorado no movimento através não apenas da sua obra plástica mas também da escrita, tornando-se numa voz ativa no questionamento das vias surrealistas e abstratas em afirmação na arte portuguesa nos anos de 1950. A opção neorrealista evoluiria ao longo da década seguinte para uma "arte espiritualizada de teor algo teosofante, totalmente arredada da fé neorrealista dos anos 40". Pintor e desenhador, na sua obra é de destacar a extensa atividade como ilustrador para publicações nacionais e estrangeiras. Viveu em Paris entre 1954 e 1959 e trabalhou para editoras norte-americanas; ilustrou romances de J. Conrad (Nova Iorque), Afonso Schmidt (Varsóvia) e inúmeros contos em revistas francesas, alemãs, espanholas, brasileiras, etc. Em Portugal assinalem-se as suas ilustrações para Dom Quixote, de Miguel de Cervantes, para Os Lusíadas e para a Lírica de Luís de Camões, ou para O Bobo de Alexandre Herculano. Expôs coletivamente inúmeras vezes desde 1946, nomeadamente nas Exposições Gerais de Artes Plásticas (SNBA, Lisboa), nas I e II Exposições de Artes Plásticas da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, na II Bienal de S. Paulo, Brasil, etc. Realizou exposições individuais desde 1950, entre as quais: Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, Lisboa; Galeria de Março, Lisboa; Galeria do Diário de Notícias, Lisboa; Museu Regional de Évora; Galeria Divulgação, Porto; Galeria Abril de Madrid; etc. Para além dos textos publicados em jornais, revistas ou catálogos de exposições, publicou títulos como Pintura incómoda (1965), Almada e o número (1977) e Imagens da imagem (1977). Foi um respeitável Mestre da Maçonaria. Foi docente do IADE – Instituto de Arte e Decoração de Lisboa e Presidente da Comissão Instaladora do Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, que reabriu as portas ao público em Maio de 1978, após 14 anos de obras de reconstrução . Foi agraciado pela Câmara Municipal de Setúbal com a Medalha de Honra da Cidade. Recebeu as condecorações de Chevalier et Officier de L’Ordre du Mérite, atribuídas pelo Governo francês e o título de comendador da Ordem de Santiago da Espada. (Wikipédia)

Cândido Costa Pinto

Cândido da Costa Pinto (Figueira da Foz, 1911 — 1976) foi um artista gráfico e pintor português. Em 1931 fundou o Grupo dos Divergentes e ainda nessa década começou a dedicar-se à atividade gráfica . Na década de 1940 fez várias capas com imagens surrealizantes para a Colecção Vampiro, da editora Livros do Brasil. Participou na Exposição do Mundo Português, 1940; expôs em algumas Exposições de Arte Moderna do S.P.N./S.N.I. tendo vencido o Prémio Souza-Cardoso em 1951; participou em muitas outras mostras coletivas, nomeadamente na II Exposição Geral de Artes Plásticas (SNBA, 1947) e nas Bienais de Veneza (1950) e S. Paulo (1951) . Interessou-se pelo surrealismo desde o início dos anos de 1940, em Paris, tendo contactado com André Breton. Marcada por grande habilidade técnica, a sua obra começa por revelar uma aproximação a Dali evoluindo depois para um idioma geometrizante . Cândido Costa Pinto foi um dos principais impulsionadores da formação do Grupo Surrealista de Lisboa em 1947, que integrou, entre outros, Vespeira, Fernando Azevedo, Mário Cesariny e José Augusto França, mas a sua permanência nesse grupo foi breve (foi afastado por ter exposto uma pintura nas salas do SNI) , Encontra-se colaboração da sua autoria no semanário Mundo Literário (1946-1948) Partiu para o Brasil de 1962, arredando-se de manifestações artísticas, e ali morreu em 1976. ***Wikipédia - Infelizmente não consegui encontrar qualquer fofografia de Cândido Costa Pinto.

Agatha Christie

Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie DBE (nascida Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller; Torquay, Devon, Inglaterra, Reino Unido, 15 de setembro de 1890 — Wallingford, Oxfordshire, Inglaterra, Reino Unido, 12 de janeiro de 1976), popularmente conhecida como Agatha Christie, foi uma escritora britânica nascida na Inglaterra que atuou como romancista, contista, dramaturga e poetista. Se destacou no subgênero romance policial, tendo ganho popularmente, em vida, a alcunha de "Rainha/Dama do Crime" ("Queen/Lady of Crime", no original em inglês). Durante sua carreira, publicou mais de oitenta livros, alguns sobre o pseudônimo de Mary Westmacott. Segundo o Guiness Book, Christie é a romancista mais bem sucedida da história da literatura popular mundial em número total de livros vendidos, uma vez que suas obras, juntas, venderam cerca de quatro bilhões de cópias ao longo dos séculos XX e XXI, cujos números totais só ficam atrás das obras vendidas do dramaturgo e poeta William Shakespeare e da Bíblia. Segundo a organização Index Translationum, as obras de Agatha Christie já foram traduzidas, em levantamento recente, para mais de 100 idiomas em todo o mundo. Seu livro mais vendido, Ten Little Niggers (publicado no Brasil como "E Não Sobrou Nenhum", ou "O Caso dos Dez Negrinhos", e em Portugal como "Convite para a Morte" ou "As Dez Figuras Negras"), de 1939, é também, com cerca de 100 milhões de cópias comercializadas em todo o globo, a obra de romance policial mais vendida da história, além de figurar na lista dos livros mais vendidos de todos os tempos, independentemente de seu gênero. Em 1971, foi condecorada pela rainha do Reino Unido, Elizabeth II, com o título de "Dame" (Dama) do Império Britânico, uma honra que consiste no equivalente feminino ao sir. No total, escreveu setenta e dois romances, sendo sessenta e seis deles do gênero romance policial e inúmeros contos, reunidos em quatorze coletâneas. É constantemente referida por seus emblemáticos personagens, incluindo o detetive belga Hercule Poirot e a idosa detetive amadora Jane Marple, ou Miss Marple. ***Wikipédia

Anders Bodelsen

Anders Bodelsen (born 1937) is a prolific Danish writer primarily associated with the 1960 new-realism wave in Danish literature, along with Christian Kampmann and Henrik Stangerup. Bodelsen prefers the social-realistic style of writing, often thrillers about middle-class people who face the consequences of materialism, which often clashes with their human values. His thrillers also experiment with ordinary persons tempted by e.g. theft and border-morale issues. Most famous is his ingenious novel Think of a Number (Tænk på et tal, 1968) filmed as "The Silent Partner" in 1978. Also widely known is his cooperation with Danish National Television (Danmarks Radio) on the filming of some of his children's thrillers, e.g. Guldregn ("Golden Shower", 1986). Furthermore, he has also made some lesser known radio plays. He has a very brief cameo in the second of the Olsen Gang series of films, Olsen-banden på spanden.****Wikipédia

Anna Katharine Green

Anna Katharine Green (November 11, 1846 – April 11, 1935) was an American poet and novelist. She was one of the first writers of detective fiction in America and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories. Green has been called "the mother of the detective novel".She was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 11, 1846. Green had an early ambition to write romantic verse, and she corresponded with Ralph Waldo Emerson. When her poetry failed to gain recognition, she produced her first and best known novel, The Leavenworth Case (1878), praised by Wilkie Collins, and the hit of the year. She became a bestselling author, eventually publishing about 40 books. On November 25, 1884, Green married the actor and stove designer, and later noted furniture maker, Charles Rohlfs (1853 – 1936), who was seven years her junior. Rohlfs toured in a dramatization of Green's The Leavenworth Case. After his theater career faltered, he became a furniture maker in 1897, and Green collaborated with him on some of his designs. Together they had one daughter and two sons: Rosamund Rohlfs, Roland Rohlfs, and Sterling Rohlfs. Green died on April 11, 1935 in Buffalo, New York, at the age of 88.****Wikipédia

Anthony Berkeley Cox (Francis Iles)

Anthony Berkeley Cox (5 de julho de 1893, Watford, Inglaterra - 9 de março de 1971 ) é um escritor de livros policiais da Inglaterra.Berkeley nasceu em Watford, Inglaterra, e estudou na Escola e Sherborne University College London. Após servir no exército na Primeira Guerra Mundial, trabalhou como jornalista por muitos anos, contribuindo para tais como revistas e Punch O humorista. Em 1938 ele assumiu o livro revendo para John O'London's Weekly e do Daily Telegraph, escrito sob o pseudônimo de escritor Francis Iles. Ele também escreveu para o jornal Sunday Times na década de 1940, e para o Manchester Guardian, mais tarde The Guardian, a partir de meados dos anos 1950 até 1970.*****Wikipédia

Anthony Olcott

Prior to becoming Officer in Residence at ISD, Anthony Olcott was Director of Analytic Assessment and Academic Outreach at the DNI's Open Source Center, in the office of Analytic Development. He also has served as Senior Analyst in the Emerging Media Group, and as an Expert Analyst covering Russia and Central Asia. From 1984 until 2000, when he joined the government, Olcott taught at Colgate University, where he was an Associate Professor in the Russian Department. An author, editor, and translator, Olcott has published on a wide array of subjects. Two of his novels were nominated for prizes, and his study of Russian crime fiction, Russian Pulp, received a professional prize as Best Book of Literary or Cultural Studies in 2003. He has also received numerous awards and citations from the intelligence community. Olcott was educated, from BA through PhD, at Stanford University. His research explores the challenges which the media explosion presents to anyone - message receivers or message senders - who must transform data into information, and information into intelligence.****http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/11766.Anthony_Olcott

Anton Pavlovitch Tchecov

Anton Pavlovitch Tchecov , em russo: Анто́н Па́влович Че́хов (Taganrog, 29 de janeiro de 1860 — Badenweiler, 15 de julho de 1904 ), foi um médico, dramaturgo e escritor russo, considerado um dos maiores contistas de todos os tempos. Em sua carreira como dramaturgo criou quatro clássicos e seus contos têm sidos aclamados por escritores e críticos. Tchecov foi médico durante a maior parte de sua carreira literária, e em uma de suas cartas ele escreve a respeito: "A medicina é a minha legítima esposa; a literatura é apenas minha amante." Tchecov renunciou do teatro e deixou de escrever obras teatrais após a péssima recepção de A Gaivota (em russo: "Чайка") em 1896, mas a obra foi reencenada e aclamada em 1898, interpretada pela companhia Teatro de Arte de Moscou de Constantin Stanislavski que interpretaria também Tio Vânia (Дядя Ваня), As Três Irmãs (Три сестры) e O Jardim das Cerejeiras (Вишнëвый сад). Estas quatro obras representam um desafio para os atores, bem como para o público, porque no lugar da atuação convencional Tchecov oferece um "teatro de humores" e uma "vida submersa no texto". Nem todos apreciaram o desafio: Liev Tolstói disse a Tchecov: "Sabe, eu não consigo tolerar Shakespeare, mas suas peças são ainda piores". No entanto, Tolstói admirava os contos de Tchecov. A princípio Tchecov escrevia simplesmente por razões financeiras, mas sua ambição artística cresceu, e ele fez inovações formais que influenciaram na evolução dos contos modernos. Sua originalidade consiste no uso da técnica de fluxo de consciência, mais tarde adotada por James Joyce e outros modernistas, além da rejeição do propósito moral presente na estrutura das obras tradicionais. Ele nunca fez nenhum pedido de desculpas pelas dificuldades impostas aos leitores, insistindo que o papel de um artista era o de fazer perguntas, não o de respondê-las.****Wikipédia

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KGStJ, DL (Edimburgo, 22 de maio de 1859 — Crowborough, 7 de julho de 1930 ) foi um escritor e médico britânico, nascido na Escócia, mundialmente famoso por suas 60 histórias sobre o detetive Sherlock Holmes , consideradas uma grande inovação no campo da literatura criminal. Foi um renomado e prolífico escritor cujos trabalhos incluem histórias de ficção científica, novelas históricas, peças e romances, poesias e obras de não-ficção. Arthur Conan Doyle viveu e escreveu parte de suas obras em Southsea, um bairro elegante de Portsmouth.Primeiros anos Filho de um inglês de ascendência irlandesa - Charles Altamont Doyle - e de uma mãe irlandesa - com nome de solteira Mary Foley - que se casaram em 1855. Família rigorosamente católica, herdando da mãe o caráter cavalheiresco, tendo sido ela quem lhe ministrou as primeiras letras. Embora ele seja hoje conhecido como "Conan Doyle", a origem de seu sobrenome composto (se é que ele queria que esse nome fosse assim entendido) é incerta. O seu registro de batismo na Catedral de Santa Maria em Edimburgo afirma que "Arthur Ignatius Conan" é seu nome cristão, e apenas "Doyle" é seu sobrenome. O batismo também intitula Michael Conan como seu padrinho. Conan Doyle foi enviado para o curso preparatório num colégio jesuíta da vila de Hodder Place, Stonyhurst (em Lancashire) quando tinha nove anos. Matriculou-se em seguida no Colégio Stonyhurst mas, em 1875, quando concluiu o colegial, rejeitava o cristianismo e se tornou agnóstico; esse questionamento surgiu de sua admiração pelo escritor Thomas Babington Macauley, que se dizia agnóstico e, após ouvir uma preleção onde um padre afirmara que os não-católicos iriam para o inferno, seus questionamentos fizeram-se mais agudos. Mais tarde outro agnóstico viria a influenciá-lo - Dr. Bryan Charles Waller. Literariamente, foi fortemente marcado por Walter Scott e Edgar Allan Poe, além de Macauley. Entre 1876 e 1881, ele estudou medicina na Universidade de Edimburgo, passando também um tempo na cidade de Aston (hoje um distrito de Birmingham) e em Sheffield. Em 1878, por exemplo, trabalhou por três semanas, em troca de casa e comida, como médico aprendiz nos subúrbios de Sheffield, de cuja experiência relatou em carta: "Esta gente de Sheffield preferiria ser envenenada por um homem com barba do que ser salva por um homem imberbe". Enquanto estudava, começou a escrever pequenas histórias; sua primeira obra foi publicada antes de completar os 20 anos, aparecendo no Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal. Ainda estudante teve sua primeira experiência naval, como médico numa baleeira, onde ficou sete meses no Oceano Ártico. Após a sua formação na universidade, em 1881, serviu como médico de bordo no navio "Mayumba" em viagem à costa Oeste da África mas em outubro daquele ano a embarcação passou por sérias dificuldades no mar e, quando retornou a Liverpool no ano seguinte, Doyle escreve a sua mãe - que o incentivara nesta aventura - dizendo que não mais embarcaria pois "o que ganho é menos do que poderia ganhar com a minha pena ao mesmo tempo, e o clima é atroz." Completou seu doutorado versando sobre tabes dorsalis em 1885. Emprego e as origens de Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes e Dr. Watson, por Sidney Paget. Em 1882, ele se juntou ao seu antigo colega de classe George Budd para formar uma parceria em uma prática médica em Plymouth, mas a relação entre eles provou ser difícil, e, logo, Conan Doyle passou a fazer suas práticas médicas independentemente. Chegando a Portsmouth em junho daquele ano com menos de £10, ele começou a atender na 1 Bush Villas em Elm Grove, Southsea. Os negócios não tiveram muito sucesso; enquanto aguardava por pacientes, ele voltou a escrever suas histórias. A sua primeira obra notável foi Um Estudo em Vermelho, publicada no Beeton’s Christmas Annual de 1887, e que foi a primeira vez em que Sherlock Holmes apareceu. Holmes era parcialmente baseado em seu professor de sua época na universidade, Joseph Bell, a quem Conan Doyle escreveu: "É mais do que certo que é a você a quem eu devo Sherlock Holmes… Com base no centro de dedução, na interferência e na observação que ouvi você inculcar, tentei construir um homem.". As futuras histórias a apresentar Sherlock Holmes foram publicadas na inglesa Strand Magazine. O que é interessante é que, mesmo na distante Samoa, Robert Louis Stevenson foi capaz de reconhecer a forte similaridade entre Joseph Bell e Sherlock Holmes. "Meus parabéns às geniais e interessantes aventuras de Sherlock Holmes… Seria este meu velho amigo Joe Bell?". Outros autores ocasionalmente sugerem influências adicionais, como o famoso personagem de Edgar Allan Poe, C. Auguste Dupin. Durante sua estadia em Southsea, ele jogou futebol amador no time Portsmouth Association Club, na posição de goleiro, sob o pseudônimo A. C. Smith. (Este clube desapareceu em 1894 e não possui qualquer conexão com o Portsmouth F. C. de hoje, que foi fundado em 1898.) Conan Doyle também era um grande jogador de críquete, e, entre 1899 e 1907, ele jogou dez partidas de primeira classe para o MCC. A sua maior pontuação foi de 43 jogando contra o London County em 1902. Ele jogava boliche ocasionalmente, jogando apenas em uma liga de primeira classe. Além disso, ele era um grande golfista, eleito como capitão do Clube de Golfe de Crowborough Beacon, East Sussex, em 1910. Casamento e família Retrato de Arthur Conan Doyle por Sidney Paget, 1897. Em 1885, ele se casou com Louisa (ou Louise) Hawkins, conhecida como "Touie", que sofria de tuberculose e acabou morrendo no dia 4 de julho de 1906. Em 1907, ele se casou com Jean Elizabeth Leckie, com quem ele se apaixonou em 1897, mas manteve uma relação platônica enquanto sua primeira esposa ainda estava viva, por lealdade para com ela. Jean morreu no dia 27 de junho de 1940 em Londres. Conan Doyle teve cinco filhos, dois com sua primeira esposa – (1) Mary Louise (28 de janeiro de 1889 – 12 de junho de 1976) e (2) Arthur Alleyne Kingsley, conhecido como "Kingsley" (15 de novembro de 1892 – 28 de outubro de 1918) – e três com sua segunda esposa – (3) Denis Percy Stewart (17 de março de 1909 – 9 de março de 1955), este, em 1936, o segundo marido da princesa georgiana Nina Mdivani (cerca de 1910 – 19 de fevereiro de 1987; ex-cunhada de Barbara Hutton), (4) Adrian Malcolm (1910 – 1970) e (5) Jean Lena Annette (1912 – 1997). Morte de Sherlock Holmes Holmes e Moriarty lutando à beira das Cataratas de Reichenbach. Arte por Sidney Paget. Em 1890, Conan Doyle começou a estudar os olhos em Viena; ele se mudou para Londres em 1891 para começar a atender como oftalmologista. Conforme diz a sua autobiografia, nenhum paciente sequer passou pela porta de seu consultório, o que lhe deu mais tempo para escrever. Em novembro de 1891, ele escreveu para sua mãe: "Acho que vou assassinar Holmes… e lhe dar fim de uma vez por todas. Ele priva minha mente de coisas melhores.". Sua mãe respondeu, dizendo, "Faça o que achar melhor, mas o público não aceitará essa atitude em silêncio.". Em dezembro de 1893, ele fez o que pretendia para dedicar mais tempo a obras que ele considerava mais "importantes" – os seus livros históricos. Holmes e Moriarty aparentemente mergulharam às suas mortes nas Cataratas de Reichenbach na história The Final Problem. A manifestação de desagrado do público fez com que o escritor trouxesse o personagem de volta; ele retornou na história A Casa Vazia, com a explicação de que apenas Moriarty havia caído, mas como Holmes tinha outros inimigos perigosos, especialmente o Coronel Sebastian Moran, ele fingiu estar "temporariamente" morto. Com isso, Holmes apareceu em um total de 56 pequenas histórias e quatro livros, escritos por Conan Doyle (ele apareceu em vários livros e histórias por outros autores). Envolvimento em campanhas políticas Após a guerra bôer, que ocorreu na virada do século XX na África do Sul, e o escárnio vindo de todo o mundo por causa da conduta do Reino Unido, Conan Doyle escreveu um pequeno panfleto intitulado A Guerra na África do Sul: Causa e Conduta, justificando o papel do Reino Unido na guerra bôer. O panfleto foi traduzido para vários idiomas. Conan Doyle acreditava que foi por causa deste panfleto que ele foi condecorado com o título de cavaleiro em 1902 e indicado como deputado-tenente de Surrey. Em 1900, ele escreveu algo maior, um livro, A Grande Guerra Bôer. Nos primeiros anos do século XX, Sir Arthur tentou entrar para o Parlamento como um membro da União Liberal duas vezes, uma em Edimburgo e outra em Hawick Burghs, mas, embora tenha recebido uma quantidade respeitável de votos, não conseguiu ser eleito. Conan Doyle se envolveu na campanha pela reforma do Estado Livre do Congo, liderada pelo jornalista E. D. Morel e pelo diplomata Roger Casement. Em 1909, ele escreveu O Crime do Congo, um grande panfleto no qual ele denunciava os horrores daquele país. Ele se tornou um grande amigo de Morel e Casement, e é possível que eles, juntamente como Bertram Fletcher Robinson, tenham servido de inspiração para vários personagens do livro O Mundo Perdido (1912). Ele rompeu relações com ambos quando Morel se tornou um dos líderes do movimento pacifista da Primeira Guerra Mundial, e quando Casement foi acusado de traição contra o Reino Unido durante a revolta da Páscoa. Conan Doyle tentou, sem sucesso, salvar Casement da pena de morte, alegando que ele estava louco e não era responsável por suas ações. Envolvimento com o Espiritismo Conan Doyle, no ano de 1887, travou o seu primeiro contato com o Espiritismo, iniciando neste mesmo ano, junto ao seu amigo Ball, arquiteto de Portsmouth, sessões mediúnicas que o fizeram rever seus conceitos. Após as mortes de sua esposa Louisa (1906), do seu filho Kingsley, do seu irmão Innes, de seus dois cunhados (um dos quais E. W. Hornung, criador do personagem literário Raffles), e de seus dois netos, logo após a Primeira Guerra Mundial, Conan Doyle mergulhou em profundo estado de depressão. Kingsley Doyle faleceu a 28 de outubro de 1918 de uma pneumonia que contraiu durante a convalescença, após ter sido seriamente ferido durante a batalha do Somme em 1916. O General Brigadeiro Innes Doyle faleceu em fevereiro de 1919, também de pneumonia. Estátua de Arthur Conan Doyle em Crowborough, East Sussex. Encontrou consolação apoiando-se no Espiritismo, e esse envolvimento levou-o a escrever sobre o assunto, tornando-se um de seus maiores divulgadores e defensores.[9] No auge da fama, em 1918, enfrenta todos os céticos e publica "A Nova Revelação", obra em que manifesta a sua convicção na explicação espírita para as manifestações paranormais estudadas durante o século XIX, e inicia uma série de outras, em meio a palestras sobre o tema. Em "A Chegada das Fadas" (1921) reproduziu na obra teorias sobre a natureza e a existência das fadas de cottingley e espíritos. Posteriormente, em "The History of Spiritualism" (1926) de natureza histórica, aborda a história do movimento espiritualista anglo-saxônico (desenvolvido nos países de língua inglesa) e do Espiritismo (codificado pelo pedagogo francês Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, conhecido pelo pseudônimo Allan Kardec). Além desses movimentos Conan Doyle enfatizou sobre os movimentos espiritualistas alemão e italiano, com destaque para os fenômenos físicos e as materializações espirituais produzidas por Eusápia Paladino e Mina "Margery" Crandon. O assunto foi retomado em "The Land of Mist" (1926), de natureza ficcional, com o personagem "Professor Challenger". Os seus trabalhos sobre o tema foi um dos motivos pelos quais a sua compilação de pequenas histórias, As Aventuras de Sherlock Holmes, foi proibida na União Soviética em 1929 por suposto ocultismo. A proibição foi retirada mais tarde. O ator russo Vasily Livanov receberia uma Ordem do Império Britânico por sua interpretação de Sherlock Holmes. Por algum tempo, Conan Doyle foi um amigo do mágico Harry Houdini, que se tornaria um grande oponente do movimento moderno espiritualista na década de 1920, após a morte de sua mãe. Embora Houdini insistisse que os médiuns da época faziam truques de ilusionismo (e buscava expor tais médiuns como fraudes), Conan Doyle já estava convencido de que o próprio Houdini possuía mediunidade ativa, um ponto de vista expresso em O Limite do Desconhecido. Aparentemente, Houdini não foi capaz de convencer Conan Doyle de que seus feitos eram simples ilusões, levando a uma amarga e pública quebra de relações entre os dois. A sua convicção foi além: para receber o título de Par (Peer) do Reino Britânico, foi-lhe imposta a condição de renunciar às suas crenças. Confrontando a todos, e ao sectarismo vigente, permaneceu fiel à fé que abraçara, e que acompanhou até aos seus últimos dias. Foi Presidente Honorário da International Spiritualist Federation (1925-1930), Presidente da Aliança Espírita de Londres e Presidente do Colégio Britânico de Ciência Espírita. Richard Milner, historiador americano de ciências, apresentou um caso no qual Conan Doyle pode ter sido o responsável pelo boato do homem de Piltdown de 1912, criando um fóssil hominídeo falso que enganou o mundo científico por mais de 40 anos. Milner disse que o motivo de Conan Doyle era de se vingar do estabelecimento científico por desbancar uma de suas físicas favoritas, dizendo ainda que O Mundo Perdido continha várias pistas criptografadas que se tratavam de seu envolvimento com o boato. O livro de 1974 escrito por Samuel Rosenberg, Naked is the Best Disguise, se propõe a explicar como Conan Doyle deixou no meio de seus escritos pistas abertas que se relatam a aspectos ocultos de sua mentalidade. Morte Túmulo de Sir Arthur Conan Doyle em Minstead, Inglaterra. Conan Doyle foi encontrado apertando seu peito nos corredores da Windlesham, a sua casa em Crowborough, East Sussex, no dia 7 de julho de 1930. Ele morreu de ataque cardíaco aos 71 anos. Suas últimas palavras foram ditas à sua esposa: "Você é maravilhosa.". A tradução em português de seu epitáfio em seu túmulo no Cemitério de Minstead é : VERDADEIRO AÇO LÂMINA AFIADA ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE CAVALHEIRO PATRIOTA, MÉDICO & HOMEM DE LETRAS Undershaw, a casa que Conan Doyle havia construído nas redondezas de Hindhead, ao Sul de Londres, e onde ele viveu por aproximadamente uma década, virou um hotel e restaurante entre 1924 e 2004. A casa foi, então, adquirida por um desenvolvedor, e foi mantida vazia desde então enquanto conservacionistas e fãs do autor lutam para preservá-la. Há uma estátua em honra a Conan Doyle em Crowborough Cross, Crowborough, onde Conan Doyle viveu por 23 anos. Também há uma estátua de Sherlock Holmes em Picardy Place, Edimburgo, Escócia, próximo à casa onde Conan Doyle nasceu. A Grande Guerra Boer. Em 9 de agosto de 1902 Arthur Conan Doyle foi nomeado cavaleiro pela sua importante participação na Guerra Boer. Trabalhou na linha de frente da batalha como cirurgião, e foi elogiado pelos compatriotas pela coragem e determinação na prestação de socorro. Regressando à Inglaterra escreveu um livro escolar com o título "A Grande Guerra Boer".*****Wikipédia

Ben Benson

Ben Benson, né le 24 septembre 19131 à Boston dans le Massachusetts et mort le 29 avril 1959 à New York, est un écrivain américain, auteur de roman policier.Fils d'immigrants russes, il fait des études de droit à l'Université de Boston. Il est ensuite représentant de commerce pour le thé Lipton. Pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, il s'engage dans l'armée américaine. Grièvement blessé à la bataille des Ardennes en 1945, il doit subir pendant trois ans de nombreuses opérations chirurgicales avant d'être démobilisé en 1948. Dès 1942, il publie un ouvrage consacré aux trimardeurs, mais c'est pendant ses longues hospitalisations successives, qui le contraignent à une immobilisation forcée et à d'éprouvantes séances de réadaptation physique, qu'il amorce sa véritable carrière d'écrivain. À partir de 1951, il écrit pas moins de dix-neuf romans noirs et une demi-douzaine de nouvelles. Réputées, selon Claude Mesplède, pour leur « précision documentaire (ce qui n'exclut pas une certaine sécheresse) , ses œuvres de fiction mettent presque toutes en scène l'un ou l'autre de ses deux héros natifs, comme leur créateur, du Massachusetts : l'inspecteur Wade Paris, surnommé « le glaçon » parce qu'en mesure de garder la tête froide en toutes circonstances, et Ralph Lindsey, un jeune et bouillant milicien (State Trooper). Wade Paris, qui voulait être médecin avant d'entrer dans les forces de l'ordre, est un enquêteur intègre de la police de l'État du Massachusetts. Profondément humain, il a en horreur la corruption et la violence. Il se voit toutefois plongé dans une lutte contre toute une ville corrompue dans Calibre 7,65 (1951) et croisent plusieurs flics qui déshonorent l'insigne qu'ils arborent dans La Mort franco de port (1953), récit centré sur un racket de timbres de poste mis en place par le crime organisé. La Neuvième Heure (1956) voit Wade Paris confronté au milieu carcéral et à une tentative d'évasion qui tourne au massacre. Ce roman est l'occasion d'un plaidoyer humaniste pour la réduction des peines des repentis et l'envoie en psychiatrie des criminels endurcis. Ralph Lindsey, l'autre héros de Ben Benson, est un personnage tout aussi moralement droit que Wade Paris. Dans ses enquêtes qui visent des membres de l'armée ou de la police, il fait souvent équipe avec le vétéran Joe Sewell. Il considère son travail essentiel, car « la milice est une espèce de bouclier qui protège la société. Si l'un de ses membres tombe, c'est comme si un point du bouclier était percé. C'est pourquoi Lindsey se refuse à transgresser la loi, même quand il se croit à tort responsable de la mort d'un collègue dans Le noir est de rigueur (1955) ou qu'il arrive à démonter non sans peine un faux témoignage concernant de prétendues brutalités policières dans Tendres Aveux (1959). Dans ses romans, Ben Benson pose des questions essentielles sur les valeurs et la décadence de société américaines auxquelles il répond en défenseur convaincu de la démocratie. Il meurt subitement d'une crise cardiaque sur Times Square dans sa mi-quarantaine. ****Wikipédia

Catherine Aird

Catherine Aird (born 20 June 1930) is the pseudonym of novelist Kinn Hamilton McIntosh. She is the author of more than twenty crime fiction novels and several collections of short stories. Her witty, literate, and deftly plotted novels straddle the "cozy" and "police procedural" genres and are somewhat similar in flavor to those of Martha Grimes, Caroline Graham, M C Beaton, Margaret Yorke, and Pauline Bell.Aird was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire in England. She attended the Waverley School and Greenhead High School, both in Huddersfield. As a young adult, she was bedridden due to a serious illness. Upon recovery, she worked as practice manager and dispenser for her father's medical practice in Sturry. Her first novel, The Religious Body, was published in 1966. Aird served as Chair of the Crime Writers' Association from 1990-91. She has been awarded an honorary M. A. from the University of Kent and the Crime Writers' Association 'Golden Handcuffs' Award for lifetime achievement. She also has been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to the Girl Guides. She lives in the village of Sturry, near Canterbury, Kent and is active in village life. Aird is best known for her successful Chronicles of Calleshire, a series of crime novels set in the fictional County of Calleshire, England, and featuring Detective Chief Inspector C.D. Sloan of the Berebury CID Department, and his assistant, Detective Constable Crosby. She has also written and edited a series of village histories, and is an editor and contributing author on works regarding other writers and the art of writing.****Wikipédia

Catherine Louisa Pirkis

Charlotte Armstrong

Charlotte Armstrong Lewi (May 2, 1905 in Vulcan, Michigan – July 7, 1969 in Glendale, California) was an American author. Under the names Charlotte Armstrong and Jo Valentine she wrote 29 novels. She also worked for The New York Times' advertising department, as a fashion reporter for Breath of the Avenue (a buyer's guide), and in an accounting firm.Personal life Armstrong Lewi graduated from Vulcan High School in Vulcan, Michigan, in June 1921. She attended the junior college program at Ferry Hall in Lake Forest, Illinois for one year (1921–22), during which time she served as Editor-in-Chief of the student publication, Ferry Tales. She attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Barnard College in 1925. She had a daughter and two sons with her husband, Jack Lewi. Awards In 1957, she received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for her novel A Dram of Poison. She wrote two other Edgar-nominated novels: The Gift Shop (1966) and Lemon in the Basket (1967). Three of her short stories, all published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, were nominated for Edgars: "And Already Lost" (1957), "The Case for Miss Peacock" (1965), and "The Splintered Monday" (1966). ****Wikipédia

Clifford D. Simak

Clifford Donald Simak (August 3, 1904 – April 25, 1988) was an American science fiction writer. He was honored by fans with three Hugo Awards and by colleagues with one Nebula Award. The Science Fiction Writers of America made him its third SFWA Grand Master, and the Horror Writers Association made him one of three inaugural winners of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.Early life, education, and journalism career Simak was born in Millville, Wisconsin in 1904, son of John Lewis and Margaret (Wiseman) Simak. Simak attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison and later worked at various newspapers in the Midwest. He began a lifelong association with the Minneapolis Star and Tribune (in Minneapolis, Minnesota) in 1939, which continued until his retirement in 1976. He became Minneapolis Star's news editor in 1949 and coordinator of Minneapolis Tribune's Science Reading Series in 1961. Personal life He married Agnes Kuchenberg on April 13, 1929, and they had two children, Richard (Dick) Scott (d. 2012) and Shelley Ellen. In a blurb in Time and Again he wrote, "I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty three years and have two children. My favorite recreation is fishing (the lazy way, lying in a boat and letting them come to me). Hobbies: Chess, stamp collecting, growing roses." He dedicated the book to his wife Kay, "without whom I'd never have written a line". He was well liked by many of his science fiction cohorts, especially Isaac Asimov. Death He died in Minneapolis in 1988. Writing career The first installment of Simak's Time Quarry was the cover story in the debut issue of Galaxy Science Fiction in 1950 Simak's novelette "Installment Plan" was the cover story in the February 1959 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction Simak became interested in science fiction after reading the works of H. G. Wells as a child. His first contribution to the literature was "The World of the Red Sun", published by Hugo Gernsback in the December 1931 issue of Wonder Stories with one opening illustration by Frank R. Paul. Within a year he placed three more stories in Gernsback's pulp magazines and one in Astounding Stories, then edited by Harry Bates. But his only science fiction publication between 1932 and 1938 was The Creator (Marvel Tales #4, March–April 1935), a notable story with religious implications, which was then rare in the genre. Once John W. Campbell, at the helm of Astounding from October 1937, began redefining the field, Simak returned and was a regular contributor to Astounding Science Fiction (as it was renamed in 1938) throughout the Golden Age of Science Fiction (1938–1950). At first, as in the 1939 serial novel Cosmic Engineers, he wrote in the tradition of the earlier "superscience" subgenre that E. E. "Doc" Smith perfected, but he soon developed his own style, which is usually described as gentle and pastoral. During this period, Simak also published a number of war and western stories in pulp magazines. His best-known book may be City, a fix-up novel based on short stories with a common theme of mankind's eventual exodus from Earth. Simak continued to produce award-nominated novels throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Aided by a friend, he continued writing and publishing science fiction and, later, fantasy, into his 80s. He believed that science fiction not rooted in scientific fact was responsible for the failure of the genre to be taken seriously, and stated his aim was to make the genre a part of what he called "realistic fiction." Themes Simak's stories often repeat a few basic ideas and themes. First and foremost is a setting in rural Wisconsin. A crusty individualistic backwoodsman character literally comes with the territory, the best example being Hiram Taine, the protagonist of The Big Front Yard. Hiram's dog "Towser" (sometimes "Bowser") is another Simak trademark being common to many of Simak's works. But the rural setting is not always as idyllic as here; and in Ring Around the Sun it is largely dominated by intolerance and isolationism. An idea often found in the stories is the idea that there is no past time for a time traveler to go to. Instead, our world moves along in a stream of time, and to move to a different place in time is to move to another world altogether. Thus in City our Earth is overrun by ants, but the intelligent dogs and the remaining humans escape to other worlds in the time stream. In Ring Around the Sun the persecuted paranormals escape to other Earths which, if they could all be seen at once, would be at different stages of their orbit around the sun, hence the title. In Time is the Simplest Thing a paranormal escapes a mob by moving back in time, only to find that the past is a place where there are no living things and inanimate objects are barely substantial. Time travel also plays an important role in the ingeniously constructed Time and Again, then ventures into metaphysics. A long-lost space traveler returns with a message which is SF-slanted yet religious in tone. He crashed on a planet and was nurtured by ethereal duplicates—spirits? souls?—that seem to accompany every sentient being throughout life. His fuddled observations were seized upon by religious factions, and a schism is threatening to erupt into war on Earth. Intelligence, loyalty and friendship, the existence of God and souls, the unexpected benefits and harm of invention, tools as extensions of humanity, and more questions are often explored by Simak's robots, whom he uses as "surrogate humans". His robots begin as likable mechanical persons, but morph in surprising ways. Having achieved intelligence, robots move onto common themes such as, "Why are we here?" and "Do robots have souls"? Examples are the faithful butler Jenkins in City, the religious robot Hezekiel in A Choice of Gods, the frontier robots in Special Deliverance and A Heritage of Stars, and the monk-like robots in Project Pope who seek Heaven. Simak's robot-awareness theme goes farthest in All the Traps of Earth. A 600-year-old robot, a family retainer who earned the name Richard Daniel, is considered chattel to be reprogrammed and lose all its memories. The robot runs away, hitches onto a spaceship, and passes through hyperspace unprotected. Daniel gains the ability to see and fix problems in anything—a ship, a robot, a human—telekinetically. Yet he's still drifting and hunted as chattel. Finally he stumbles on a frontier planet and finds a purpose, helping the pioneers as a doctor, a servant, a colonist, and a friend. And here Daniel achieves an epiphany: human beings are more clever than they know. Human-created robots set loose can become agents with para-human abilities that directly or indirectly benefit humanity. Thus do robots, and Mankind, escape "all the traps of earth". The religious theme is often present in Simak's work, but the protagonists who have searched for God in a traditional sense, tend to find something more abstract and inhuman. Hezekiel in A Choice of Gods cannot accept this. Quote: "God must be, forever, a kindly old (human) gentleman with a long, white, flowing beard." Simak's short stories and longer novellas range from the contemplative and thoughtfully idyllic to pure terror, although the punch line is often characteristically understated, as in Good Night Mr. James and Skirmish. There is also a group of humorous stories, of which "The Big Front Yard" is the most successful. And Way Station is in the midst of all of the science fiction paraphernalia a moving psychological study of a very lonely man who has to make peace with his past and finally manages to do so, but not without personal loss. The contemplative nature of the Simak character is a recurring trait both of theme and of the author's style. Many of his aliens have a dry, otherworldly sense of humor, and others are unintentionally amusing, either in their speech or their appearance. So too are his robots full of personality, and even his dogs. By contrast, his "heroes" are ciphers. His protagonists are often boring men, never described and never reappearing. They solve crises by muddling through, and if they fall in love with "the girl" (also never described), it's incidental. One of Simak's editors objected to his stories because his heroes were "losers". Simak replied, "I like losers." One finds other traditional SF themes in Simak's work. The importance of knowledge and compassion in Immigrant and Kindergarten. Identity play, as in Good Night. Mr James (filmed as The Outer Limits: The Duplicate Man in 1964). Fictions come to life in Shadow Show and elsewhere, such as the novel Out of Their Minds. And there is the revolt of the machines in Skirmish. And the rather horrifying meeting with an alien world in Beachhead, AKA You'll Never Go Home Again. (Many of these are in Strangers in the Universe). Finally, Simak throws in many science-fictional fillips that remain unexplained. "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine," is a phrase attributed to Arthur Stanley Eddington and J.B.S. Haldane. Simak's characters encounter alien creatures and concepts they simply cannot understand, and never will. For example, in Special Deliverance, the humans are stalked by The Wailer, which turns out to be a huge wolf-like creature that bellows an infinitely sad howl. They never learn what the creature is, why it seems sad, or how it got there. Simak leaves mysteries hanging in his writing. Simak himself sums up his life's work in the Foreword to Skirmish. After explaining what themes he avoids—no large-scale alien invasions, no space wars, no empire sagas—he states, "Overall, I have written in a quiet manner; there is little violence in my work. My focus has been on people, not on events. More often than not I have struck a hopeful note... I have, on occasions, tried to speak out for decency and compassion, for understanding, not only in the human, but in the cosmic sense. I have tried at times to place humans in perspective against the vastness of universal time and space. I have been concerned where we, as a race, may be going, and what may be our purpose in the universal scheme—if we have a purpose. In general, I believe we do, and perhaps an important one." ****Wikipédia

Cliford Knight

Clifford Knight, né le 7 décembre 1886 à Fulton, Kansas (en), et mort le 3 juillet 1963 à Los Angeles, est un auteur américain de roman policier. Après des études au Kansas, il entre à l’Université du Michigan et obtient un diplôme en journalisme. Il travaille ensuite comme éditeur d'un journal de Kansas City et publie sans succès, sous la signature Reynolds Knight, un roman psychologique intitulé Tommy of the Voices en 1918. Il ne reprend la plume que près de dix ans plus tard et, à partir de 1927, fait paraître des nombreuses nouvelles dans des magazines, dont le Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Il déménage ensuite en Californie pour se consacrer à l'écriture. En 1937 paraît Le Crabe écarlate, le premier roman policier d'une série consacrée aux enquêtes du professeur d'anglais Huntoon Rogers. Ce héros, en perpétuelle année sabbatique, se trouve mêler à plusieurs intrigues criminelles dans les lieux les plus divers. Ainsi Le Crabe écarlate se déroule en partie sur les Îles Galápagos, alors que disparaît un des membres d'une équipe de scientifiques dans une atmosphère étrange qui préfigure le film italien L'avventura (1960) de Michelangelo Antonioni. Dans The Affair of the Ginger Lei (1938), l'énigme fort bien ficelée se tisse pendant une course de yachting entre Los Angeles et Hawaï. The Affair of the Splintered Heart (1942) a lieu à Pearl Harbor quelques mois après l'attaque des Japonais. Les décors du Sud-Ouest des États-Unis sont aussi à l'honneur dans plusieurs œuvres, dont une Californie sous la neige dans The Affair of the Skiing Clown (1941) ; les berges du lac Tahoe dans The Affair of the Crimson Gull (1941) ; le Parc national de Yosemite dans The Affair of the Jade Monkey (1943) ; Hollywood et le milieu du cinéma dans The Affair of the Corpse Escort (1946) et une ranch du Nevada dans la nouvelle Un prof qui en savait long (1946). Après 1947, Clifford Knight abandonne son personnage pour écrire des romans policiers sans héros récurrent, notamment The Yellow Cat (1950), considéré comme son meilleur ouvrage par le critique américain Anthony Boucher. ****Wikipédia

Daniel Chavarria

Daniel Chavarria (born 1933) is a Uruguayan revolutionary and writer, living in Cuba.Daniel Chavarria is known to have lived an adventurous life. He worked as a miner in Essen, a model in Cologne, a museum guide at the Prado Museum in Madrid, a dishwasher in Paris and many other countless occupations. He has even disguised himself as a monk. In 1964 while living in Brazil there was a military coup and he fled to work amongst the gold seekers in the Amazon. Later on, he chartered a small plane to Cuba. There he began working as a Latin and Greek translator and teacher. Subsequently he began his career as a writer. Daniel Chavarria defines himself an Uruguayan citizen and a Cuban writer. Chavarria’s style of writing is within the Latin-American tradition of political writers, such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez — but with a more optimistic and fresh point of view, similar to Luis Sepulveda and Paco Ignacio Taibo II. He mentions as a child, reading Jules Verne, Emilio Salgari and Alexandre Dumas, and their influence can be clearly seen in his writing. For example, in Tango for a Torturer, the influence of The Count of Monte Cristo is clear. Chavarria’s books are strongly critical of the violence in Fascism. Chavarria’s life and writings clearly show his communist and revolutionary background. He is a well known supporter of the Cuban Revolution. In 2010, Chavarria won the National Prize for Literature, Cuba's national prize for literature and more important award of its type in Cuba. ****Wikipédia

Dashiell Hammett

Samuel Dashiell Hammett ( May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, screenwriter, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse). In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on film, Hammett "is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time" and was called, in his obituary in The New York Times, "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction." Time magazine included Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest on a list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005.Early life Hammett was born on a farm in Saint Mary's County, Maryland. His parents were Richard Thomas Hammett and Anne Bond Dashiell; his mother belonged to an old Maryland family, whose name in French was De Chiel. "Sam", as he was known, was baptized a Catholic, and grew up in Philadelphia and Baltimore. He left school when he was 13 years old and held several jobs before working for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. He served as an operative for the Pinkertons from 1915 to February 1922, with time off to serve in World War I. However, the agency's role in union strike-breaking eventually disillusioned him. Hammett enlisted in the Army in 1918 and served in the Motor Ambulance Corps. However, he became ill with the Spanish flu and later contracted tuberculosis. He spent most of his time in the Army as a patient at Cushman Hospital in Tacoma, Washington, where he met a nurse, Josephine Dolan, whom he later married. Marriage and family Hammett and Dolan had two daughters, Mary Jane (born 1921) and Josephine (born 1926). Shortly after the birth of their second child, Health Services nurses informed Dolan that due to Hammett's TB, she and the children should not live with him full-time. Dolan rented a home in San Francisco, California, where Hammett would visit on weekends. The marriage soon fell apart, but he continued to financially support his wife and daughters with the income he made from his writing. Career and personal life Hammett became an alcoholic before working in advertising and, eventually, writing. His previous work at the detective agency provided him the inspiration for his writings. Hammett wrote most of his detective fiction during the period that he was living in San Francisco (the 1920s), and specific streets and locations in San Francisco are frequently mentioned in his stories. He was first published in 1922 in the magazine The Smart Set. Known for his authenticity and realism in his writing, Hammett drew on his experiences as a Pinkerton operative. As Hammett said: "All my characters were based on people I've known personally, or known about." Raymond Chandler, often considered Hammett's successor, summarized his accomplishments: Hammett was the ace performer... He is said to have lacked heart; yet the story he himself thought the most of, The Glass Key, is the record of a man's devotion to a friend. He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before. - Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder. From 1929-30, he was romantically involved with Nell Martin, an author of short stories and several novels. He dedicated The Glass Key to her, and in turn, she dedicated her novel Lovers Should Marry to Hammett. In 1931, Hammett embarked on a 30-year affair with playwright Lillian Hellman. He wrote his final novel in 1934, more than twenty-five years before his death. It is not certain why he moved away from fiction; Hellman speculated in a posthumous collection of Hammett's novels that "I think, but I only think, I know a few of the reasons: he wanted to do new kind of work, he was sick for many of those years and getting sicker." Hammett devoted much of the rest of his life to left-wing activism. He was a strong anti-fascist throughout the 1930s and in 1937 he joined the Communist Party USA. He suspended his anti-fascist activities when, as a member (and in 1941 president) of the League of American Writers, he served on its Keep America Out of War Committee in January 1940 during the period of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The League again abruptly shifted its political position, resuming its anti-fascist stance, with the German invasion of the USSR in the summer of 1941. ****Wikipédia

Davis Dresser (Brett Halliday)

Brett Halliday (July 31, 1904 – February 4, 1977), primary pen name of Davis Dresser, was an American mystery writer, best known for the long-lived series of Michael Shayne novels he wrote, and later commissioned others to write. Dresser wrote non-series mysteries, westerns and romances under the names Asa Baker, Matthew Blood, Kathryn Culver, Don Davis, Hal Debrett, Anthony Scott, Peter Field, and Anderson Wayne.Dresser was born in Chicago, Illinois, but mostly grew up in West Texas. Here he lost an eye to barbed wire as a boy, and thus had to wear an eye patch for the rest of his life. At the age of 14, he ran away from home and enlisted in the U.S. 5th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Bliss, Texas, followed by a year of Border Patrol duty on the Rio Grande. After his service, he returned to Texas to finish high school. In search of adventure, Dresser traveled throughout the Southwest working at various odd jobs, including that of muleskinner, farm hand, deckhand on a freighter in the Gulf of Mexico, laborer in the California oilfields, etc. Eventually, he went to Tri-State College of Engineering, where he received a certificate in civil engineering. Back in Texas, he worked as an engineer and surveyor for several years before turning to writing in 1927. After his first marriage (to Kathleen Rollins, who had two daughters from a previous marriage), Dresser was married to mystery writer Helen McCloy from 1946 to 1961; they had a daughter named Chloe. As partners, they formed a literary agency called Halliday and McCloy. Dresser also established a publishing company Torquil Publishing Company, which published his books as well as those of other authors, from 1953 to 1965. In 1961, he married Mary Savage, also a writer; their son, Halliday, was born in 1965. The first Shayne novel was rejected by 21 publishers before being accepted by Henry Holt & Co. in 1939. The Shayne series went on to be highly successful, reprinted in many editions and translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, Swedish, Japanese and Hebrew. A radio series based on the Shayne character was heard during the 1940s. Twelve motion pictures were made, seven of them featuring Lloyd Nolan as Shayne. Five of the Nolan films, which were produced by 20th Century Fox, have been released on DVD: Michael Shayne, Private Detective; Sleepers West; Dressed to Kill; Blue, White and Perfect; and The Man Who Wouldn't Die. After the Fox series ended, five more Shayne films were made by PRC which featured Hugh Beaumont as the detective. There was also a TV series in 1960, starring Richard Denning, as well as a pulp fiction magazine that began as Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine and ran for nearly 30 years. The 2005 film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is based partly on Halliday's novel Bodies Are Where You Find Them. In 1958 Dresser ceased penning the novels published under the name "Brett Halliday", and Dell Publishers arranged for ghostwriters, among them Bill Pronzini and Robert Terrell. Dresser was a founding member of the Mystery Writers of America, and in 1954 he and McCloy were given Edgar Awards for their critical writings on the genre. He lived in Santa Barbara, California, until his death at the age of 72. ****Wikipédia

Dora Amy Elles (Patricia Wentworth)

Patricia Wentworth (born Dora Amy Elles; November 10, 1878 – January 28, 1961) was a British crime fiction writer. She was born in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India (then the British Raj), educated privately and at Blackheath High School in London. After the death of her first husband, George F. Dillon, in 1906, she settled in Camberley, Surrey. She married George Oliver Turnbull in 1920 and they had one daughter. Wentworth wrote a series of 32 crime novels in the classic-style whodunit featuring Miss Maud Silver, a retired governess and teacher who becomes a professional private detective, in London, England. She works closely with Scotland Yard, especially Inspector Frank Abbott and is fond of quoting the poet Tennyson. Miss Silver is sometimes compared to Jane Marple, the elderly detective created by Agatha Christie. "Miss Silver is well known in the better circles of society, and she finds entree to the troubled households of the upper classes with little difficulty. In most of Miss Silver's cases there is a young couple whose romance seems ill fated because of the murder to be solved, but in Miss Silver's competent hands the case is solved, the young couple are exonerated, and all is right in this very traditional world." Wentworth also wrote 34 books outside of that series. She won the Melrose prize in 1910 for her first novel A Marriage Under The Terror, set in the French Revolution. Her novels have been the topic of a doctoral dissertation. ****Wikipédia

Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy Leigh Sayers (13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator, and Christian humanist. She was also a student of classical and modern languages. She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between the First and Second World Wars that feature English aristocrat and amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, which remain popular to this day. However, Sayers herself considered her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy to be her best work. She is also known for her plays, literary criticism, and essays.Childhood, youth, and education[edit] Photograph of Christ Church Cathedral, the cathedral of the diocese of Oxford which also serves as the chapel of Christ Church College of the University of Oxford Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, where Sayers's father was headmaster of the Choir School Sayers was an only child, born on 13 June 1893 at the Head Master's House, Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. Her father, the Rev. Henry Sayers, M.A., was a chaplain of Christ Church and headmaster of the Choir School. When she was six, he started teaching her Latin.[2] She grew up in the tiny village of Bluntisham-cum-Earith in Huntingdonshire after her father was given the living there as rector. The church graveyard next to the elegant Regency rectory features the surnames of several characters from her mystery The Nine Tailors, and the nearby River Great Ouse and the Fens invite comparison with the book's vivid description of a massive flood around the village.[3] From 1909 she was educated at the Godolphin School,[4] a boarding school in Salisbury. Her father later moved to the simpler living of Christchurch, in Cambridgeshire. In 1912, Sayers won a scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford[5] where she studied modern languages and medieval literature. She finished with first-class honours in 1915.[6] Women could not be awarded degrees at that time, but Sayers was among the first to receive a degree when the position changed a few years later; in 1920 she graduated as an MA. Her experience of Oxford academic life eventually inspired her penultimate Peter Wimsey novel, Gaudy Night. Her father was from Littlehampton, West Sussex, and her mother (Helen Mary Leigh – whence Sayers' second name) was born at "The Chestnuts", Millbrook, Hampshire, to Frederick Leigh, a solicitor whose family roots were in the Isle of Wight. Sayers's aunt Amy, her mother's sister, married Henry Richard Shrimpton. Career[edit] Poetry, teaching, and advertisements[edit] Sayers' first book of poetry was published in 1916 as OP. I[7] by Blackwell Publishing in Oxford. Her second book of poems, "Catholic Tales and Christian Songs", was published in 1918, also by Blackwell. Later, Sayers worked for Blackwell's and then as a teacher in several locations, including Normandy, France. Sayers' longest employment was from 1922 to 1931 as a copywriter at S.H. Benson's advertising agency, located at International Buildings, Kingsway, London. Sayers was quite successful as an advertiser. Her collaboration with artist John Gilroy resulted in "The Mustard Club" for Colman's Mustard and the Guinness "Zoo" advertisements, variations of which still appear today. One famous example was the Toucan, his bill arching under a glass of Guinness, with Sayers's jingle: If he can say as you can Guinness is good for you How grand to be a Toucan Just think what Toucan do Sayers is also credited with coining the slogan "It pays to advertise!"[8][9] She used the advertising industry as the setting of Murder Must Advertise, where she describes the role of truth in advertising: ... the firm of Pym's Publicity, Ltd., Advertising Agents ... "Now, Mr. Pym is a man of rigid morality—except, of course, as regards his profession, whose essence is to tell plausible lies for money—" "How about truth in advertising?" "Of course, there is some truth in advertising. There's yeast in bread, but you can't make bread with yeast alone. Truth in advertising ... is like leaven, which a woman hid in three measures of meal. It provides a suitable quantity of gas, with which to blow out a mass of crude misrepresentation into a form that the public can swallow."[8] Detective fiction[edit] Cover image for the first edition of Dorothy Sayers' novel, Murder Must Advertise 1st edition cover of the Lord Peter Wimsey novel Murder Must Advertise Sayers began working out the plot of her first novel some time in 1920–21. The seeds of the plot for Whose Body? can be seen in a letter that Sayers wrote on 22 January 1921: My detective story begins brightly, with a fat lady found dead in her bath with nothing on but her pince-nez. Now why did she wear pince-nez in her bath? If you can guess, you will be in a position to lay hands upon the murderer, but he's a very cool and cunning fellow ... (p. 101, Reynolds) Lord Peter Wimsey burst upon the world of detective fiction with an explosive "Oh, damn!" and continued to engage readers in eleven novels and two sets of short stories, the final novel ending with a very different "Oh, damn!". Sayers once commented that Lord Peter was a mixture of Fred Astaire and Bertie Wooster, which is most evident in the first five novels. However, it is evident through Lord Peter's development as a rounded character that he existed in Sayers's mind as a living, breathing, fully human being. Sayers introduced the character of detective novelist Harriet Vane in Strong Poison. She remarked more than once that she had developed the "husky voiced, dark-eyed" Harriet to put an end to Lord Peter via matrimony. But in the course of writing Gaudy Night, Sayers imbued Lord Peter and Harriet with so much life that she was never able, as she put it, to "see Lord Peter exit the stage". Sayers did not content herself with writing pure detective stories; she explored the difficulties of First World War veterans in The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, discussed the ethics of advertising in Murder Must Advertise, and advocated women's education (then a controversial subject) and role in society in Gaudy Night. In Gaudy Night, Miss Barton writes a book attacking the Nazi doctrine of Kinder, Kirche, Küche, which restricted women's roles to family activities, and in many ways the whole of Gaudy Night can be read as an attack on Nazi social doctrine. The book has been described as "the first feminist mystery novel."[10] Sayers's Christian and academic interests are also apparent in her detective series. In The Nine Tailors, one of her most well-known detective novels, the plot unfolds largely in and around an old church dating back to the Middle Ages. Change ringing of bells also forms an important part of the novel. In Have His Carcase, the Playfair cipher and the principles of cryptanalysis are explained. Her short story Absolutely Elsewhere refers to the fact that (in the language of modern physics) the only perfect alibi for a crime is to be outside its light cone, while The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will contains a literary crossword puzzle. Sayers also wrote a number of short stories about Montague Egg, a wine salesman who solves mysteries. Translations[edit] Fresco showing Dante Aligheri holding a copy of his epic poem The Divine Comedy, in the dome of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence (Florence's cathedral) Dante shown holding a copy of the Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory, and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven above Sayers herself considered her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy to be her best work. The boldly titled Hell appeared in 1949, as one of the recently introduced series of Penguin Classics. Purgatory followed in 1955. The third volume (Paradise) was unfinished at her death, and was completed by Barbara Reynolds in 1962. On a line-by-line basis, Sayers's translation can seem idiosyncratic. For example, the famous line usually rendered "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" turns, in the Sayers translation, into "Lay down all hope, you who go in by me." The Italian reads "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate", and both the traditional rendering and Sayers' translation add to the source text in an effort to preserve the original length: "here" is added in the traditional, and "by me" in Sayers. Also, the addition of "by me" draws from the previous lines of the canto: "Per me si va ne la città dolente;/ per me si va ne l'etterno dolore;/ per me si va tra la perduta gente." (Longfellow: "Through me the way is to the city dolent;/ through me the way is to the eternal dole;/ through me the way is to the people lost.") The idiosyncratic character of Sayers's translation results from her decision to preserve the original Italian terza rima rhyme scheme, so that her "go in by me" rhymes with "made to be" two lines earlier, and "unsearchably" two lines before that. Umberto Eco in his book Mouse or Rat? suggests that, of the various English translations, Sayers "does the best in at least partially preserving the hendecasyllables and the rhyme."[11] Sayers's translation of the Divine Comedy is also notable for extensive notes at the end of each canto, explaining the theological meaning of what she calls "a great Christian allegory."[12] Her translation has remained popular: in spite of publishing new translations by Mark Musa and Robin Kirkpatrick, as of 2009 Penguin Books was still publishing the Sayers edition.[13] In the introduction to her translation of The Song of Roland, Sayers expressed an outspoken feeling of attraction and love for: "... That new-washed world of clear sun and glittering colour which we call the Middle Age (as though it were middle-aged) but which has perhaps a better right than the blown rose of the Renaissance to be called the Age of Re-birth". She praised "Roland" for being a purely Christian myth, in contrast to such epics as Beowulf in which she found a strong pagan content. Other Christian and academic work[edit] Cover of Are Women Human?, which contains two of Sayers' feminist essays Sayers's most notable religious book is probably The Mind of the Maker (1941) which explores at length the analogy between a human creator (especially a writer of novels and plays) and the doctrine of The Trinity in creation. She suggests that any human creation of significance involves the Idea, the Energy (roughly: the process of writing and that actual 'incarnation' as a material object), and the Power (roughly: the process of reading and hearing and the effect that it has on the audience). She draws analogies between this "trinity" and the theological Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In addition to the ingenious thinking in working out this analogy, the book contains striking examples drawn from her own experiences as a writer, as well as elegant criticisms of writers who exhibit, in her view, an inadequate balance of Idea, Energy, and Power.[14] She strongly defends the view that literary creatures have a nature of their own, vehemently replying to a well-wisher who wanted Lord Peter to "end up a convinced Christian". "From what I know of him, nothing is more unlikely ... Peter is not the Ideal Man".[15] Creed or Chaos? is a restatement of basic historical Christian Doctrine, based on the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed, similar to but somewhat more densely written than C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Both sought to explain the central doctrines of Christianity, clearly and concisely, to those who had encountered them in distorted or watered-down forms, on the grounds that, if you are going to criticize something, you had best know what it is first. Her very influential essay The Lost Tools of Learning[16] has been used by many schools in the US as a basis for the classical education movement, reviving the medieval trivium subjects (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) as tools to enable the analysis and mastery of every other subject. Sayers also wrote three volumes of commentaries about Dante, religious essays, and several plays, of which The Man Born to be King may be the best known. Her religious works did so well at presenting the orthodox Anglican position that, in 1943, the Archbishop of Canterbury offered her a Lambeth doctorate in divinity, which she declined. In 1950, however, she accepted an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Durham. Her economic and political ideas are rooted in the classical Christian doctrines of Creation and Incarnation, and are very close to the Chesterton–Belloc theory of Distributism[17] – although she never describes herself as a Distributist. Criticism of Sayers[edit] Criticism of background material in her novels[edit] The literary and academic themes in Sayers's novels have appealed to a great many readers, but by no means to all. Poet W. H. Auden and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein were critics of her novels, for example.[18][19] A savage attack on Sayers's writing ability came from the prominent American critic and man of letters Edmund Wilson, in a well-known 1945 article in The New Yorker called Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?[20] He briefly writes about her famous novel The Nine Tailors, saying "I set out to read [it] in the hope of tasting some novel excitement, and I declare that it seems to me one of the dullest books I have ever encountered in any field. The first part is all about bell-ringing as it is practised in English churches and contains a lot of information of the kind that you might expect to find in an encyclopedia article on campanology. I skipped a good deal of this, and found myself skipping, also, a large section of the conversations between conventional English village characters ..." Wilson continues "I had often heard people say that Dorothy Sayers wrote well ... but, really, she does not write very well: it is simply that she is more consciously literary than most of the other detective-story writers and that she thus attracts attention in a field which is mostly on a sub-literary level." Academic critic Q.D. Leavis criticises Sayers in more specific terms, in a review of Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon published in the critical journal Scrutiny. The basis of Leavis' criticism is that Sayers' fiction is "popular and romantic while pretending to realism."[21] Leavis argues that Sayers presents academic life as "sound and sincere because it is scholarly", a place of "invulnerable standards of taste charging the charmed atmosphere".[22] But, Leavis says, this is unrealistic: "If such a world ever existed, and I should be surprised to hear as much, it does no longer, and to give substance to a lie or to perpetrate a dead myth is to do no one any service really."[23] Leavis suggests that "people in the academic world who earn their livings by scholarly specialities are not as a general thing wiser, better, finer, decenter or in any way more estimable than those of the same social class outside", but that Sayers is popular among educated readers because "the accepted pretence is that things are as Miss Sayers relates". Leavis comments that "only best-seller novelists could have such illusions about human nature".[23] Critic Sean Latham has defended Sayers, arguing that Wilson "chooses arrogant condescension over serious critical consideration", and suggesting that both he and Leavis, rather than seriously assessing Sayers' writing, simply objected to a detective story writer having pretensions beyond what they saw as her role of popular culture "hack".[18] Latham claims that, in their eyes, "Sayers's primary crime lay in her attempt to transform the detective novel into something other than an ephemeral bit of popular culture".[18] Criticism of major characters[edit] Lord Peter Wimsey, Sayers' heroic detective, has been criticized for being too perfect; over time, the various talents that he displays grow too numerous for some readers to swallow. Edmund Wilson also expressed his distaste for Lord Peter in his criticism of The Nine Tailors: "There was also a dreadful stock English nobleman of the casual and debonair kind, with the embarrassing name of Lord Peter Wimsey, and, although he was the focal character in the novel ... I had to skip a good deal of him, too."[20] Wimsey is rich, well-educated, charming, and brave, as well as an accomplished musician, an exceptional athlete, and a notable lover. He does, however, have serious flaws: the habit of over-engaging in what other characters regard as silly prattling, a nervous disorder (shell-shock), and a fear of responsibility. The latter two both originate from his service in the First World War. The fear of responsibility turns out to be a serious obstacle to his maturation into full adulthood (a fact not lost on the character himself). The character Harriet Vane, featured in four novels, has been criticized for being a mere stand-in for the author. Many of the themes and settings of Sayers's novels, particularly those involving Harriet Vane, seem to reflect Sayers's own concerns and experiences.[24] Vane, like Sayers, was educated at Oxford (unusual for a woman at the time) and is a mystery writer. Vane initially meets Wimsey when she is tried for poisoning her lover (Strong Poison); he insists on participating in the defence preparations for her re-trial, where he falls for her but she rejects him. In Have His Carcase, she collaborates with Wimsey to solve a murder but still rejects his proposals of marriage. She eventually accepts (Gaudy Night) and marries him (Busman's Honeymoon). Alleged anti-Semitism in Sayers's writing[edit] Biographers of Sayers have disagreed as to whether Sayers was anti-Semitic. In Sayers: A Biography,[25] James Brabazon argues that she was. This is rebutted by Carolyn G. Heilbrun in Dorothy L. Sayers: Biography Between the Lines.[26] McGregor and Lewis argue in Conundrums for the Long Week-End that Sayers was not anti-Semitic but used popular British stereotypes of class and ethnicity. In 1936, a translator wanted "to soften the thrusts against the Jews" in Whose Body?; Sayers, surprised, replied that the only characters "treated in a favourable light were the Jews!"[27] Sayers herself had many Jewish friends, including her publisher, and guests at her salons included from time to time the Chief Rabbi. Personal life[edit] Blue plaque for Dorothy L. Sayers on 23 & 24 Gt. James Street, WC1 In London in the 1920s, she entered into an unhappy affair with Russian emigre Imagist poet John Cournos who moved in literary circles with Ezra Pound and his contemporaries. Her affront at his subsequent marriage to a fellow crime writer—after claiming to disdain both monogamy and detective fiction—has been documented in her collected letters,[28] an experience fictionalized a decade later in her novel Strong Poison[29] and in Cournos' The Devil is an English Gentleman, published in 1932.[citation needed] On 3 January 1924, at the age of 30, Sayers secretly gave birth to an illegitimate son, John Anthony (later surnamed Fleming,[30] though his father was Bill White),[31] who was cared for as a child by her aunt and cousin, Amy and Ivy Amy Shrimpton, and passed off as her nephew to friends.[32][33][34] Two years later, after publishing her first two detective novels, Sayers married Captain Oswald Atherton "Mac" Fleming, a Scottish journalist whose professional name was "Atherton Fleming."[35] The wedding took place on 8 April 1926 at Holborn Register Office, London. Fleming was divorced with two children. Sayers and Fleming lived in the flat at 24 Great James Street in Bloomsbury[36] that Sayers maintained for the rest of her life. Both worked, Fleming as an author and journalist and Sayers as an advertising copywriter and author. Over time, Fleming's health worsened, largely due to his First World War service, and as a result he became unable to work. Sayers was a good friend of C. S. Lewis and several of the other Inklings. On some occasions, Sayers joined Lewis at meetings of the Socratic Club. Lewis said he read The Man Born to be King every Easter, but he claimed to be unable to appreciate detective stories. J. R. R. Tolkien read some of the Wimsey novels but scorned the later ones, such as Gaudy Night.[37] Fleming died on 9 June 1950, at Sunnyside Cottage (now 24 Newland Street), Witham, Essex. Sayers died suddenly of a coronary thrombosis[38] on 17 December 1957 at the same place, aged 64. Fleming was buried in Ipswich, while Sayers's remains were cremated and her ashes buried beneath the tower of St Anne's Church, Soho, London, where she had been a churchwarden for many years. Upon her death it was revealed that her nephew, John Anthony, was her son; he was the sole beneficiary under his mother's will. He died on 26 November 1984 at age 60, in St. Francis's Hospital, Miami Beach, Florida. Legacy[edit] Bronze statue of Dorothy L. Sayers by John Doubleday. The statue is opposite her home at 24 Newland Street, Witham Some of the dialogue spoken by character Harriet Vane reveals Sayers poking fun at the mystery genre, even while adhering to various conventions. Sayers' work was frequently parodied by her contemporaries. E. C. Bentley, the author of the early modern detective novel Trent's Last Case, wrote a parody entitled "Greedy Night" (1938). Sayers was a founder and early president of The Detection Club, an eclectic group of practitioners of the art of the detective novel in the so-called golden age, for whom she constructed an idiosyncratic induction ritual. The Club still exists, and, according to the late P.D. James who was a long-standing member, still uses the ritual. In Sayers' day it was the custom of the members to publish collaborative detective novels, usually writing one chapter each without prior consultation. These works have not held the market, and have only rarely been in print since their first publication. Her characters, and Sayers herself, have been placed in some other works, including: Jill Paton Walsh has published four novels about Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane: Thrones, Dominations (1998), a completion of Sayers' manuscript left unfinished at her death; A Presumption of Death (2002), based on the "Wimsey Papers", letters ostensibly written by various Wimseys and published in The Spectator during the Second World War; The Attenbury Emeralds (2010), based on Lord Peter's "first case", briefly referred to in a number of Sayers' novels; and a sequel The Late Scholar (2013) in which Peter and Harriet have finally become the Duke and Duchess of Denver. Wimsey appears (together with Hercule Poirot and Father Brown) in C. Northcote Parkinson's comic novel Jeeves (after Jeeves, the gentleman's gentleman of the P.G. Wodehouse canon). Wimsey makes a cameo appearance in Laurie R. King's A Letter of Mary, one of a series of books relating the further adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Sayers appears with Agatha Christie as a title character in Dorothy and Agatha [ISBN 0-451-40314-2], a murder mystery by Gaylord Larsen, in which a man is murdered in Sayers' dining room and she has to solve the crime. Wimsey is mentioned by Walter Pidgeon's character in the 1945 film Week-End at the Waldorf as one of three possible detectives waiting for him in the hall, outside the apartment of the character played by Ginger Rogers. In Tom Stoppard's play The Real Inspector Hound, one of the critics (Moon) identifies Sayers as a notable literary figure, alongside Kafka, Sartre, Shakespeare, St. Paul, Beckett, Birkett, Pinero, Pirandello, and Dante. Sayers Classical Academy in Louisville, Kentucky is named after her. ****Wikipédia

Dorothy Simpson

Dorothy Preece Simpson (born June 20, 1933, Blaenavon, Monmouthshire, Wales) is a writer of mystery novels and winner of a Silver Dagger Award from the Crime Writers' Association of Great Britain. Simpson graduated from the University of Bristol and taught English and French from 1955 to 1962, she married in 1961 and worked as a marriage guidance counsellor from 1969 to 1982, beginning writing in 1975. Severe Repetitive Stress Injury forced her to stop writing in 2000. She and her husband live in Maidstone, Kent. Her first novel was published in 1977 but her next three manuscripts were rejected. She determined to "devote her next efforts to creating an intriguing murder mystery staged around an engaging sleuth", and came up with Inspector Luke Thanet and his colleague Sergeant Michael Lineham and wrote The Night She Died, the first of a series of fifteen novels. ****Wikipédia

E. Phillips Oppenheim

Edward Phillips Oppenheim (22 October 1866 – 3 February 1946) was an English novelist, in his lifetime a major and successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers. Early life[edit] Edward Phillips Oppenheim was born 22 October 1866 in Leicester, the son of Henrietta Susannah Temperley Budd and Edward John Oppenheim, a leather merchant.[1] He worked in his father's business for almost twenty years. He went to Wyggeston Grammar School. Career[edit] Oppenheim's literary success enabled him to buy a villa in France and a yacht, then a house in Guernsey, though he lost access to this during the Second World War. Afterwards he regained the house, le Vanquiédor in St. Peter Port, and he died there on 3 February 1946.[2] Personal life[edit] In 1892 Oppenheim married Elise Clara Hopkins.[2] They lived in Evington, Leicestershire[3] until the First World War, and had one daughter. During the war he worked for the Ministry of Information. Further reading[edit] Autobiography, The Pool of Memory (1941) at Project Gutenberg Australia The sole biography of Oppenheim is Prince of Storytellers: The Life of E. Phillips Oppenheim by Robert Standish, pseudonym of Digby George Gerahty. London: Peter Davies 1957. ****Wikipédia

Earl Derr Biggers

Earl Derr Biggers (24 de Agosto de 1884 – 5 de Abril de 1933) foi um escritor e dramaturgo estadunidense. É lembrado pelas adaptações de seus romances do detetive sino-americano Charlie Chan.O filho de Robert J. e Emma E. (Derr) Biggers, Earl Derr Biggers nasceu em Warren, Ohio, e se graduou na Universidade de Harvard em 1907. Muitas de suas peças e romances se transformaram em filmes. Ele foi postumamente adicionado ao Hall da Fama do Warren City Schools Distinguished Alumni.[1] Seu romance "Seven Keys to Baldpate" acarretou 7 filmes com o mesmo nome e pelo menos dois com títulos diferentes ("House of Long Shadows", "Haunted Honeymoon") mas essencialmente com a mesma história. George M. Cohan adapatou o romance usando o mesmo nome. Cohan estrelou em 1917 a versão cinematográfica (uma de suas raras aparições) e o filme que escreveu posteriromente (realizado em 1935) é talvez o mais conhecido das sete versões. Biggers viveu em San Marino, Califórnia, e morreu em Pasadena, Califórnia, no hospital, após sofrer um ataque cardíaco em Palm Springs, Califórnia. ****Wikipédia

Ed Lacy

Ed Lacy (August 25, 1911 - January 7, 1968), born Leonard "Len" S. Zinberg, was an American writer of crime and detective fiction. Lacy, who was white, is credited with creating "the first credible African-American PI" character in fiction, Toussaint "Touie" Marcus Moore. Room to Swing, his 1957 novel that introduced Touie Moore, received the 1958 Edgar Award for Best Novel. Lacy was born in New York City. He was a member of the League of American writers, and served on its Keep America Out of War Committee in January 1940 during the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact. He died of a heart attack in Harlem in 1968, at the age of 56. ****Wikipédia

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (nascido Edgar Poe; Boston, Massachusetts, Estados Unidos, 19 de Janeiro de 1809 — Baltimore, Maryland, Estados Unidos, 7 de Outubro de 1849) foi um autor, poeta, editor e crítico literário americano, integrante do movimento romântico americano. Conhecido por suas histórias que envolvem o mistério e o macabro, Poe foi um dos primeiros escritores americanos de contos e é geralmente considerado o inventor do gênero ficção policial, também recebendo crédito por sua contribuição ao emergente gênero de ficção científica. Ele foi o primeiro escritor americano conhecido por tentar ganhar a vida através da escrita por si só, resultando em uma vida e carreira financeiramente difíceis. Ele nasceu como Edgar Poe, em Boston, Massachusetts; quando jovem, ficou órfão de mãe, que morreu pouco depois de seu pai abandonar a família. Poe foi acolhido por Francis Allan e o seu marido John Allan, de Richmond, Virginia, mas nunca foi formalmente adotado. Ele frequentou a Universidade da Virgínia por um semestre, passando a maior parte do tempo entre bebidas e mulheres. Nesse período, teve uma séria discussão com seu pai adotivo e fugiu de casa para se alistar nas forças armadas, onde serviu durante dois anos antes de ser dispensado. Depois de falhar como cadete em West Point, deixou a sua família adotiva. Sua carreira começou humildemente com a publicação de uma coleção anônima de poemas, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827). Poe mudou seu foco para a prosa e passou os próximos anos trabalhando para revistas e jornais, tornando-se conhecido por seu próprio estilo de crítica literária. Seu trabalho o obrigou a se mudar para diversas cidades, incluindo Baltimore, Filadélfia e Nova Iorque. Em Baltimore, casou-se com Virginia Clemm, sua prima de 13 anos de idade. Em 1845, Poe publicou seu poema The Raven, foi um sucesso instantâneo. Sua esposa morreu de tuberculose dois anos após a publicação. Ele começou a planejar a criação de seu próprio jornal, The Penn (posteriormente renomeado para The Stylus), porém, em 7 de outubro de 1849, aos 40 anos, morreu antes que pudesse ser produzido. A causa de sua morte é desconhecida e foi por diversas vezes atribuída ao álcool, congestão cerebral, cólera, drogas, doenças cardiovasculares, raiva, suicídio, tuberculose entre outros agentes. Poe e suas obras influenciaram a literatura nos Estados Unidos e ao redor do mundo, bem como em campos especializados, tais como a cosmologia e a criptografia. Poe e seu trabalho aparecem ao longo da cultura popular na literatura, música, filmes e televisão. Várias de suas casas são dedicadas como museus atualmente. História[editar | editar código-fonte] Edgar Allan Poe nasceu no seio de uma família escocesa-irlandesa, em 19 de janeiro de 1809, na cidade de Boston, no estado de Massachusetts, na região americana da Nova Inglaterra, no nordeste do país.[6] Segundo filho dos atores David Poe Jr. (1784-1811), americano, e Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe (1787-1811), inglesa, ele teve ainda um irmão mais velho, William Henry, nascido em 1808, e uma irmã caçula, Rosalie, nascida em 1811.[7] Seu pai abandonou-os quando Edgar tinha cerca de um ano e meio de vida, em 1810,[8] deixando ele, o irmão Henry e Elizabeth, esta grávida novamente, desamparados. Ela morreu poucas semanas depois de dar a luz a Rosalie, já em 1811, devido tanto a complicações no parto quanto por tuberculose, deixando os três filhos órfãos. Depois da morte da mãe, o irmão mais velho de Edgar, Henry, foi mandado para casa de parentes no interior do país, enquanto sua irmã, Rosalie, foi enviada formalmente para a adoção. Já Edgar foi acolhido, embora não formalmente adotado, pelo empresário John Allan e sua esposa, Francis Allan, que residiam na época na cidade de Richmond, no estado da Virgínia, no sudeste do país. O casal nunca o adotou legalmente,[9] embora John tenha lhe dado o seu sobrenome, fazendo com que Edgar se chamasse, a partir de então, Edgar Allan Poe.[10] No entanto, John Allan e Edgar nunca conseguiram desenvolver uma boa relação, sendo que algumas fontes afirmam que Allan só acolheu o menino para criá-lo por insistência de sua esposa, Francis. De fato, Edgar se mostrou desde pequeno mais apegado à mãe adotiva do que ao pai, que permanecia sempre distante, o que fomentou, direta e indiretamente, a difícil relação estabelecida entre os dois a partir da adolescência e fase adulta do escritor, permeada por constantes brigas e discussões que ambos teriam ao longo da vida deste último. Placa em homenagem ao escritor no centro de Boston, EUA, que marca o local aproximado de seu nascimento no início do século XIX[11] Com os pais adotivos de boa situação financeira, Edgar recebeu uma educação formal de qualidade em sua infância. Em 1815, aos seis anos de idade, se mudou com eles para a Inglaterra, onde seu pai adotivo esperava expandir seus negócios. Lá, eles se estabeleceram por alguns anos no coração da capital, Londres. Na capital britânica, depois de frequentar a escola de Misses Duborg School, e a Manor School, Poe regressou com a família Allan a Richmond em 1820, aos onze anos, tendo sido então matriculado em um colégio interno localizado nos arredores de Charlottesville, Virgínia. Mais tarde, já adolescente, em 1826, foi admitido na Universidade da Virgínia, também em Charlottesville. Desta viria a ser expulso depois de cerca de um ano de frequência, graças ao seu estilo aventureiro e boêmio. Retrato de Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, a mãe de Edgar Allan Poe Na sequência de desentendimentos com o seu pai adotivo, relacionados com as dívidas de jogo, Poe alistou-se nas forças armadas, sob o nome Edgar A. Perry, no ano de 1827.[12] Nesse mesmo período, Poe publicou o seu primeiro livro, Tamerlane and Other Poems. Depois de dois anos de serviço militar, acabaria por ser dispensado. Em 1829, a sua mãe adotiva, Francis, faleceu, ele publicou o seu segundo livro, Al Aaraf,[13] reconciliando-se com o seu pai adotivo, John Allan, que o auxiliou a entrar na Academia Militar de West Point.[14] Em virtude da sua, supostamente propositada, desobediência a ordens, ele acabou por ser expulso desta academia, em 1831, fato pelo qual o seu pai adotivo o repudiou até a sua morte, em 1834. Antes de entrar em West Point, Poe mudou-se para Baltimore, no estado de Maryland, onde estabeleceu-se na casa da sua tia viúva, Maria Clemm, e da sua filha, Virgínia Clemm, sua prima em primeiro grau.[15] Durante esta época, Poe usou a escrita de ficção como meio de subsistência e, no final de 1835, tornou-se editor do jornal Southern Literary Messenger em Richmond, tendo trabalhado nesta posição até 1837. Neste intervalo de tempo, Poe acabaria por casar-se, em segredo, com a sua prima Virgínia, de treze anos, em 1836. Em 1837, Poe mudou-se para Nova Iorque, onde passaria quinze meses aparentemente improdutivos, antes de se mudar em definitivo para a Filadélfia, na Pensilvânia, pouco depois de publicar The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. No verão de 1839, tornou-se editor assistente da Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, onde publicou um grande número de artigos, histórias e críticas literárias e teatrais. Nesse mesmo ano, foi publicada, em dois volumes, a sua coleção Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (traduzido para o francês por Baudelaire como Histoires Extraordinaires e para o português como Histórias Extraordinárias), que, apesar do insucesso financeiro, é apontada como um marco da literatura norte-americana. Retrato de Virginia Clem, a prima de 13 anos de Poe que se tornaria a esposa do escritor Durante este período, sua esposa Virgínia Clemm-Poe, começou a sofrer de tuberculose, que a tornaria inválida e acabaria por levá-la à morte. A doença da mulher acabou por levar Poe ao consumo excessivo de álcool e, algum tempo depois, este deixou a Burton's Gentleman's Magazine para procurar um novo emprego. Regressou a Nova Iorque, onde trabalhou brevemente no periódico Evening Mirror, antes de se tornar editor do mais renomado Broadway Journal.[16] Foi no Evening Mirror, porém, que, no início de 1845, foi publicado o seu popular poema The Raven (em português "O Corvo"). Em 1846, o Broadway Journal faliu,[16] e Poe mudou-se para uma casa no Bronx, hoje conhecida como Poe Cottage e aberta ao público,[17] onde Virgínia morreu no ano seguinte.[18] Biógrafos e críticos costumam sugerir que o tema de "morte de mulheres bonitas" que aparece frequentemente em suas obras decorre da perda de mulheres ao longo de sua vida, incluindo sua esposa.[19] Cada vez mais instável, após a morte da mulher, Poe tentou cortejar a poeta Sarah Helen Whitman. No entanto, o seu noivado com ela acabaria por falhar, alegadamente em virtude do comportamento errático e alcoólico de Poe, mas bastante provavelmente também devido à intromissão da mãe de Sarah, que não via Edgar com bons olhos.[20] Nesta época, segundo ele mesmo relatou, Poe tentou o suicídio por sobredosagem de láudano,[21] e acabou por regressar a Richmond, onde retomou a relação com uma paixão de infância, Sarah Elmira Royster, então já viúva.[22] Morte[editar | editar código-fonte] Ver artigo principal: Morte de Edgar Allan Poe Poe foi enterrado originalmente na parte de trás do cemitério de Westminster, sem uma lápide. A da imagem marca hoje em dia o lugar original. No dia 3 de Outubro de 1849, Poe foi encontrado nas ruas de Baltimore, com roupas que não eram as suas, em estado de delirium tremens, e levado para o Washington College Hospital, onde veio a morrer apenas quatro dias depois.[23] Poe nunca conseguiu estabelecer um discurso suficientemente coerente, de modo a explicar como tinha chegado à situação na qual foi encontrado. As suas últimas palavras teriam sido, de acordo com determinadas fontes, "Lord, please, help my poor soul", em português, "Senhor, por favor, ajude minha pobre alma."[23] Nunca foram apuradas as causas precisas da morte de Poe, sendo bastante comum, apesar de não comprovada, a ideia de ter sido causada por embriaguez. Por outro lado, muitas outras teorias têm sido propostas ao longo dos anos, entre as quais estão presentes: diabetes, sífilis, raiva, e doenças cerebrais raras. Estilo literário e temas[editar | editar código-fonte] Gêneros[editar | editar código-fonte] As obras mais conhecidas de Poe são góticas,[24] um gênero que ele seguiu para satisfazer o gosto do público[25] . Seus temas mais recorrentes lidam com questões da morte, incluindo sinais físicos dela, os efeitos da decomposição, interesses por pessoas enterradas vivas, a reanimação dos mortos e o luto.[26] Muitas das suas obras são geralmente consideradas partes do gênero do romantismo sombrio, uma reação literária ao transcendentalismo,[27] do qual Poe fortemente não gostava.[28] Além do horror, Poe também escreveu sátiras, contos de humor e hoaxes. Para efeito cômico, ele usou a ironia e a extravagância do ridículo, muitas vezes na tentativa de liberar o leitor da conformidade cultural.[25] De fato, "Metzengerstein", a primeira história que Poe publicou,[29] e sua primeira incursão em terror, foi originalmente concebida como uma paródia satirizando o gênero popular.[30] Poe também reinventou a ficção científica, respondendo na sua escrita às tecnologias emergentes como balões de ar quente em "The Balloon-Hoax".[31] Poe escreveu muito de seu trabalho usando temas especificamente oferecidos para os gostos do mercado em massa.[32] Para esse fim, sua ficção incluiu muitas vezes elementos da popular pseudociência, como frenologia[33] e fisiognomia.[34] Teoria literária[editar | editar código-fonte] A escrita de Poe reflete suas teorias literárias, que ele apresentou em sua crítica e também em peças literárias como "The Poetic Principle".[35] Ele não gostava de didatismo[36] e alegoria,[37] pois acreditava que os significados na literatura deveriam ser uma subcorrente sob a superfície. Trabalhos com significados óbvios, ele escreveu, deixam de ser arte.[38] Acreditava que o trabalho de qualidade deveria ser breve e concentrar-se em um efeito específico e único.[35] Para isso, acreditava que o escritor deveria calcular cuidadosamente todos sentimentos e ideias.[39] Em "The Philosophy of Composition", uma peça na qual Poe descreve seu método de escrita em "The Raven", ele afirma ter seguido estritamente este método. Porém, foi questionado se ele realmente seguiu esse sistema. T. S. Eliot disse: "É difícil para nós lermos esta peça sem pensar se Poe escreveu seu poema com tanto cálculo, ele poderia ter pego um pouco mais de dores sobre isto: o resultado dificilmente tem crédito ao método".[40] O biógrafo Joseph Wood Krutch descreveu a peça como "um exercício um tanto engenhoso na arte de racionalização".[41] Legado[editar | editar código-fonte] Influência Literária[editar | editar código-fonte] Durante sua vida, Poe era sobretudo conhecido como um crítico literário. James Russell Lowell, também crítico, dizia que ele era "o mais distinto, filosófico e destemido crítico de obras que tem escrito na América", sugerindo – retoricamente – que ele ocasionalmente usava ácido prússico ao invés de tinta.[42] As críticas cáusticas de Poe fizeram com que ele ganhasse o apelido de "Homem Tomahawk". Seu alvo favorito era o poeta de Boston, aclamado em sua época, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, que era frequentemente defendido por seus companheiros literários no que seria mais tarde chamada de "A Guerra de Longfellow". Poe acusava Longfellow de "a heresia da didática", escrevendo poesias enfadonhas, derivativas e tematicamente plagiadas. [43] Poe também era conhecido como um escritor de ficção e se tornou um dos primeiros escritores americanos do século XIX a se tornar mais popular na Europa do que nos Estados Unidos.[44] Poe era respeitado especialmente na França, em parte devido as traduções sem demora de Charles Baudelaire, estas que vieram a se tornar as edições definitivas das obras de Poe pela Europa.[45] Os contos de detetive de Poe com o personagem C. Auguste Dupin acabariam por se tornar a base para as futuras historias de detetive da literatura. Segundo sir Arthur Conan Doyle: "Cada uma [das estórias de detetive de Poe] é uma raiz da qual toda uma literatura se desenvolveu.... Onde estavam as estórias de detetives antes de Poe soprar o sopro da vida nelas?"[46] A associação Mystery Writers of America nomeou seus prêmios para a excelência no gênero de "Edgars".[47] Poe também influenciou o gênero de ficção cientifica, especialmente Jules Verne, que escreveu uma continuação para o romance de Poe A Narrativa de Arthur Gordon Pym chamada An Antarctic Mystery, também conhecida como The Sphinx of the Ice Fields.[48] Segundo o autor de ficção cientifica H. G. Wells, "Pym conta o que uma mente muito inteligente poderia imaginar sobre o polo sul a um século atrás."[49] Assim como diversos artistas famosos, as obras de Poe geraram diversos imitadores.[50] Uma interessante tendência entre os imitadores de Poe, no entanto, eram as alegações de clarividentes ou pessoas com poderes paranormais de estarem canalizando poemas do espírito de Poe. O mais notável destes casos foi o de Lizzie Doten, que em 1863 publicou Poems from the Inner Life, no qual ela alega ter "recebido" novas obras pelo espírito do autor. Estas obras constituíam de retrabalhos de poemas famosos de Poe como The Bells mas que refletiam uma nova perspectiva, mais positiva.[51] No entanto, Poe também era alvo de criticismo. Isto era parcialmente devido à visão negativa que existia devido ao seu carácter pessoal e a influência que este tinha em sua reputação.[52] William Butler Yeats ocasionalmente criticava Poe e uma vez chegou a chama-lo de "vulgar".[53] Transcendentalista Ralph Waldo Emerson reagiu ao poema "O Corvo" dizendo que "não via nada de mais nele",[54] referindo-se a Poe de modo zombeteiro como "the jingle man".[55] Aldous Huxley escreveu que a composição literária de Poe "cai na vulgaridade" por ser "muito poética" – o equivalente a usar um anel de diamantes em cada dedo.[56] Acredita-se que apenas doze cópias do primeiro livro de Poe, Tamerlane and Other Poems, ainda existem. Em dezembro de 2009, foi vendida uma cópia na sociedade de leilões Christie's, em Nova Iorque, por seiscentos e sessenta dois mil e 500 dólares, um preço record pago por uma obra da literatura americana.[57] Física e Cosmologia[editar | editar código-fonte] Eureka: Um poema em prosa, dissertação escrita em 1848, contém uma teoria cosmológica que previu a teoria do Big Bang oitenta anos antes do seu surgimento,[58] [59] assim como uma solução plausível para o paradoxo de Olbers.[60] [61] Poe ignorou o método cientifico em Eureka e ao invés disso escreveu utilizando apenas sua intuição.[62] Por esta razão ele a considerou uma obra de arte ao invés de um trabalho cientifico,[62] mas insistiu que ainda assim era verdadeiro[63] e considerou ser a obra prima de sua carreira.[64] Ainda assim Eureka está repleta de erros científicos. Em particular, as sugestões de Poe ignoram as leis de Newton relacionadas à densidade e rotação de planetas.[65] Criptografia[editar | editar código-fonte] Ilustração do artista Yan' Dargent baseada no conto "O Escaravelho de Ouro", publicada no artigo "Edgard Poë et ses oeuvres" (Edgar Poe e suas obras, 1862) de Jules Verne. Poe tinha um grande interesse em criptografia. Ele notou pela primeira vez suas habilidades no periódico da Filadélfia Alexander's Weekly (Express) Messenger que estava convidando leitores a submeterem cifras, o qual ele procedeu a resolver.[66] Em julho de 1841, Poe escreveu um artigo chamadao "Algumas palavras sobre Escrita Secreta" no periódico Graham's Magazine. Se aproveitando do interesse publico no tópico, ele escreveu "O Escaravelho de Ouro" incorporando cifras como parte essencial da estoria.[67] O sucesso de Poe com criptografia não dependia muito em seu conhecimento profundo do campo (seu método era limitado a simples cifra de substituição), mas sim no conhecimento adquirido da cultura de jornais e periódicos. Sua afiada habilidade analítica, tão evidente em suas estorias de detetive, permitia que ele visse que o publico em geral não possuía o conhecimento necessário para saber como um simples criptograma de substituição possa ser resolvido, e ele usava isso a seu favor.[66] A comoção criada por suas façanhas criptográficas desempenhou um papel importante em popularizar criptogramas em jornais e revistas.[68] Poe teve uma influência na criptografia alem de incrementar o interesse publico durante sua vida. William Friedman, um dos principais criptologistas da América, foi profundamente influenciado por Poe.[69] O interesse inicial de Friedman por criptografia veio após ler "O Escaravelho de Ouro" quando criança, interesse que mais tarde seria posto em uso para decifrar códigos da maquina PURPLE, pertencente ao Japão, durante a segunda guerra mundial. ****Wikipédia

Edgar Wallace

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was an English writer. Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at 12. He joined the army at 21 and was a war correspondent during the Second Boer War for Reuters and the Daily Mail. Struggling with debt, he left South Africa, returned to London and began writing thrillers to raise income, publishing books including The Four Just Men (1905). Drawing on time as a reporter in the Congo, covering the Belgian atrocities, Wallace serialised short stories in magazines, later publishing collections such as Sanders of the River (1911). He signed with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921 and became an internationally recognised author. After an unsuccessful bid to stand as Liberal MP for Blackpool (as one of David Lloyd George's Independent Liberals) in the 1931 general election, Wallace moved to Hollywood, where he worked as a script writer for RKO studios. He died suddenly from undiagnosed diabetes, during the initial drafting of King Kong (1933). A prolific writer, one of Wallace's publishers claimed that a quarter of all books then read in England were written by him. As well as journalism, Wallace wrote screen plays, poetry, historical non-fiction, 18 stage plays, 957 short stories and over 170 novels, 12 in 1929 alone. More than 160 films have been made of Wallace's work. He is remembered for the creation of King Kong, as a writer of 'the colonial imagination', for the J. G. Reeder detective stories, and the Green Archer. He sold over 50 million copies of his combined works in various editions and The Economist describes him as "one of the most prolific thriller writers of [the 20th] century", although few of his books are still in print in the UK. ****Wikipédia

Edith Pargeter (Ellis Peters)

Edith Mary Pargeter, OBE, BEM (28 September 1913 – 14 October 1995), also known by her nom de plume Ellis Peters, was an English author of works in many categories, especially history and historical fiction, and was also honoured for her translations of Czech classics; she is probably best known for her murder mysteries, both historical and modern. She is well known for her medieval-detective series The Cadfael Chronicles. Personal Pargeter was born in the village of Horsehay (Shropshire, England). Her father was a clerk at a local ironworks. She was educated at Dawley Church of England School and the old Coalbrookdale High School for Girls. She had Welsh ancestry, and many of her short stories and books (both fictional and non-fictional) are set in Wales and its borderlands, or have Welsh protagonists. During World War II, she worked in an administrative role in the Women's Royal Naval Service (the "Wrens") and had reached the rank of petty officer by 1 January 1944 when she was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the New Year Honours. In 1947 Pargeter visited Czechoslovakia and became fascinated by the Czech language and culture. She became fluent in Czech and published award-winning translations of Czech poetry and prose into English. She devoted the rest of her life to writing, both nonfiction and well-researched fiction. She never attended university but became a self-taught scholar in areas that interested her, especially Shropshire and Wales. Birmingham University gave her an honorary master's degree. Pargeter wrote under a number of pseudonyms; it was under the name Ellis Peters that she wrote her later crime stories, especially the highly popular series of Brother Cadfael medieval mysteries, many of which were made into films for television. The Brother Cadfael Chronicles drew international attention to Shrewsbury and its history, and greatly increased tourism to the town. She died at her home in Madeley, Shropshire in 1995 at the age of 82. She had recently returned home from hospital following a stroke. In 1997 a new stained glass window depicting St Benedict was installed in Shrewsbury Abbey and was dedicated to the memory of Edith Pargeter. Recognition The Mystery Writers of America gave Pargeter their Edgar Award in 1963 for Death and the Joyful Woman. In 1980, the British Crime Writers Association awarded her the Silver Dagger for Monk's Hood. In 1993 she won the Cartier Diamond Dagger, an annual award given by the CWA to authors who have made an outstanding lifetime's contribution to the field of crime and mystery writing. Pargeter was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services to Literature" in the 1994 New Year Honours. To commemorate Pargeter's life and work, in 1999 the CWA established their Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award (later called the Ellis Peters Historical Award) for the best historical crime novel of the year. Pargeter's Cadfael Chronicles are often credited for popularizing what would later become known as the historical mystery.****Wikipédia

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

E. C. Bentley (full name Edmund Clerihew Bentley; 10 July 1875 – 30 March 1956) was a popular English novelist and humorist of the early twentieth century, and the inventor of the clerihew, an irregular form of humorous verse on biographical topics. One of the best known is this (1905): Sir Christopher Wren Said, "I am going to dine with some men. If anyone calls Say I am designing St. Paul's." Bentley was born in London and educated at St Paul's School and Merton College, Oxford. His father, John Edmund Bentley, was professionally a civil servant but was also a rugby union international having played in the first ever international match for England against Scotland in 1871. Bentley worked as a journalist on several newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph.[citation needed] He also worked for the imperialist weekly called The Outlook during the editorship of James Louis Garvin. His first published collection of poetry, titled Biography for Beginners (1905), popularized the clerihew form; it was followed by two other collections, More Biography (1929) and Baseless Biography (1939). His detective novel, Trent's Last Case (1913), was much praised, numbering Dorothy L. Sayers among its admirers, and with its labyrinthine and mystifying plotting can be seen as the first truly modern mystery. It was adapted as a film in 1920, 1929, and 1952. The success of the work inspired him, after 23 years, to write a sequel, Trent's Own Case (1936). There was also a book of Trent short stories, Trent Intervenes. Several of his books were reprinted in the early 2000s by House of Stratus. From 1936 until 1949 Bentley was president of the Detection Club. He contributed to two crime stories for the club's radio serials broadcast in 1930 and 1931, which were published in 1983 as The Scoop and Behind The Screen. In 1950 he contributed the introduction to a Constable & Co omnibus edition of Damon Runyon's "stories of the bandits of Broadway", which was republished by Penguin Books in 1990 as On Broadway. He died in 1956 in London at the age of 80. His son Nicolas Bentley was a famous illustrator. Phonographic recordings of his work "Recordings for the Blind" are heard in the movie Places in the Heart, by the character Mr. Will. G. K. Chesterton dedicated his popular detective novel on anarchist terrorism, The Man Who Was Thursday, to Edmund Clerihew Bentley, a schoolfriend. ****Wikipédia

Elizabeth Mackintosh (Josephine Tey)

Josephine Tey was a pseudonym used by Elizabeth Mackintosh (25 July 1896 – 13 February 1952), a Scottish author best known for her mystery novels. She also wrote as Gordon Daviot, under which name she wrote plays with an historical theme. Mackintosh was born in Inverness, the daughter of Colin Mackintosh and Josephine (née Horne). She attended Inverness Royal Academy and then Anstey Physical Training College in Erdington, a suburb of Birmingham. She taught physical training at various schools in England and Scotland, but in 1926 she had to return to Inverness to care for her invalid father. There she began her career as a writer.[1] Mackintosh's best-known books were written under the name of Josephine Tey. Josephine was her mother's first name and Tey the surname of an English grandmother. In five of the mystery novels, all of which except the first she wrote under the name of Tey, the hero is Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant. (Grant appears in a sixth, The Franchise Affair, as a minor character.) The most famous of these is The Daughter of Time, in which Grant, laid up in hospital, has friends research reference books and contemporary documents so that he can puzzle out the mystery of whether King Richard III of England murdered his nephews, the Princes in the Tower. Grant comes to the firm conclusion that King Richard was totally innocent of the death of the Princes. In 1990, The Daughter of Time was selected by the British Crime Writers' Association as the greatest mystery novel of all time; The Franchise Affair was 11th on the same list of 100 books. The Franchise Affair also has a historical context: although set in the 1940s, it is based on the 18th-century case of Elizabeth Canning. The Daughter of Time was the last of Tey's books published during her lifetime. A further crime novel, The Singing Sands, was found in her papers and published posthumously. About a dozen one-act plays and another dozen full-length plays were written under the name of Gordon Daviot. How she chose the name of Gordon is unknown, but Daviot was the name of a scenic locale near Inverness where she had spent many happy holidays with her family. Only four of her plays were produced during her lifetime. Richard of Bordeaux was particularly successful, running for 14 months and making a household name of its young leading man and director, John Gielgud. (Humorously, Tey writes of Inspector Alan Grant that "he had in his youth seen Richard of Bordeaux; four times he had seen it".) Proceeds from Tey's estate, including royalties from her books, were assigned to the National Trust. Appearances and adaptations in other works The heroine of Mary Stewart's The Ivy Tree (1961) uses Tey's book Brat Farrar as a model when impersonating the missing heir to an estate. She describes the book as "the best of them all". Tey is mentioned in the Stephen King novella, Apt Pupil (1982). Tey appears as a main character in a series of novels by Nicola Upson called the "Josephine Tey Mysteries". An Expert in Murder (2008), the first in the series, is a detective story woven around the original production of Richard of Bordeaux. The Daughter of Time influenced later mystery writers, notably Barbara Mertz. Mertz, writing as Elizabeth Peters, refers explicitly to Tey in "The Murders of Richard the Third," which sets a country house murder mystery among a group who believe that Richard III was innocent. Reception and legacy In 2012, Peter Hitchens wrote that, "Josephine Tey's clarity of mind, and her loathing of fakes and of propaganda, are like pure, cold spring water in a weary land", and what she loves above all is to show that things are very often not what they seem to be, that we are too easily fooled, that ready acceptance of conventional wisdom is not just dangerous, but a result of laziness, incuriosity and of a resistance to reason. ****Wikipédia

Erle Stanley Gardner (A.A.Fair)

Erle Stanley Gardner (Malden, Massachusetts, 17 de julho de 1887 — Temecula, Califórnia, 11 de março de 1970) , foi um advogado criminalista norte-americano e escritor de histórias de detetives que também publicou sob os pseudônimos: A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J. Kenny, Les Tillray, e Robert Parr. Foi o criador do detetive Perry Mason, de Della Street, confidente de Mason e de Paul Drake, um velho amigo de Mason que é chefe da Agência Detetive Drake. Erle Stanley criou sob o pseudônimo de A.A. Fair os detetives Donald Lam e Bertha Cool, que apareceram pela primeira vez na história Divórcio Sangrento. Escritor e advogado norte-americano nascido a 7 de Julho de 1889, em Malden, Massachusetts, e falecido a 11 de Março de 1970, em sua casa, no Rancho del Paisano. Infância Erle Stanley Gardner, nasceu em 7 de Julho de 1889 em Malden, Massachusetts,filho de Charles W. Gardner e Grace Adelma Waugh Gardner , seus pais se mudaram no mesmo ano de seu nascimento, e estabeleceram-se em Oroville na Califórnia , como o pai fosse explorador de ouro, Gardner viajou do Klondike até a Califórnia acompanhando o pai em suas viagens, e foi a experiência adquirida em minas de ouro, que levou Gardner a escrever o livro Gold Comes in Bricks. Quanto Gardner tinha 10 anos, o pai mudou-se com a família para Portland no Oregon onde se tornaria engenheiro. Três anos depois, Charles Gardner, levou a família para o Klondike onde trabalhou como engenheiro de minas. Após a virada do século a família se estabeleceu em Oroville, na Califórnia Estudos Embora fosse considerado uma criança prodígio, foi suspenso da Oroyule Union High School em 1906 quando tinha 17 anos, após ridicularizar o diretor. Matriculou-se na Universidade de Valparaíso, porém foi expulso, menos de um mês após a matrícula após se envolver numa luta de boxe ilegal, tal fato fez com que Gardner descobrisse o seu talento como pugilista. A adolescência de Gardner foi em parte rebelde, até que ele descobrisse seu talento para o esporte, Gardner foi pugilista, velejador, tendo como hobbies também, a pesca esportiva, o tênis e o golfe. Erle Stanley concluiu seus estudos em Junho de 1909 na Escola Secundária Palo Alto, na Baía de São Francisco. O sonho do pai de Gardner era que seu filho fosse advogado, o futuro autor passou então a viajar por boa parte da Califórnia, lendo sobre direito e leis penais, até que em 1911 aos 21 anos foi contratado para trabalhar num escritório de advocacia em Willow, ganhando apenas US$20 por mês. Carreira e Vida Pessoal Após um curto período trabalhando na construção de uma estrada de ferro em Eugene no Oregon, o jovem voltou para a Califórnia onde casou-se com Natalie Frances Beatrice Talbert em 9 de Abril de 1912 com quem teve um filho, e em 1915 mudou-se para Ventura, onde em 1916 abriu um escritório de advocacia, porém seus métodos legais ousados não atraiam os americanos, por esse motivo, aliado ao fato de falar chinês fluentemente , Gardner defendeu grande parte de clientes chineses , que também serviram-lhe de inspiração para o livro The Case of the Howling Dog em 1934. Pouco depois Gardner se mudou para São Francisco, onde se formou em 1919, mas dois anos depois, em 1921 retornou a Ventura, onde se juntou a empresa Orr. Em 1921 Gardner aproveitou-se das horas vagas para escrever a história "Naughty Nellie Nighty", que no final do mesmo ano, foi publicada na revista Breezy Stories. Gardner passou então a ter uma carreira dupla, advogado durante o dia e escritor durante a noite. O objetivo de Gardner era escrever 100 mil palavras por mês. As histórias de Gardner iam desde romances policiais até ficção científica, Gardner usou pseudônimos como Charles Green, Kyle Corning e Grant Holiday, entre os títulos do autor, "Speed Dash The Human Fly", e "Lester Leith". Em 1923 como Charles M. Green, publicou a novela "The Shrieking Skeleton"(O Grito dos Esqueletos), na revista Black Mask junto a Dashiell Hammett e John Carroll Daly , a novela não obteve muito êxito, os editores da revista acharam que fosse uma piada, e publicaram junto a novela, uma nota se desculpando com os leitores da revista, que fizeran impiedosas críticas ao trabalho do autor, Gardner porém leu as críticas e usou-as para aperfeiçoar a novela, que foi vendida a Black Mask por US$160. Assim iniciou-se a brilhante carreira, de um autor que venderia mais de 300 milhões de livros. Em 1933 abandonou a advocacia e passou a dedicar-se inteiramente a literatura. O início na literatura O seu primeiro livro, The Case of the Velvet Claws(O Caso das Garras de Veludo), foi recusado pelo Collier's e pelo Saturday Evening Post. Até que foram redescobertas por Thayer Hobson o presidente da William Morrow Publishing Company, que publicou boa parte dos livros de Gardner.The Case of the Velvet Claws foi publicado em 1 de Março de 1933, no Edifício Gardner, em Ventura [3] Ao todo foram quase 150 romances policiais e histórias de ficção científica, Erle Stanley vendeu mais de 3000 milhões de livros e entrou para o Guiness. Na época em que iniciou suas obras, Gardner estabeleceu a meta de escrever 1.200.000 palavras por ano, ou seja, 3.300 por dia e 100 mil por mês, logo Gardner passou a ditar suas obras que eram datilografadas por secretárias. Seus maiores sucessos foram os romances protagonizados pelo advogado Perry Mason, como por exemplo The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933, O Caso das Garras de Veludo), The Case of the Sulky Girl (1933, O Caso da Jovem Arisca), The Case of the Vagabond Girl (1948, O Caso da Virgem Vagabunda), The Case of the Deadly Toy (1959, O Caso do Brinquedo Mortífero), The Case of the Beautiful Beggar (1965,O Caso da Bela Mendiga), Mason que já era um sucesso se tornou fenômeno nos anos 80 quando seus romances foram adaptados para uma série televisiva, estrelada por Raymond Burr. Sob o pseudônimo de A.A. Fair, Erle Stanley criou ainda uma série de romances protagonizada por Donald Lam e Bertha Cool. Além de outros personagens como o delegado Doug Selby, e o seu rival Alphonse Baker Carr. Erle Stanley escreveu ainda como Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J. Kenny, Les Tillray e Robert Parr. Após a morte de Erle Stanley, a série de Perry Mason teve continuidade através de Thomas Chastain. ****Wikipédia

Ethel Lina White

Ethel Lina White (1876 – 13 August 1944) was a British crime writer, best known for her novel The Wheel Spins (1936), on which the Alfred Hitchcock film, The Lady Vanishes (1938), was based.Early years Born in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales, in 1876, White started writing as a child, contributing essays and poems to children's papers. Later she began to write short stories, but it was some years before she wrote books. Career as a writer She left employment in a government job working for the Ministry of Pensions in order to pursue writing. Her writing was to make her one of the best known crime writers in Britain and the USA during the 1930s and '40s. Her first three works, published between 1927 and 1930, were mainstream novels. Her first crime novel, published in 1931, was Put Out the Light. Although she has now faded into obscurity, in her day she was as well known as such writers like Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie. Death She died in London in 1944 aged 68. Her works have enjoyed a revival in recent years with a stage adaptation of The Lady Vanishes touring the UK in 2001 and the BBC broadcast of an abridged version on BBC Radio 4 as well as a TV adaptation by the BBC in 2013. *****Wikipédia

Fergus Hume

Fergusson Wright Hume, known as Fergus Hume (8 July 1859 – 12 July 1932) was a prolific English novelist. Early life Hume was born in England, the second son of James Hume. At the age of three, his father emigrated with his family to Dunedin, New Zealand, where he was educated at Otago Boys' High School and studied law at the University of Otago. He was admitted to the New Zealand bar in 1885. Shortly after graduation he relocated to Melbourne, Australia, where he obtained a job as a barristers' clerk. He began writing plays, but found it impossible to persuade the managers of Melbourne theatres to accept or even read them. Rise to fame Finding that the novels of Émile Gaboriau were then very popular in Melbourne, he obtained and read a set of them and determined to write a novel of a similar kind. The result was the self-published novel The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), which became a great success. Hume based his descriptions of poor urban life on his knowledge of Little Bourke Street. He sold the English and United States rights to the novel for 50 pounds, and thus derived little benefit from its success. It eventually became the best selling mystery novel of the Victorian era, author John Sutherland terming it the "most sensationally popular crime and detective novel of the century". This novel inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write A Study in Scarlet, which introduced the character Sherlock Holmes. Doyle remarked, "Hansom Cab was a slight tale, mostly sold by 'puffing'." After the success of his first novel and the publication of another, Professor Brankel's Secret (c.1886), Hume returned to England in 1888. He resided in London for few years and then he moved to the Essex countryside where he lived in Thundersley for 30 years, eventually producing more than 100 novels and short stories. He continued to be anxious for success as a dramatist, and at one time Henry Irving was favourably considering one of his plays, but he died before it could be produced. Personal life Hume did not seek publicity and little is known of his personal life. The writer of the obituary notice in The Times stated that he was a very religious man who during his last years did much lecturing to young people's clubs and debating societies. He died at Thundersley, Essex, on 12 July 1932, shortly after completing his last (and extremely rare) book, The Last Straw. ****Wikipédia

Fernando Marias

Fernando Marías Amondo (Bilbao, 13 de junio de 1958) es un escritor español.En 1975 se trasladó a Madrid con la intención de estudiar cine, estableciéndose en esa ciudad. Comenzó en la narrativa escribiendo guiones para la televisión, destacando entre ellos la serie de falsos documentales Páginas ocultas de la historia. En 1990 escribió su primera novela La luz prodigiosa, comenzando su carrera como novelista. Es el fundador del colectivo artístico Hijos de Mary Shelley.1 ****Wikipédia

Frank Gruber

Frank Gruber (born February 2, 1904, Elmer, Minnesota, died December 9, 1969, Santa Monica, California) was an American writer. He was a prolific author of stories for pulp fiction magazines. He also wrote dozens of novels, mostly Westerns and detective stories. Gruber wrote many scripts for Hollywood movies and television shows, and was the creator of three TV series. He sometimes wrote under the pen names Stephen Acre, Charles K. Boston and John K. Vedder. Gruber said that as a 9-year-old newsboy, he read his first book, "Luke Walton, the Chicago Newsboy" by Horatio Alger. During the next seven years he read a hundred more Alger books and said they influenced him professionally more than anything else in his life. They told how poor boys became rich, but what they instilled in Gruber was an ambition at age nine or 10, to be an author. He had written his first book before age 11, using a pencil on wrapping paper. Age 13 or 14, his ambition died for a while but several years later it rose again and he started submitting stories to various magazines, like Smart Set and Atlantic Monthly. Getting rejected, he lowered his sights to The Saturday Evening Post and Colliers, with no more success. The pulps were getting noticed and Gruber tried those but with no success. As a story came back with a rejection slip, he would post it off again to someone else, so he could have as many as forty stories going back and forth at different times, costing him about a third of his earnings in postage. Earl Stanley Gardner called him the fighter who licked his weight in rejection slips. February 1927, he finally sold a story. It was bought by The United Bretheren Publishing House of Dayton. It was called "The Two Dollar Raise" and he got a cheque through for three dollars and fifty cents. Answering an ad in the Chicago Tribune, he got a job editing a small farm paper. In September he got a better paid job in Iowa and soon found himself editing five farm papers. He had lots of money and even wrote some articles for the papers but found he had no time to write the stories he wanted to write. In 1932 the Depression hit, and he lost his job. 1932 to 1934 were his bad years. He wrote and wrote, many stories typed out on an old "Remington" but of the Sunday School stories, the spicy sex stories, the detective stories, the sports stories, the loves stories, etc, very few sold, with some companies paying him as little as a quarter of a cent per word. He had a few successes and remained in Mt. Morris, Illinois for 14 months before deciding to head to New York on July 1st, 1934. There were numerous publishing houses in New York and he could save money on postage but this led to him walking miles to deliver manuscripts as he had so little money, not even enough for food most of the time. He stayed in a room in the Forty Fourth Street Hotel ($10.50 per week). In his book, THE PULP JUNGLE (1967), Gruber details the struggles (for a long time, at least once a day he had tomato soup, which was free hot water in a bowl, with free crackers crumbled in and half a bottle of tomato sauce added) he had for a few years and numerous fellow authors he became friendly with, many of whom were famous or later became famous. Early December 1934 and with endless rejection slips, he got a phone call from Rogers Terrill. Could he do a 5,500 word filler story for Operator #5 pulp magazine by next day? He did and got paid. Even better, they wanted another one next month, and another. He was then asked to do a filler for Ace Sports pulp, which sold. Gruber's income from writing in 1934 was under $400. In 1935, his stories were suddenly wanted and he earned $10,000 that year. His wife came to live with him (she had been living with relatives) and he lived the good life, moving into a big apartment and buying a Buick ($750). January 1942, Gruber decided to try Hollywood, having heard about the huge sums some stories sold for and stayed there till 1946. Gruber—who stated that only seven types of Westerns existed[1]—wrote more than 300 stories for over 40 pulp magazines, as well as more than sixty novels which had sold more than ninety million copies in 24 countries and sixty five screenplays and a hundred television scripts. Twenty five of his books have sold to motion pictures and he created three TV series: Tales of Wells Fargo, The Texan and Shotgun Slade. His first novel, The Peace Marshall which was rejected by every agent in New York at the time became a film called "The Kansan", starting Richard Dix. The book has been reprinted many times with total sales of over one million copies. He bragged that he could write a complete mystery novel in 16 days and then use the other 14 days of the month to knock out a historical serial for a magazine.[2] His mystery novels included The French Key (He sold this for $14,000 in 1945) and The Laughing Fox. Gruber said that, while in the Army, he learned how to manipulate the dice to throw 35 consecutive sevens, but that he had "lost this skill through lack of practice".[3] He was a social drinker in the thirties (regular parties for authors were alcohol only with no food provided), being too busy to become a hard drinker, but later just about gave up alcohol. ****Wikipédia

Fredric Brown

Fredric Brown (October 29, 1906 – March 11, 1972) was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Cincinnati. He is perhaps best known for his use of humor and for his mastery of the "short short" form—stories of 1 to 3 pages, often with ingenious plotting devices and surprise endings. Humor and a somewhat postmodern outlook carried over into his novels as well. One of his stories, "Arena," is officially credited for an adaptation as an episode of the landmark television series, Star Trek. His science fiction novel What Mad Universe (1949) is a parody of pulp SF story conventions. Martians, Go Home (1955) is both a broad farce and a satire on human frailties as seen through the eyes of a billion jeering, invulnerable Martians who arrive not to conquer the world but to drive it crazy. The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (1952) tells the story of an aging astronaut who is trying to get his beloved space program back on track after Congress has cut off the funds for it – an accurate prediction of the actual conditions for a space program, at a time when many SF writers still tended to ignore or downplay the financial side of spaceflight. Its title might have been the inspiration for the title of the final episode of the anime Gurren Lagann, "The Lights In The Sky Are Stars", as well as the second film adapting the events of the series. The short story "Arena" was used as the basis for the episode of the same name in the original series of Star Trek. It is similar to an episode entitled "Fun and Games" (1964) of The Outer Limits. Brown's first mystery novel, The Fabulous Clipjoint, won the Edgar Award for outstanding first mystery novel. It began a series starring Ed and Ambrose Hunter, and depicts how a young man gradually ripens into a detective under the tutelage of his uncle, an ex–private eye now working as a carnival concessionaire. Many of his books make use of the threat of the supernatural or occult before the "straight" explanation at the end. For example, Night of the Jabberwock is a bizarre and humorous narrative of an extraordinary day in the life of a small-town newspaper editor. The Screaming Mimi (which became a 1958 movie starring Anita Ekberg and Gypsy Rose Lee, and directed by Gerd Oswald, who also directed the "Fun and Games" episode of The Outer Limits) and The Far Cry are noir suspense novels reminiscent of the work of Cornell Woolrich. The Lenient Beast experiments multiple first-person viewpoints, among them a gentle, deeply religious serial killer, and examines racial tensions between whites and Latinos in the US state of Arizona. Here Comes a Candle is told in straight narrative sections alternating with a radio script, a screenplay, a sportscast, a teleplay, a stage play, and a newspaper article. Brown wrote several short stories about Satan and his activities in Hell. Many of his science fiction stories were shorter than 1,000 words, or even 500 words. Popularity and influence The depiction of aliens who are completely alien mentally as well as physically and who are completely bent on humanity's destruction is similar to that of the Arcturians in Brown's What Mad Universe. His short story "Arena" was voted by Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the top 20 SF stories written before 1965. His 1945 short story "The Waveries" was described by Philip K. Dick as "what may be the most significant—startlingly so—story SF has yet produced." "Knock" is well known for its opening, which is a complete two-sentence short-short story in itself. Ayn Rand singled out Brown for high praise in her book The Romantic Manifesto. The famous pulp writer Mickey Spillane called Brown "my favorite writer of all time". Science fiction and fantasy writer Neil Gaiman has also expressed fondness for Brown's work, having his novel Here Comes A Candle narrated by the character Rose Walker in the collection The Kindly Ones of The Sandman. Also in the Sandman graphic novels, Fredric Brown is a character in the first story of "The Sandman: Dream Country." Though his name isn't given, the Fredric Brown character makes a comment about having written "Here Comes a Candle." In this graphic novel by Neil Gaiman, Fredric Brown is an aging writer whose past accomplishments can be attributed to the muse that he has locked in his house. Calliope is her name and she is also the muse to Homer, the Greek poet. Brown also had the honor of being one of three dedicatees of Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (the other two being Robert Cornog and Philip Jose Farmer). In his non-fiction book Danse Macabre (1981), a survey of the horror genre since 1950, writer Stephen King includes an appendix of "roughly one hundred" influential books of the period: Fredric Brown's short-story collection Nightmares and Geezenstacks is included, and is, moreover, asterisked as being among those select works King regards as "particularly important." Brown's short story "Naturally" was adapted into Geometria, a short film by director Guillermo del Toro. Personal life He had two sons: James Ross Brown and Linn Lewis Brown (October 7, 1932 – June 15, 2008). ****Wikipédia

Frederic Dard

Frédéric Dard (né Frédéric Charles Antoine Dard le 29 juin 1921 à Jallieu (Isère), France – 6 juin 2000 à Bonnefontaine, Fribourg, Suisse) est un écrivain principalement connu – dans une production extrêmement abondante – pour les aventures du commissaire San-Antonio, souvent aidé de son adjoint Bérurier, dont il a écrit cent soixante-quinze aventures depuis 1949. Parallèlement aux San-Antonio (l'un des plus gros succès de l'édition française d'après-guerre), Frédéric Dard a produit sous son nom ou sous de nombreux pseudonymes des romans noirs, des ouvrages de suspense psychologique, des « grands romans », des nouvelles, ainsi qu'une multitude d'articles. Débordant d'activité, il fut également auteur dramatique, scénariste et dialoguiste de films. Selon ses dernières volontés, Frédéric Dard a été enterré dans le cimetière de Saint-Chef, en Isère, village où il avait passé une partie de son enfance et où il aimait se ressourcer. Un musée y est en partie consacré à son œuvre. Le père de Frédéric Dard, Francisque, d'abord ouvrier de la société Diederichs, lance une entreprise de chauffage central à Bourgoin-Jallieu. Sa mère, Joséphine-Anna Cadet, est fille d'agriculteurs. Frédéric Dard nait avec un bras atrophié, inerte1. Ses parents, très occupés par l'affaire familiale, le font élever par sa grand-mère. Il en gardera un souvenir ému et le goût pour la lecture. Le krach de 1929 précipite le déclin de l'entreprise familiale, qui est mise en faillite. Tous leurs biens sont saisis, sous les yeux du jeune Frédéric. La famille émigre alors à Lyon, dans un petit appartement du boulevard des Brotteaux. Frédéric suit sans grand intérêt des études commerciales à l'école La Martinière. Il est présenté en 1938 à Marcel E. Grancher, le fondateur des Éditions Lugdunum et du journal Le Mois à Lyon, par son oncle, ouvrier-mécanicien dans un garage automobile que Grancher fréquente. Engagé comme stagiaire, il assume peu après un rôle de secrétaire de rédaction (fonction qu'il assumera officiellement à la fin de l'été 1940), puis de courtier en publicité. Ses premiers articles, certainement encouragés par ses ainés comme le docteur Edmond Locard ou le romancier Max-André Dazergues sont publiés anonymement dans le journal dès 1939. Enfin journaliste, le métier qui l'attire depuis longtemps, il passe à l'écriture à proprement parler et publie fin octobre 1940 son premier livre La Peuchère (une nouvelle paysanne, ainsi que la qualifiera son éditeur Marcel Grancher), son premier vrai roman, Monsieur Joos, récompensé par le premier Prix Lugdunum décerné sur manuscrit lui apportant enfin en mars 1941 la notoriété. Frédéric Dard se marie en novembre 1942 avec Odette Damaisin, dont il aura deux enfants, Patrice (né en 1944) et Élizabeth (1948 - 2011)2. Il s'installe avec sa femme à Lyon, dans le quartier de la Croix-Rousse, au 4 rue Calas, où il réside entre juillet 1944 et mars 19493. Frédéric Dard écrit des livres pour enfants et des romans populaires pour nourrir sa petite famille, rencontre des écrivains repliés à Lyon. Sa notoriété commence à dépasser les limites de la capitale rhodanienne. Très influencé par le roman noir américain (Faulkner, Steinbeck et surtout Peter Cheyney), il se lie avec Georges Simenon, qui lui rédige une préface pour son livre Au massacre mondain. Sous la houlette de Clément Jacquier, il écrit des romans avec ses premiers pseudonymes pittoresques : Maxell Beeting, Verne Goody, Wel Norton, Cornel Milk, etc. Sur un coup de tête (il a pris ombrage d'un livre de Marcel E. Grancher, qui le cite dans ses souvenirs), il part en 1949 s'installer aux Mureaux avec sa famille, dans un pavillon de banlieue. Après quelques années de vache maigre, il connaît ses premiers succès d'écriture, au théâtre (notamment La neige était sale, adaptation du roman de Simenon, est montée par Raymond Rouleau au Théâtre de l'Œuvre en décembre 1950). C'est en 1949 que paraît Réglez-lui son compte !, roman policier signé San Antonio, et qui est un échec commercial. Il rejoint alors les éditions du Fleuve noir, où il va côtoyer Jean Bruce et Michel Audiard, et y publie deux romans : Dernière Mission, et le second San-Antonio, Laissez tomber la fille. En 1954, Frédéric Dard et Robert Hossein montent au Grand-Guignol Les Salauds vont en enfer, première pièce d'une longue collaboration théâtrale. La notoriété naissante du commissaire San-Antonio engendre le succès, qui, dès lors, ne le quittera plus. Dard écrit vite et beaucoup, au rythme de quatre à cinq ouvrages par an : romans policiers, romans d'espionnage ou d'épouvante, scénarios, adaptation de roman pour le cinéma. En 1964, il obtient le record du nombre de ventes de l'année en France avec L'Histoire de France vue par San-Antonio (350 000 exemplaires vendus)4. Cependant, sa vie de couple avec Odette Damaisin n'est pas heureuse. Dans les mois précédant leur séparation, il tente de se pendre. Il se remarie le 14 juin 1968 avec Françoise de Caro, la fille d'Armand de Caro, le fondateur des éditions Fleuve noir. En 1968, il prend la route de la Suisse avec sa nouvelle femme. Le couple se fait construire le « chalet San Antonio » à Gstaad. Ils auront une fille, Joséphine, née en 1970 qui épousera Guy Carlier en 2006. Quelques semaines après sa naissance, le couple Dard adopte un jeune Tunisien, prénommé Abdel. Le 23 mars 1983, Joséphine, âgée de 13 ans à l'époque, est enlevée5 par un homme qui monte au premier étage de leur domicile de Vandœuvres, se faufile dans sa chambre, la drogue et s'enfuit avec elle dans un appartement à Annemasse6. Le ravisseur est le cadreur d'une équipe de télévision suisse qui était venue faire un reportage sur le romancier7. Elle sera libérée cinquante heures plus tard contre le versement d'une rançon de 2 millions de francs suisses grâce au chalet de Gstaad qui venait d'être vendu. Le ravisseur sera arrêté (repéré lorsqu'il parlementait avec Dard au téléphone sous un masque de Mitterrand, pour fausser sa voix), condamné à 18 ans de prison en septembre 1984 et la rançon récupérée, mais l'épisode a longtemps traumatisé Frédéric Dard et sa fille8. Il noue des liens très forts avec le R. P. Bruckberger (à qui il dédiera La Sexualité…) et avec Albert Cohen. Il se passionne pour la peinture, notamment les œuvres de Domenico Gnoli, peintre hyperréaliste, ou celles de René Magritte, peintre surréaliste. Il rend hommage à l'œuvre du poète belge Louis Scutenaire. Avec le temps, il commence à prendre du recul, il accorde de longues interviews à la presse. En 1975, il fait paraître Je le jure, signé San-Antonio, un livre d'entretiens où il évoque son enfance, ses débuts, sa famille, ses idées. En 1978, il acquiert à Bonnefontaine une ferme du xviiie siècle qu'il restaure : c'est dans ce domaine de L'Eau vive qu'il poursuit son œuvre en composant une centaine de romans et de nombreuses peintures, sa vocation contrariée9. Frédéric Dard meurt le 6 juin 2000, à son domicile de Bonnefontaine, en Suisse. Il est inhumé suivant ses volontés au cimetière de Saint-Chef en Dauphiné, village où il a vécu, enfant, en 1930, dans une maison appartenant à la famille de sa mère. L'ancienne école de Saint-Chef qu'il a fréquentée, porte une plaque commémorative rappelant ce fait. Depuis la mort de son père, son fils Patrice poursuit l'écriture des San-Antonio. ****Wikipédia

Georges Simenon

Georges Simenon (Liège, 13 de fevereiro de 1903 — Lausanne, 4 de setembro de 1989) foi um escritor belga de língua francesa. Foi um romancista de uma fecundidade extraordinária: escreveu 192 romances, 158 novelas, alem de obras autobiográficas e numerosos artigos e reportagens sob seu nome e mais 176 romances, dezenas de novelas, contos e artigos sob 27 pseudônimos diferentes. As tiragens acumuladas de seus livros atingem mais de 500 milhões de exemplares. É o autor belga, e o quarto autor de língua francesa mais traduzido em todo o mundo. Seu personagem mais famoso é o Comissário Maigret, personagem de 75 novelas e 28 contos. Origens[editar | editar código-fonte] Simenon nasceu na rua Leopold, em Liège, primeiro filho de Desire Simenon, empregado em um escritório de seguros e Henriette. Em 1905 a família mudou para a rua Pasteur, hoje chamada Rua Georges Simenon. A família é originaria do ‘’Limburgo belga’’, uma região de terras baixas próximo a Meuse, um corredor de passagem entre a Flandres, a Valônia e os Países Baixos. Georges começou a aprendeu a ler aos três anos na escola Sainte-Julienne. A partir de 1908, começa o primário no Instituto Santo André, onde foi pelos seis anos seguintes um dos três melhores alunos. Nesta época sua mãe começa a alugar quartos para estudantes ou estagiários de várias origens, o que foi para o menino uma extraordinária abertura para o mundo. A partir de 1914, vai estudar com os jesuítas no Colégio São Luís. No ano seguinte, com doze anos, teve sua primeira experiência sexual, com uma menina de quinze, que seria o contraponto à castidade pregada pelos padres, como revelou em uma autobiografia. Passa então ao colégio Saint-Servais, onde completa o colegial e se desilude com as classes sociais por causa do convívio com colegas mais abastados. Em 1918, a pretexto dos problemas cardíacos do pai, decide parar com os estudos, sem fazer nem os exames finais, arrumando pequenos empregos sem qualificação como aprendiz de confeiteiro. Em janeiro de 1919, em conflito aberto com sua mãe, começa como repórter no jornal "La Gazette de Liége", período extraordinário para o jovem de dezesseis anos, que escreve mais de 150 artigos com o pseudônimo de "G. Sim.". Se interessa particularmente pelos inquéritos policiais, e assiste conferencias sobre policia cientifica feitos pelo criminalista francês Edmund Locard. Nesse ano redige ainda seu primeiro romance, "Au pont dês Arches", publicado em 1921 com seu nome de jornalista. A partir de 1919, publica também o primeiro de cerca de 800 esquetes (sketches) humorísticos, sob o nome de Monsieur Le Coq . Nessa época aprofunda seu conhecimento do meio boêmio, das prostitutas, dos bêbados, anarquistas, artistas e mesmo futuros assassinos. Freqüenta também um grupo de artistas chamados "La Caque", onde encontrara uma estudante de Belas-Artes, Regine Renchon, com quem se casa em 1923. Em Paris[editar | editar código-fonte] Com a morte de seu pai, parte para se instalar em Paris com Regine, descobrindo a grande capital que aprende a amar com suas desordens, seus delírios. Parte para a descoberta de seus bistrôs (pequenos bares e restaurantes), brasseries e restaurantes, encontrando suas personagens na população parisiense, artesãos, serviçais, pobres das ruas. Começa a escrever com diversos pseudônimos e sua criatividade lhe assegura um rápido sucesso financeiro. Em 1928 faz uma longa viagem de barco, para suas reportagens, descobrindo a água e a navegação, que aparecem sempre em sua obra. Decide em 1929 fazer uma viagem pela França, explorando os canais em um barco que mandou construir, o ‘’Ostrogoth’’, no qual viverá ate 1931. Em 1930, numa série de novelas escritas para ‘’Detective’’, coleção encomendada por Joseph Kessel, aparece pela primeira vez o personagem ‘’Comissário Maigret’’. Em 1932 parte para uma série de viagens e reportagens na África, na Europa, Rússia e Turquia. Depois de um longo cruzeiro pelo Mediterrâneo, embarca para uma volta ao mundo entre 1934 e 1935. Nas suas escalas, produz reportagens, encontra numerosos personagens e faz muitas fotos. Não se furta também de descobrir o prazer com mulheres de todas as latitudes. La Rochelle[editar | editar código-fonte] Na obra de Simenon, trinta e quatro romances ou novelas se passam em La Rochelle, que descobriu em 1927 passando suas férias na ilha de Aix, seguindo sua paixão por Josephine Baker. Naquele ano descobriu também uma paixão por navegação e por La Rochelle, onde no ‘’Café de la Paix’’, que aparece em obras suas e se tornaria seu quartel general, pediu uma garrafa de Champagne ao ouvir a declaração de guerra alemã em 1939; ante ao espanto dos presentes, disse: "ao menos não será bebida pelos alemães". Passa a morar lá, onde nasce seu filho Marc, em 1939. Durante toda a guerra entre 1940 a 1945, continua vivendo em sua vila de Vendée, mas este período é mal conhecido e sujeito a múltiplas versões. Algumas pessoas acham que durante esse período crucial em sua vida e sua obra, o escritor se tornou um colaborador dos alemães, enquanto outros acham que foi somente oportunista ao aceitar escrever em jornais controlados pelos invasores. Mas com certeza Simenon nunca denunciou ninguém nem nunca se engajou. Algumas denuncias de conterrâneos foram atribuídas ao seu estilo opulento de vida, quando as pessoas sofriam com racionamentos e cupons de alimentação, de outro lado a Gestapo o investigou por achar seu nome parecido com antropônimos israelitas. Desse período com certeza sobraram seus escritos, vinte romances, onde o que se sobressai é a região de Vendée, descrita como uma região luminosa, impressionista, onde o mar reencontra a terra. A visão ambígua que Simenon tinha da região e da burguesia local ofuscava seus habitantes. Agradecidos mas relutantes, homenagearam o autor em 1989 dando seu nome ao cais da cidade. Também trocou uma longa correspondência com André Gide nessa época. Depois da guerra[editar | editar código-fonte] Foto tirada em 1963, por Erling Mandelmann Em 1945, após o termino da guerra, vai viver no estado de Connecticut, nos Estados Unidos da América, percorrendo nos dez anos seguintes todo esse continente, para saciar sua curiosidade e seu apetite de viver. Durante esses anos americanos, visita sempre Nova Iorque, Flórida, Arizona e a Califórnia e toda a costa Leste, milha a milha, os motéis, as estradas e as paisagens grandiosas. Vai descobrir ainda outra faceta do trabalho policial e da Justiça. Vai conhecer ainda sua segunda esposa, a canadense Denise Quimet, 17 anos mais jovem, com a qual vai viver uma paixão intensa de sexo, ciúmes, disputas e álcool. Em 1952 é nomeado para a academia belga. Volta definitivamente para a Europa em 1955, onde após um movimentado período na Côte d'Azur freqüentando o ‘’jet-set’’, se instala em Epalinges, ao norte de Lausanne, Suíça, mandando construir uma grande mansão. Em 1960 preside o festival de cinema de Cannes, que aquele ano premiou com a palma de ouro La dolce vita de Fellini. Em 1972 Simenon renuncia ao romance, mas não havia acabado de explorar os meandros do homem, a começar por ele mesmo, em uma longa autobiografia com 21 volumes ditada em um pequeno gravador. Análise da obra[editar | editar código-fonte] Diferente de muitos autores de hoje, que tentam construir uma intriga o mais complexa possível, como um jogo de ecos, Simenon propunha uma intriga simples mas com personagens fortes, um herói humano, obrigado a ir ao fundo de sua lógica. A mensagem de Simenon é complexa e ambígua: nem culpados nem inocentes, mas culpas que se engendram e se destroem em uma cadeia sem fim. Os romances colocam o leitor em um mundo rico de formas, cores, sentimentos, sensações, onde se entra desde a primeira frase. Seus melhores romances são baseados nas intrigas nas pequenas vilas de província, evoluindo a sombra de personagens de aparência respeitável mas que urdem empresas tenebrosas, numa atmosfera própria, do qual os do Comissário Maigret são certamente os melhores. *****Wikipédia

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (G.K.Chesterton)

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, conhecido como G. K. Chesterton, (Londres, 29 de maio de 1874 — Beaconsfield, 14 de junho de 1936) foi um escritor, poeta, narrador, ensaísta, jornalista, historiador, biógrafo, teólogo, filósofo, desenhista e conferencista britânico. Igualmente trilhou pelo campo da economia . É conhecido como o "príncipe do paradoxo" pelo conteúdo argumentativo brilhante de sua obra. Jorge Luis Borges afirmava: "Toda a boa literatura é uma forma de alegria, e nenhum autor me deu tantas alegrias quanto Chesterton". É reconhecido por, juntamente com os outros católicos (Hilaire Belloc, Cecil Chesterton, Arthur Penty), haver previsto o sistema sócio-económico do distributismo. Filho de Edward Chesterton e de Marie Louise Grosjean, G. K. Chesterton era o segundo de três irmãos. Casou-se com Frances Blogg. Concluiu os estudos secundários no colégio de São Paulo Hammersmith onde recebeu prêmio literário por um poema sobre São Francisco Xavier. Ingressa na escola de arte Slade School de Londres (1893) onde inicia a carreira de pintura que vai depois abandonar para se dedicar ao jornalismo e à literatura. Escreveu no Daily News. Nascido de família anglicana, mais tarde converteu-se ao catolicismo em 1922 por influência do escritor católico Hilaire Belloc, com quem desde 1900 manteve uma amizade muito próxima. Suas obras de ficção ficaram conhecidas pelo humor absurdo. The Napoleon of Notting Hill e The Man who was Thursday são as mais famosas. Em uma de suas principais obras, Ortodoxia, defende os valores cristãos contra os chamados valores modernos, a saber, o cientificismo reducionista e determinista. Dono de uma retórica exemplar, coloca em debate crítico ideias como as de Mark Twain e Nietzsche. Na sua introdução a "São Tomás de Aquino" deixou escrito: "Assim como se pode considerar São Francisco o protótipo dos aspectos romanescos e emotivos da vida, assim Santo Tomás é o protótipo do seu aspecto racional, razão por que, em muitos aspectos, estes dois santos se completam. Um dos paradoxos da história é que cada geração é convertida pelo santo que se encontra mais em contradição com ela. E, assim como São Francisco se dirigia ao século XIX prosaico, assim São Tomás tem mensagem especial que dirigir à nossa geração um tanto inclinada a descrer do valor da razão." Existem diversas sociedades de estudos Chestertonianos no mundo. Nos Estados Unidos existe a American Chesterton Society, na Inglaterra existe The Chesterton Society e no Brasil existe um site criado em homenagem a Chesterton chamado Sociedade Chesterton Brasil. Distributismo[editar | editar código-fonte] Ele, juntamente com seu amigo Hilaire Belloc, criou o Distributismo. Uma teoria econômica baseada nos princípios evangélicos e nos ensinamentos Papais, especialmente na encíclica do Papa Leão XIII, Rerum Novarum. Com este propõe o direito à propriedade privada, estando contra o socialismo mas também contra o materialismo. Sob essa vontade, no dia 17 de setembro de 1926, Chesterton e Belloc criaram a Liga Distributista. Essa liga tinha como objetivo “restaurar a propriedade”, segundo pronunciou Chesterton no discurso inaugural. Chesterton foi eleito o primeiro presidente da Liga. Ele escreveu uma série de artigos no G.K.’s Weekly, os quais foram compilados no livro The Outline of Sanity (1926). Gustavo Corção assim se referiu à teoria distributivista: “A ideia central é a da defesa da pequena propriedade e da pequena empresa contra o gigantismo, que já no seu tempo ameaçava a sociedade, e que no nosso tornou-se uma calamidade declarada. Afirmava o direito à posse, não como uma concessão, mas ousadamente, como outorgado por Deus; admitia o capital enquanto indispensável reserva, mas não admitia, de modo algum, o capitalismo, porque a principal característica desse regime a seu ver está na raridade e não na abundância do capital. O capitalismo é uma situação em que quase ninguém possui”. ****Wikipédia

Gilles Perrault

Jacques Peyroles , mais conhecido como Gilles Perrault (Paris, 9 de março de 1931) é um advogado, escritor, jornalista e historiador francês que geralmente aborda temas políticos da relação do ocidente com outras regiões e culturas.Estudou no Institut d’Etudes politiques em Paris e trabalhou como advogado durante cinco anos. Após o êxito que teve o seu ensaio Les Parachutistes, inspirado pelo serviço militar que prestou em Argélia, torna-se jornalista, com reportagens sobre a Índia de Nehru, os Jogos Olímpicos de Tóquio de 1964 e os problemas dos afro-americanos nos EUA. A seguir realizou investigações sobre aspectos pouco conhecidos da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Com Le Secret du Jour J (1964) ganhou um prémio do Comité d'action de la Résistance e conseguiu um elevado índice internacional de vendas. O seu livro L'Orchestre Rouge (1967) teve ainda mais êxito. Em 1990 publicou Notre ami, le roi (Nosso amigo, o rei), no qual descreve o regime político do rei Hassan II, de Marrocos. O livro foi objeto de uma grande polémica, dado que até à sua publicação, era costume transmitir uma imagem positiva do rei de Marrocos, um dos principais aliados do ocidente no mundo muçulmano. O Reino de Marrocos empreendeu infrutíferas ações judiciais para impedir a publicação e difusão da obra.[3] O seu livro Le Garçon aux yeux gris foi adaptado ao cinema por André Téchiné, no filme Les Égarés.[4] Nos anos noventa foi considerado por alguns setores da opinião pública francesa como traidor número um. Henri Nallet, ministro da Justiça, solicitou o processamento de Perrault por "incitação á rebelião militar"[5] . Em 2008, foi condenado por difamação pelo que escreveu no livro "L'Ombre de Christian Ranucci"[6] , sentença confirmada num recurso de 2009. ***Wikipédia

Guy Newell Boothby

Guy Newell Boothby (13 October 1867 – 26 February 1905) was a prolific Australian novelist and writer, noted for sensational fiction in variety magazines around the end of the nineteenth century. He lived mainly in England. He is best known for such works as the Dr Nikola series, about an occultist criminal mastermind who is a Victorian forerunner to Fu Manchu, and Pharos, the Egyptian, a tale of Gothic Egypt, mummies' curses and supernatural revenge. Rudyard Kipling was his friend and mentor, and his books were remembered with affection by George Orwell.Boothby was born in Adelaide to a prominent family in the recently-established British colony of South Australia.[2] His father was Thomas Wilde Boothby,[3] who for a time was a member of the South Australian Legislative Assembly, three of his uncles were senior colonial administrators, and his grandfather was Benjamin Boothby (1803–1868), controversial judge of the Supreme Court of South Australia from 1853 to 1867.[4] When Boothby was aged approximately seven his English-born mother, whom he held in great regard, separated from his father and returned with her children to England. There he received a traditional English grammar school education at Salisbury, Lord Weymouth's Grammar (now Warminster School) and Christ's Hospital, London.[5] Following this, Boothby returned alone to South Australia at sixteen, where, in his turn, he entered the colonial administration as private secretary to the mayor of Adelaide, Lewis Cohen,[6] but was "not contented" with the work.[7] Despite Boothby’s family tradition of colonial service, his natural inclinations ran more to the creative than to the administrative and he was not satisfied with his limited role as a provincial colonial servant. In 1890, aged 23, Boothby wrote the libretto for a comic opera, Sylvia, which was published and produced at Adelaide in December 1890, and in 1891 appeared The Jonquil: an Opera. The music in each case was written by Cecil James Sharp. His first literary ventures were directed at the theatre, but his ambition was not appeased by the lukewarm response his melodramas received in Adelaide. Hence when severe economic collapse hit most of the Australian colonies in the early 1890s, he followed the well-beaten path to London in December 1891.[8] Boothby, however, was thwarted in his first bid for recognition as lack of funds forced him to disembark en route in Colombo, Sri Lanka and begin making his way homewards through South East Asia. According to family legend, the dire poverty he faced on this journey led him to accept any kind of work he could get: ‘This meant working before the mast, stoking in ocean tramps, attending in a Chinese opium den in Singapore, digging in the Burmah Ruby fields, acting, prize fighting, cow punching…’[9] This was followed by a brief sojourn on Thursday Island, a Melanesian island in the Torres Strait group recently annexed by the Queensland colony, where he worked as a diver in the lucrative pearl trade; and finally by an arduous journey overland across the Australian continent home to Adelaide. While Paul Depasquale, author of the only Boothby biography, warns that this account of his travels may be somewhat glamorous,[10] Boothby certainly travelled extensively in South East Asia, Melanesia and Australia at this period, collecting a stock of colonial anecdotes and experiences that were to inform much of his later writing. Approximately two years later Boothby finally reached London and succeeded in having an account of his peregrinations, On the Wallaby, or Through the East and Across Australia, published in 1894. The travelogue met with reasonable success, which was matched later that year by Boothby’s first novel, In Strange Company. A novel of adventure set variously in England, Australia, the South Seas and South America, In Strange Company established a pattern that was to characterise the succeeding Boothby oeuvre – the use of exotic, international and particularly Australasian locales that frequently function as an end in themselves superfluous to the requirements of plot.[11] By October 1895, Boothby had completed three further novels, including A Bid for Fortune, the first Dr Nikola novel which catapulted Boothby to wide acclaim. Of the two other novels Boothby wrote in 1895 A Lost Endeavour was set on Thursday Island and The Marriage of Esther ranged across several Torres Strait Islands. Boothby continued to produce fiction at a ferocious rate, producing up to six novels a year across the range of genres prevalent at the fin de siècle, and is credited with producing over 53 novels in total, not to mention dozens of short stories and plays.[12] Death[edit] Boothby died at his home, aged but 38 years, in Boscombe, near Bournemouth, from complications arising from influenza, on 26 February 1905. His grave is in the town's Wimborne Road Cemetery.[13] Writing[edit] Some of Boothby's earlier works relate to stories of Australian life, but later he turned to genre fiction including crime fiction, imperial romance, science fiction and Gothic horror. Boothby’s oeuvre is pervaded by an array of intriguing and subversive villains whose larger than life characters eclipse the unremarkable English protagonists. They range from the classic supernatural fiends of fin-de-siècle gothic, to deformed freaks (a particular penchant of Boothby’s), to sophisticated international master criminals that anticipate the adversaries of Ian Fleming’s Bond character. In their depiction of the international master criminal and the revenge of the undead ancient Egyptian Boothby’s novels were influential in establishing two key tropes of the cinematic age, which persist long after the novels themselves have faded into obscurity.[14] The Dr Nikola Series[edit] Frontispiece for A Bid for Fortune showing Doctor Nikola and cat, illustrated by Stanley L. Wood Boothby was once well known for his series of novels about Doctor Nikola, an occultist anti-hero seeking immortality and world domination. The adventures of Nikola were launched with the first episode of A Bid for Fortune which was serialised in The Windsor Magazine (a rival to The Strand Magazine). Nikola is described as dressing in "faultless evening dress, slender, having dark peculiar eyes and dark hair, and white toad-coloured skin."[15] He lives in a bungalow on the Rue de Lafayette in Shanghai. Stanley L. Wood often illustrated the Nikola stories and his portraits depict Dr Nikola in white cravat and fur coat, with his perennial companion, the black cat Apollyon (named after a dark angel) – huge, baleful, gleaming-eyed – perched on Nikola's shoulder. Nikola – cosmopolitan, cultivated, universally feared – is highly intelligent but unscrupulous. John Clute writes that "The heart of the series is devoted to the Doctor's convoluted search for a Tibetan process that will resuscitate the dead and ensure immortality in the living, and there are some hints that – unhampered by compunctions, armed with psi powers and blessed with a powerful experimental intellect – he may have reached his goal." [16] Other novels[edit] In A Prince of Swindlers he created the character of Simon Carne, a gentleman thief in the Raffles mould, with an alter ago as the eccentric detective Klimo: Carne first appeared in Pearson's Magazine in 1897, predating Raffles by two years. Pharos the Egyptian (1899) is a thriller with romance and some supernaturalism in which a very sinister old man, Pharos, proves to be Ptahmes, a mummy who has survived through the centuries with full magical powers. The Curse of the Snake (1902) is referred to by Brian Stableford as the most interesting of Boothby's novels. However, Stableford states that Boothby "very obviously made up his novel plots as he went along and that therefore this novel "concludes with a woefully inadequate explanation of its marvelously creepy opening sequence."[17] Ghost Stories[edit] Boothby wrote a number of ghost stories, mainly from his collections Uncle Joe's Legacy and Other Stories (1902) and The Lady on the Island (1904). Amongst the best-known of these are "The Black Lady of Brin Tor", "A Strange Goldfield" and "The Lady on the Island" and "Remorseless Vengeance." These have been reprinted in horror anthologies edited variously by Richard Dalby, Hugh Lamb, Leigh Blackmore and James Doig. ****Wikipédia

Hank Searls

Henry Hunt "Hank" Searls (born August 10, 1922) is an American author and screenwriter. His novels included The Crowded Sky (1960), which was adapted as a film with Dana Andrews and Rhonda Fleming, The Penetrators (1965, writing as Anthony Gray), and The Pilgrim Project (1964), which was adapted as the 1968 film Countdown. Searls also wrote the novelizations for the films Jaws 2 (1978) starring Roy Scheider and Murray Hamilton and Jaws: The Revenge (1987) starring Michael Caine and Lorraine Gary. Career[edit] Hank Searls' novel The Crowded Sky was made into a motion picture in 1960 by Warner Brothers starring Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, Anne Francis, and Troy Donahue. Set in the corridors of power of the USAF's Strategic Air Command, the 1965 novel The Penetrators is the story of a maverick Royal Air Force exchange officer who leads a mock Avro Vulcan bomber attack on the USA. Replete with quotes from Curtis LeMay, Robert S McNamara and other key figures of the Cold War era, The Penetrators foreshadowed the kind of richly detailed, political-military thriller which later became the trademark of Tom Clancy. The book also strongly argued the case for the US's manned long-range bomber force, which was then in danger of being phased out in favour of ICBMs. Searls' novel The Pilgrim Project was adapted for the screen as the 1968 Robert Altman film Countdown, which starred Robert Duvall and James Caan. Based on his own novel of the same title, Searls wrote the screenplay for the 1978 Angie Dickinson television film Overboard. He wrote a biography of Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. The Lost Prince: Young Joe, The Forgotten Kennedy. This became the basis of the 1977 television film Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy, with Peter Strauss in the title role. Searls' other military and aviation-themed novels included: The Astronaut (1962), Pentagon (1971), Hero Ship (1969), The Big X (1959), and Altitude Zero (1991). His other writings were Firewind (1981), Sounding (1982), Blood Song (1984), Kataki (1987), and The Adventures of Mike Blair (1988). He also wrote the novelisations of the films Jaws 2 in 1978 and Jaws: The Revenge in 1987. In the book "Console Wars" (2014) by Blake Harris, the popular Sega Genesis game Ecco the Dolphin (1992) is said to be inspired by Searls' novel "Sounding", though the reference is anonymized. Ed Annunziata, designer of Ecco and its sequel, allegedly came up with the concept for the game while reading the novel. ****Wikipédia

Henry Reymond Fitzwalter (H.R.F.Keating)

Henry Reymond Fitzwalter "Harry" Keating (31 October 1926 – 27 March 2011) was an English crime fiction writer most notable for his series of novels featuring Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID.Keating, known as "Harry" to friends and family, was born in St. Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex and typed out his first story at the age of eight. He was educated at Merchant Taylor's School in London and later Trinity College, Dublin.[2] In 1956 he moved to London to work as a journalist on The Daily Telegraph. He was the crime books reviewer for The Times for fifteen years. He was chairman of the Crime Writers' Association (CWA) (1970–71), chairman of the Society of Authors (1983–84) and president of the Detection Club (1985–2000). He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received the George N. Dove Award in 1995. In 1996 the CWA awarded him the Cartier Diamond Dagger for outstanding services to crime literature. He also wrote screenplays, was a reviewer and wrote a biography of Dame Agatha Christie entitled Agatha Christie: First Lady of Crime. He died on 27 March 2011, aged 84. Last years On his 80th birthday in 2006, members of the Detection Club honoured him with an anthology, Verdict of Us All. He lived in London with his wife, the actress Sheila Mitchell until his death in 2011, aged 84. ****Wikipédia

Howard Phillips Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (Providence, Rhode Island, 20 de agosto de 1890 — Providence, Rhode Island, 15 de março de 1937) foi um escritor estadunidense que revolucionou o gênero de terror, atribuindo-lhe elementos fantásticos que são típicos dos gêneros de fantasia e ficção científica. O princípio literário de Lovecraft era o que ele chamava de "Cosmicismo" ou "Terror Cósmico", que se resume à ideia de que a vida é incompreensível ao ser humano, e de que o universo é infinitamente hostil aos interesses do homem. Isto posto, as suas obras expressam uma profunda indiferença às crenças e atividades humanas. H.P Lovecraft originou o ciclo de histórias que posteriormente passaram a ser categorizadas no denominado Cthulhu Mythos e também desenvolveu o fictício grimório Necronomicon, supostamente vinculado ao astrônomo e ocultista britânico do século XVI, John Dee. Ao decorrer de suas criações, Lovecraft produziu um panteão de entidades extremamente anti-humanas com as quais, nas suas histórias, geralmente os seres humanos se podem comunicar através do Necronomicon. Os seus trabalhos expressam uma atitude profundamente pessimista e cínica, muitas vezes desafiando os valores do Iluminismo, do Romantismo, do Cristianismo e do Humanismo . Os protagonistas de Lovecraft eram o oposto dos tradicionais gnose e misticismo por momentaneamente anteverem o horror da última realidade e do abismo. Era assumidamente conservador e anglófilo (o que pode ser observado em seu poema An American To Mother England , publicado em janeiro de 1916 ), o que explica o porquê de ter sido habitual no seu estilo o emprego de arcaísmos e a utilização de vocabulário e ortografia marcadamente britânicos - fato que contribui para aumentar a atmosfera dos seus contos, pois muitos deles (por exemplo, O caso de Charles Dexter Ward) contêm referências a personagens que viveram antes da independência das Treze Colónias, bem como a estabelecimentos comerciais existentes entre os séculos XVII e XVIII. Durante a sua vida, dispôs de um número relativamente pequeno de leitores, no entanto sua reputação verificou uma elevada gratificação com o passar das décadas, e ele, agora, é considerado um dos escritores de terror mais influentes do século XX. De acordo com Joyce Carol Oates, Lovecraft, como aconteceu com Edgar Allan Poe no século XIX, tem exercido "uma influência incalculável sobre sucessivas gerações de escritores de ficção de horror" , Stephen King chamou Lovecraft de "o maior praticante do século XX do conto de horror clássico." Lovecraft era o único filho de Winfield Scott Lovecraft, negociante de jóias e metais preciosos, e Sarah Susan Phillips, vinda de uma família notória que podia traçar suas origens directamente aos primeiros colonizadores americanos, casados numa idade relativamente avançada para a época. Quando contava três anos, seu pai sofreu uma aguda crise nervosa que deixou sequelas profundas, obrigando-o a passar o resto de sua vida em clínicas de repouso.[7] Lovecraft com aproximadamente 9 anos de idade. Assim, ele foi criado pela mãe, Sarah, por duas tias, e por seu avô, Whipple van Buren Phillips. Lovecraft era um jovem prodígio que recitava poesia aos dois anos e já escrevia seus próprios poemas aos seis. Seu avô encorajou os hábitos de leitura, tendo arranjado para ele versões infantis da Ilíada e da Odisseia, de Homero, e introduzindo-o à literatura de terror, ao apresentar-lhe clássicas histórias de terror gótico. Lovecraft era uma criança constantemente doente. Seu biógrafo, L. Sprague de Camp, afirmou que o jovem Howard sofria de poiquilotermia, uma raríssima doença que fazia com que sua pele fosse sempre gelada ao toque. Devido aos seus problemas de saúde, ele frequentou a escola apenas esporadicamente mas lia bastante. O seu avô morreu em 1904, o que levou a família a um estado de pobreza, devido à incapacidade das filhas de gerirem os seus bens. Foram obrigados a mudar-se para acomodações muito menores e insalubres, o que prejudicou ainda mais a já débil saúde de Lovecraft. Em 1908, ele sofreu um colapso nervoso, acontecimento que o impediu de receber seu diploma de graduação no ensino médio e, consequentemente, complicou sua entrada numa universidade. Esse fracasso pessoal marcaria Lovecraft pelo resto dos seus dias. Nos seus dias de juventude, Lovecraft dedicou-se a escrever poesia, mergulhando na ficção de terror apenas a partir de 1917. Em 1923, ele publicou seu primeiro trabalho profissional, Dagon, na revista Weird Tales. Lovecraft junto de Clifford Martin Eddy, Jr., foi um ghostwriter do magazine Weird Tales, inclusive escrevendo uma história, "Sob as Pirâmides" (Under the Pyramids, também conhecida como Imprisoned with the Pharaohs), para o famoso mágico Harry Houdini. A sua mãe nunca chegou a ver nenhum trabalho do filho publicado, tendo morrido em 1921, após complicações numa cirurgia. Lovecraft trabalhou como jornalista por um curto período, durante o qual conheceu Sonia Greene, com quem viria a casar. Ela era judia natural da Ucrânia, oito anos mais velha que ele, o que fez com que sua tias protestassem contra o casamento. O casal mudou-se para o Brooklyn, na cidade de Nova Iorque, cidade de que Lovecraft nunca gostou[8] . O casamento durou poucos anos e, após o divórcio amigável, Lovecraft regressou a Providence, onde moraria até morrer. O período imediatamente após seu divórcio foi o mais prolífico de Lovecraft, no qual ele se correspondia com vários escritores estreantes de horror, ficção e aventura. Entre eles, seu mais ávido correspondente era Robert E. Howard, criador de Conan o Bárbaro. Algumas das suas mais extensas obras, Nas Montanhas da Loucura e O Caso de Charles Dexter Ward - seu único romance -, foram escritas nessa época. Os seus últimos anos de vida foram bastante difíceis. Em 1932, a sua amada tia Lillian Clark, com quem ele vivia, faleceu. Lovecraft mudou-se para uma pequena casa alugada com sua tia e companhia remanescente, Annie Gamwell, situada bem atrás da biblioteca John Hay. Para sobreviver, considerando-se que seus próprios textos aumentavam em complexidade e número de palavras (dificultando as vendas), Lovecraft apoiava-se como podia em revisões e "ghost-writing" de textos assinados por outros, inclusive poemas e não-ficção. Em 1936, a notícia do suicídio do seu amigo Robert E. Howard deixou-o profundamente entristecido e abalado. Nesse ano, a doença que o mataria (cancro no intestino) já avançara o bastante para que pouco se pudesse fazer contra ela. Lovecraft suportou dores sempre crescentes pelos meses seguintes, até que a 10 de março de 1937 se viu obrigado a internar-se no Hospital Memorial Jane Brown. Ali morreria cinco dias depois. Contava então 46 anos de idade. Howard Phillips Lovecraft foi enterrado no dia 18 de março de 1937, no cemitério Swan Point, em Providence, no jazigo da família Phillips.[9] O seu túmulo é o mais visitado do local, mas passaram-se décadas sem que o seu túmulo fosse demarcado de forma exclusiva. No centenário do seu nascimento, fãs norte-americanos cotizaram-se para inaugurar uma lápide definitiva, que exibe a frase "Eu sou Providence", extraída de uma das suas cartas. Obra[editar | editar código-fonte] Ver artigo principal: Lista de obras de H. P. Lovecraft H. P. Lovecraft e as criaturas de Cthulhu,criadas por ele. Muitos dos trabalhos de Lovecraft foram directamente inspirados por seus constantes pesadelos, o que contribuiu para a criação de uma obra marcada pelo subconsciente e pelo simbolismo. As suas maiores influências foram Edgar Allan Poe, por quem Lovecraft nutria profunda afeição, e Lord Dunsany, cujas narrativas de fantasia inspiraram as suas histórias em terras de sonho. Suas constantes referências, em seus textos, a horrores antigos e a monstros e divindades ancestrais acabaram por gerar algo análogo a uma mitologia, hoje vulgarmente chamada Cthulhu Mythos, contendo vários panteões de seres extra-dimensionais tão poderosos que eram ou podiam ser considerados deuses, e que reinaram sobre a Terra milhões de anos atrás. Entre outras coisas, alguns dos seres teriam sido os responsáveis pela criação da raça humana e teriam uma intervenção directa em toda a história do universo. Lovecraft é talvez um dos poucos autores cuja obra literária não tem meio-termo: volta-se única e exclusivamente para o horror, tendo como finalidade perturbar o leitor, depois de atraí-lo para a atmosfera, o ambiente, o clima daquilo que lê. Ele parte de uma situação muitas vezes aparentemente banal: De um asilo particular situado em Providence desapareceu um jovem pesquisador… É assim que começa o seu único romance, O caso de Charles Dexter Ward - para ir mostrando, aos poucos, o resultado da pesquisa que o citado Charles fizera tentando encontrar um seu antepassado que havia sido obscurecido propositadamente… Quando o livro termina, ficamos sabendo o porquê do desaparecimento do pesquisador, além de descobrir que este seu antepassado, Joseph Curven, também se dedicava a pesquisas, estas de magia negra, necromancia e ressurreição de seres inomináveis, entre os quais ele próprio. Um dos ingredientes da fórmula lovecraftniana para seduzir o leitor é o uso da primeira pessoa: a maior parte de seus contos, entre eles as obras-primas primordiais O chamado de Cthulhu, Um sussurro nas trevas, A cor que caiu do céu, Sombras perdidas no tempo e Nas montanhas da loucura. Algumas vezes, todos os acontecimentos são vividos pelo narrador, como em Sombras perdidas no tempo; outras vezes, o narrador convive com algumas personagens e toma parte dos fatos (em geral, a pior delas). A expressão Cthulhu Mythos foi criada, após a morte de Lovecraft, pelo escritor August Derleth, um dos muitos escritores a basearem suas histórias nos mitos deste. Lovecraft criou também um dos mais famosos e explorados artefactos das histórias de terror, o Necronomicon, um fictício livro de invocação de demónios escrito pelo, também fictício, Abdul Alhazred, sendo até hoje popular o mito da existência real deste livro, fomentado especialmente pela publicação de vários falsos Necronomicons e por um texto, da autoria do próprio Lovecraft, explicando a sua origem e percurso histórico. É importante salientar que Lovecraft foi o autor de "O horror sobrenatural na literatura", que ainda é o mais importante ensaio sobre o género, mesmo tendo se passado mais de setenta anos da sua publicação; o surgimento, posteriormente, de autores como Robert Bloch e Stephen King não alteram este fato. Influencia nos dias de hoje[editar | editar código-fonte] História em Quadrinho | banda desenhada | seriados de TV[editar | editar código-fonte] Conan Lovecraft foi amigo de Robert Howard. criador de Conan e Kull. Quando foram lançados, essas personagens eram publicadas apenas em forma de contos nas pulp magazines. A popularização de Conan a partir do lançamento do filme Conan, o bárbaro, impulsionou as suas publicações em banda desenhada (história em quadrinho no Brasil). Muitas das melhores histórias de Conan contêm inúmeras referências a personagens criados por Lovecraft, em algumas, chega mesmo a aparece uma personagem, meio Deus meio Demónio, referência à série Cthulhu Mythos. Martin Mystère Ver artigo principal: Martin Mystère Criado por Sergio Bonelli, esta personagem é denominada "O Detective do impossível". Arqueólogo nada convencional, tem um assistente de nome Java, membro de uma tribo de homens de Neanderthal que sobreviveu na Mongólia e usa uma "arma de raios" que teria sido forjada na Atlântida. No Brasil, a editora globo publicou 13 edições com Martin Mystère. Nas edições 4 - A Estirpe Maldita; 5 - A Casa nos Confins do Mundo e 6 - Crime na Pré-história, as personagens de Bonelli enfrentam situações descritas em dois contos lovecraftnianos (Os sonhos da casa das bruxas e Nas montanhas da loucura), a tal casa no fim do mundo teria sido habitada pelo próprio Lovecraft, e Martin Mystère e seus amigos conhecem um pintor de nome Pickmann (protagonista de "O modelo de Pickman"). Kishin Houkou Demonbane O anime desenvolvido pela Nitroplus e exibido no Japão em 2006 utiliza elementos das histórias lovecraftianas em seu enredo como o necronomicon que é interpretado pela personagem Al Azif além de vários mecha(robôs gigantes onde é preciso que pessoas o pilotem dentro dele) baseados nos monstros de cthulhu.Na verdade esse anime tem grandes influências das obras de H.P Lovecraft. Neonomicon Por muito tempo sussurrou-se sobre a nova história de terror que Alan Moore estaria escrevendo. A história é uma obra-tributo à H.P. Lovecraft. No encadernado, misteriosos assassinatos atraem a atenção do FBI e, durante a investigação, revelações indicam coincidências muito estranhas. Para chegar à verdade, um expert na revolucionária Teoria da Anomalia envolve-se em uma missão sob disfarce que o leva a um clube que abriga uma seita suspeita possivelmente envolvida com os crimes. Mas o rumo sobrenatural dos acontecimentos exige a presença de dois outros investigadores que serão levados ao extremo do horror e aos limites da realidade como a conhecemos. Com roteiro do mestre Alan Moore e arte do artista favorito do inglês, Jacen Burrow, Neonomicon é um pesadelo lovecraftiano que o deixará com medo de fechar os olhos, mas com mais medo ainda de abri-los. Lançado no Brasil pela Editora Panini em agosto/2012 Soul Eater[editar | editar código-fonte] No mangá de Atsushi Ohkubo há uma série de personagens que fazem referência a obra de H.P. Lovecaft. No mangá os Braços Armados do Morte são conhecidos como os "Grandes Antigos" e representam a Ordem, Sabedoria, Ira, Força e o Medo, responsáveis por levar os humanos a insanidade. Um dos fragmentos dos "Grandes Antigos" faz uma clara referência ao mais famoso dos Gr andes Antigos ao falar "óbvio polvolante" "óbvio lulante". Supernatural[editar | editar código-fonte] No episódio 21 (Deixa Sangrara) da sexta temporada da série Supernatural o autor é mencionado como um dos responsáveis por abrir as portas do purgatório. O episódio reúne personagens reais ao enredo fictício. O caçador de monstros Bobby revela que havia uma outra pessoa que tentou abrir a porta para o Purgatório: um escritor de horror chamado HP Lovecraft . Em 1937, em Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft realizado um jantar com outras cinco pessoas, e fizeram um ritual para abrir um portal que levou para o purgatório. Eleanor Visyak surgiu através da porta como uma força invisível que possuiu a empregada doméstica de Lovecraft. Ela, então, pode ter procedeu para matar todos os participantes do ritual durante o próximo ano, embora ela nega e da pessoa que aparece na cena do assassinato de HP Lovecraft não se encaixa em sua descrição (apesar de ter sido sombreada). Outra referência ao escritor, no mesmo episódio, o garoto Ben Braeden aparece lendo Cthulhu Tales, uma série de quadrinhos com histórias baseadas nos Mitos de Cthulhu. Música[editar | editar código-fonte] Muitas bandas de rock e metal fazem homenagens a Lovecraft nas suas músicas, como por exemplo: Dylath-Leen - Toda a discografia. O próprio nome desta banda de death metal da França foi inspirada em um cidade fictícia citada na obra de Lovecraft[10] . A banda ucraniana Ossadogva comumente aborda como tema de suas músicas o trabalho de Lovecraft, particularmente os mitos de Chtulu[11] . A banda Spawn of Matriarch, (formada no Tadjiquistão, mas actualmente a residir nos Estados Unidos) normalmente tem como tema das suas músicas o trabalho de Lovecraft [12] . A banda de black metal italiana Abgott tem como tema de suas músicas exclusivamente a obra de Lovecraft [13] . Outra banda de black metal da Itália a abordar como tema de suas composições o trabalho de Lovecraft é o grupo Advent [14] . A banda de doom metal Innzmouth, da Síria, tem como tema de suas composições exclusivamente as obras de Lovecraft [15] . Em 2010 a gravadora Voidhanger Records lançou uma coletânea chamada Tribute to H.P. Lovecraft - Gate 1: Yogsothery - Chaosmogonic Rituals of Fear, contendo músicas executadas pelas bandas Jääportit, Umbra Nihil, Aarni e Caput LVIIIm. As letras de todas as composições abordam como temática os mitos de Chtulu, o ocultismo, a literatura e o horror [16] [17] . A banda britânica Arctic Monkeys cita Lovecraft na musica "You're So Dark". A banda americana Metallica baseou-se nas obras de Lovecraft para compor as letras de ''The Thing That Should Not To Be'', ''All Nightmare Long'' e o título de seu renomado instrumental ''The Call of Ktulu''. A banda Rudimentary Peni de anarcopunk/deathrock do Reino Unido homenageou o autor em seu álbum Cacophony, onde além de possuir uma ilustração de capa claramente baseado no conto "A musica de Erich Zann" faz referencia a diversos contos do autor, incluindo uma musica com o titulo "Lovecraft Baby". A banda britânica de Symphonic Black Metal Cradle of Filth em seu álbum Midiam conta com a segunda faixa de nome "Cthulhu Dawn", fazendo referencia a criatura criada por Lovecraft. O vocalista da banda Dani Filth é um fã devoto das obras de Lovecraft. A band de heavy metal dinamarquesa Mercyful Fate, lançou em 1994 a música The Mad Arab (part 1), e mais tarde em 1996 a musica kutuku (the mad arab part 2), ambas inspiradas nos texto de Lovecraft. Videogame | jogos de vídeo[editar | editar código-fonte] Doom - Sandy Petersen, o designer responsável pelo segundo e terceiro episódio do game de primeira pessoa, era um leitor ávido de Lovecraft e incorporou técnicas de desconforto e surrealismo em seus mapas. Também adicionou referências do gênero em Quake, o sucessor da Id Software. Fallout 3 - A localidade Dunwich Building é uma referência a obra de Lovecraft Terror em Dunwich e a criatura mencionada nos Holodisks do local, Alhazred, é uma referência ao último nome do autor do livro Necronomicon, Abduhl Alhazred. Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth - Jogo multiplataforma (PC/XBox) lançado em 2005, conta com elementos de Aventura e Tiro em Primeira Pessoa, é um Terror Psicológico baseado na mitologia lovecraftiana. Embora o jogo tenha recebido boas críticas e seja considerado um marco em seu gênero, suas duas continuações foram canceladas. Prisoner of Ice - jogo de computador criado em 1995 da Chaosium, é um adventure game baseado no Cthulhu Mythos. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - Cthulhu é um dos monstros a ser derrotado por Alucard. Terraria - Cthulhu é referenciado em chefes no jogo como Eye of Cthulhu e Brain of Cthulhu,também na habilidade Cthulhunado do boss Duke Fishron. Pode ser encontrado também itens referências e em frases que aparecem em cima do jogo ao iniciar. Na arte conceitual Cthulhu perdeu seu olho, tal motivo para criação do boss Eye of Cthulhu (principal referência do jogo ao Cthulhu e provavelmente a primeira encontrada pelos jogadores). Também há uma ligação direta com o modo "Zombies" da serie Call of Duty™, apesar de poucos saberem mas a entidade cósmica fictícia dos livros de Lovecraft conhecida como Cthulhu é o culpado de todo o caos no modo de jogo ***Wikipédia

Iain Pears

Iain Pears (born in 1955) is an English art historian, novelist[1][2] and journalist. He was educated at Warwick School, Warwick, Wadham College and Wolfson College, Oxford. Before writing, he worked as a reporter for the BBC, Channel 4 (UK) and ZDF (Germany) and correspondent for Reuters from 1982 to 1990 in Italy, France, UK and US. In 1987 he became a Getty Fellow in the Arts and Humanities at Yale University. Pears first came to international prominence with his best selling book An Instance of the Fingerpost (1997), which was translated into several languages. He is known for experimenting with different narrative structures, presenting four consecutive versions of the same events in An Instance of the Fingerpost, three stories interleaved in The Dream of Scipio (2002), three stories told in reverse chronological order in Stone's Fall (2009), and allowing the reader to switch between multiple narratives in the electronic book version of Arcadia (2015).[3] He has also written a novel series featuring Jonathan Argyll, art historian. Pears currently lives with his wife and children in Oxford. ****Wikipédia

Israel Zangwill

Israel Zangwill (21 January 1864 – 1 August 1926) was a British author at the forefront of cultural Zionism during the 19th century, he was a close associate of Theodor Herzl. He later rejected the search for a Jewish homeland and became the prime thinker behind the territorial movement.Early life and education[edit] Zangwill was born in London on 21 January 1864, in a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. His father, Moses Zangwill, was from what is now Latvia, and his mother, Ellen Hannah Marks Zangwill, was from what is now Poland. He dedicated his life to championing the cause of people he considered oppressed, becoming involved with topics such as Jewish emancipation, Jewish assimilation, territorialism, Zionism, and women's suffrage. His brother was novelist Louis Zangwill,[1] and his son was the prominent British psychologist, Oliver Zangwill. Zangwill received his early schooling in Plymouth and Bristol. When he was nine years old Zangwill was enrolled in the Jews' Free School in Spitalfields in east London, a school for Jewish immigrant children. The school offered a strict course of both secular and religious studies while supplying clothing, food, and health care for the scholars; presently one of its four houses is named Zangwill in his honour. At this school he excelled and even taught part-time, eventually becoming a full-fledged teacher. While teaching, he studied for his degree from the University of London, earning a BA with triple honours in 1884. Career[edit] Writings[edit] He had already written a tale entitled The Premier and the Painter in collaboration with Louis Cowen, when he resigned his position as a teacher owing to differences with the school managers and ventured into journalism. He initiated and edited Ariel, The London Puck, and did miscellaneous work for the London press.[2] Theatre Programme for the play The Melting Pot (1916). Zangwill's work earned him the nickname "the Dickens of the Ghetto".[3] He wrote a very influential novel Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People (1892). The use of the metaphorical phrase "melting pot" to describe American absorption of immigrants was popularised by Zangwill's play The Melting Pot,[4] a success in the United States in 1909–10. When The Melting Pot opened in Washington D.C. on 5 October 1909, former President Theodore Roosevelt leaned over the edge of his box and shouted, "That's a great play, Mr. Zangwill, that's a great play."[5] In 1912 Zangwill received a letter from Roosevelt in which Roosevelt wrote of the Melting Pot "That particular play I shall always count among the very strong and real influences upon my thought and my life."[6] The protagonist of the play, David, emigrates to America after the Kishinev pogrom in which his entire family is killed. He writes a great symphony named "The Crucible" expressing his hope for a world in which all ethnicity has melted away, and becomes enamored of a beautiful Russian Christian immigrant named Vera. The dramatic climax of the play is the moment when David meets Vera's father, who turns out to be the Russian officer responsible for the annihilation of David's family. Vera's father admits guilt, the symphony is performed to accolades, David and Vera live happily ever after, or, at least, agree to wed and kiss as the curtain falls. "Melting Pot celebrated America's capacity to absorb and grow from the contributions of its immigrants."[7] Zangwill was writing as "a Jew who no longer wanted to be a Jew. His real hope was for a world in which the entire lexicon of racial and religious difference is thrown away."[8] Zangwill wrote many other plays, including, on Broadway, Children of the Ghetto (1899), a dramatisation of his own novel, directed by James A. Herne and starring Blanche Bates, Ada Dwyer, and Wilton Lackaye; Merely Mary Ann (1903) and Nurse Marjorie (1906), both of which were directed by Charles Cartwright and starred Eleanor Robson. Liebler & Co. produced all three plays as well as The Melting Pot. Daniel Frohman produced Zangwill's 1904 play, The Serio-Comic Governess, featuring Cecilia Loftus, Kate Pattison-Selten, and Julia Dean.[9] In 1931 Jules Furthman adapted Merely Mary Ann for a Janet Gaynor film. Zangwill's simulation of Yiddish sentence structure in English aroused great interest. He also wrote mystery works, such as The Big Bow Mystery (1892), and social satire such as The King of Schnorrers (1894), a picaresque novel (which became a short-lived musical comedy in 1979). His Dreamers of the Ghetto (1898) includes essays on famous Jews such as Baruch Spinoza, Heinrich Heine and Ferdinand Lassalle. The Big Bow Mystery was the first locked room mystery novel. It has been almost continuously in print since 1891 and has been used as the basis for three commercial movies.[10] Another widely-produced play was The Lens Grinder, based on the life of Spinoza. Politics[edit] "A Child of the Ghetto" Zangwill as caricatured by Walter Sickert in Vanity Fair, February 1897. Zangwill endorsed feminism and pacifism,[10] but his greatest effect may have been as a writer who popularised the idea of the combination of ethnicities into a single, American nation. The hero of his widely-produced play, The Melting Pot, proclaims: "America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming... Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians – into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American."'[11] Jewish politics[edit] Zangwill was also involved with specifically Jewish issues as an assimilationist, an early Zionist, and a territorialist.[10] Zangwill quit Zionism in 1905 to become a major promoter of Territorialism, advocating a Jewish homeland in whatever land might be available.[12] Zangwill is known incorrectly for inventing the slogan "A land without a people for a people without a land" describing Zionist aspirations in the Biblical land of Israel. He did not invent the phrase; he acknowledged borrowing it from Lord Shaftesbury.[13] In 1853, during the preparation for the Crimean War, Shaftesbury wrote to Foreign Minister Aberdeen that Greater Syria was "a country without a nation" in need of "a nation without a country... Is there such a thing? To be sure there is, the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews!" In his diary that year he wrote "these vast and fertile regions will soon be without a ruler, without a known and acknowledged power to claim dominion. The territory must be assigned to some one or other... There is a country without a nation; and God now in his wisdom and mercy, directs us to a nation without a country."[14] Shaftesbury himself was echoing the sentiments of Alexander Keith, D.D.[15] In 1901 in the periodical New Liberal Review, Zangwill wrote that "Palestine is a country without a people; the Jews are a people without a country".[13][16] Theodor Herzl fared best with Israel Zangwill, and Max Nordau. They were both well-known writers or 'men of letters' - imagination that engendered understanding. Baron Albert Rothschild had little to do with the Jews. On Herzl's visits to London, they co-operated closely.[17] In a debate at the Article Club in November 1901 Zangwill was still misreading the situation: "Palestine has but a small population of Arabs and fellahin and wandering, lawless, blackmailing Bedouin tribes."[18] Then, in the dramatic voice of the Wandering Jew, "restore the country without a people to the people without a country. (Hear, hear.) For we have something to give as well as to get. We can sweep away the blackmailer—be he Pasha or Bedouin—we can make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and build up in the heart of the world a civilisation that may be a mediator and interpreter between the East and the West."[18] In 1902, Zangwill wrote that Palestine "remains at this moment an almost uninhabited, forsaken and ruined Turkish territory".[19] However, within a few years, Zangwill had "become fully aware of the Arab peril", telling an audience in New York, "Palestine proper has already its inhabitants. The pashalik of Jerusalem is already twice as thickly populated as the United States" leaving Zionists the choice of driving the Arabs out or dealing with a "large alien population".[20] He moved his support to the Uganda scheme, leading to a break with the mainstream Zionist movement by 1905.[21] In 1908, Zangwill told a London court that he had been naive when he made his 1901 speech and had since "realized what is the density of the Arab population", namely twice that of the United States.[22] In 1913 he criticised those who insisted on repeating that Palestine was "empty and derelict" and who called him a traitor for reporting otherwise.[23] According to Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Zangwill told him in 1916 that, "If you wish to give a country to a people without a country, it is utter foolishness to allow it to be the country of two peoples. This can only cause trouble. The Jews will suffer and so will their neighbours. One of the two: a different place must be found either for the Jews or for their neighbours".[24] In 1917 he wrote "'Give the country without a people,' magnanimously pleaded Lord Shaftesbury, 'to the people without a country.' Alas, it was a misleading mistake. The country holds 600,000 Arabs."[25] In 1921 Zangwill wrote "If Lord Shaftesbury was literally inexact in describing Palestine as a country without a people, he was essentially correct, for there is no Arab people living in intimate fusion with the country, utilizing its resources and stamping it with a characteristic impress: there is at best an Arab encampment, the break-up of which would throw upon the Jews the actual manual labor of regeneration and prevent them from exploiting the fellahin, whose numbers and lower wages are moreover a considerable obstacle to the proposed immigration from Poland and other suffering centers".[26] After having for a time endorsed Theodor Herzl, including presiding over a meeting at the Maccabean Club, London, addressed by Herzl on 24 November 1895, and endorsing the main Palestine-oriented Zionist movement, Zangwill quit the established philosophy and founded his own organisation, named the Jewish Territorialist Organization in 1905. Its goal was to create a Jewish homeland in whatever possible territory in the world could be found for them, with speculations including Canada, Australia, Mesopotamia, Uganda and Cyrenaica. [27] Zangwill died in 1926 in Midhurst, West Sussex. ****Wikipédia

Jacques Decrest

Jacques-Napoléon Faure-Biguet, né le 1er octobre 1893 à Paris 9 e et mort le 18 juillet 1954 au Vésinet1 est un écrivain, journaliste, biographe et auteur de romans policiers sous le pseudonyme de Jacques Decrest. Il est le petit-fils du général Paul-Vincent Faure-Biguet.Déclaré à l'état civil comme Paul-Marie-Charles-Jacques Faure-Biguet, il reçoit à son baptême le prénom de Napoléon avec l'autorisation du prince Victor Napoléon, dont le père de Jacques, Charles Faure-Biguet, est un fidèle partisan. Jacques-Napoléon Faure-Biguet a fait ses études à Paris et fut condisciple de Henry de Montherlant auquel il consacra deux ouvrages. Après la guerre, il dirige la collection de romans policiers Le Labyrinthe. ****Wikipédia

Jacques Heath Futrelle

Jacques Heath Futrelle (April 9, 1875 – April 15, 1912) was an American journalist and mystery writer. He is best known for writing short detective stories featuring Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, also known as "The Thinking Machine" for his application of logic to any and all situations. Futrelle died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.Career[edit] Futrelle was born in Pike County, Georgia. He worked for the Atlanta Journal, where he began their sports section; the New York Herald; the Boston Post; and the Boston American, where, in 1905, his Thinking Machine character first appeared in a serialized version of the short story, "The Problem of Cell 13". Futrelle left the Boston American in 1906 to focus his attention on writing novels. He had a house built in Scituate, Massachusetts, which he called "Stepping Stones", and spent most of his time there until his death in 1912.[citation needed] His last work, My Lady's Garter, was published posthumously in 1912. Futrelle's widow inscribed in the book, "To the heroes of the Titanic, I dedicate this my husband's book", under a photo of her late husband.[citation needed] Personal life[edit] In 1895, he married fellow writer Lily May Peel, with whom he had two children, Virginia and Jacques "John" Jr.[citation needed] Death[edit] Returning from Europe aboard the RMS Titanic, Futrelle, a first-class passenger, refused to board a lifeboat, insisting his wife board instead, to the point of forcing her in. His wife remembered the last she saw of him: he was smoking a cigarette on deck with John Jacob Astor IV. Futrelle perished in the Atlantic, and his body was never found.[1][2] On 29 July 1912, Futrelle's mother, Linnie Futrelle, died in her Georgia home; her death was attributed to grief over her son's death. ****Wikipédia

James Hilton

James Hilton (9 de setembro de 1900 - 20 de dezembro de 1954) foi escritor inglês de romances e roteiros para o cinema. Sua obra de maior destaque é o romance de 1933 Lost Horizon (Horizonte Perdido), em que idealiza o mito de Shangri-La. Nasceu em Leigh, Lancashire, Inglaterra, a 9 de setembro de 1900, e morreu em Long Beach, Califórnia, EUA, a 20 de dezembro de 1954. Realizou os primeiros estudos em Londres, onde seu pai era mestre-escola e, em 1921, formou-se em história pela Universidade de Cambridge. Mas na adolescência já revelava marcante inclinação literária, escrevendo seu primeiro romance, Catherine Herself (1920), com apenas dezessete anos de idade. Escrevia também uma apreciada coluna semanal para o jornal universitário Iris Independent. Saindo da Universidade, passou a colaborar em vários jornais e continuou a escrever romances, pretendendo uma carreira de sucesso no mundo literário. Publicou seu segundo romance, E Agora Adeus (And Now Goodbye), em 1931, conseguindo uma discreta acolhida do público e da crítica. Mas o verdadeiro sucesso veio com Adeus Mr. Chips (Goodbye Mr. Chips), em 1934, romance sobre um velho professor, narrado de maneira singela e despretenciosa. O sucesso trouxe a redescoberta de outros romances escritos anteriormente, principalmente Fúria no Céu (Rage in Heaven, 1932) e Horizonte Perdido (Lost Horizon, 1933). Este último, um verdadeiro best-seller, fala simbolicamente da ambição humana e do ideal de paz e sabedoria, tal como se manifesta no reino de Shangri-La. Combinando habilmente aventura com uma bela mensagem, o romance recebeu o prêmio Hawthorden. Em 1935, Hilton partiu para Hollywood, onde permaneceu até o final de sua vida, escrevendo roteiros originais e adaptações cinematográficas de seus próprios romances. Tornou-se figura extremamente popular nos Estados Unidos, não somente por seus livros e filmes, mas também por artigos em revistas, críticas literárias e aparições no rádio. Excelente narrador, sobre ele disse um crítico do The New York Times: "Poderia contar uma história absorvente e excitante sobre quase nada". Hilton escreveu muitos romances. Além dos já citados, destacam-se ainda: O Amor Nasceu do Ódio (Knight Without Armour, 1933), Não Estamos Sós (We Are Not Alone, 1937), Na Noite do Passado (Random Harvest, 1941), Aquele Dia Inesquecível (So Well Remembered, 1945) e Jornada Matutina (Morning Journey, 1951). Entre seus trabalhos para o cinema destacam-se a narração para Madame Curie (1943) e o roteiro de A Dama das Camélias (1956), além das adaptações que fez para seus próprios romances, a maioria deles levados à tela com grande sucesso. ****Wikipédia

James Tucker (Bill James)

Bill James (born 1929) is a pseudonym of James Tucker, a Welsh novelist. He also writes under his own name and the pseudonyms David Craig and Judith Jones. He was a reporter with the Daily Mirror and various other newspapers after serving with the RAF He is married, with four children, and lives in South Wales. The bulk of his output under the Bill James pseudonym is the Harpur and Iles series. Colin Harpur is a Detective Chief Inspector and Desmond Iles is the Assistant Chief Constable in an unnamed coastal city in southwestern England. Harpur and Iles are complemented by an evolving cast of other recurring characters on both sides of the law. The books are characterized by a grim humour and a bleak view of the relationship between the public, the police force and the criminal element. The first few are designated "A Detective Colin Harpur Novel" but as the series progressed they began to be published with the designation "A Harpur & Iles Mystery". His novel Whose Little Girl are You, written under the "David Craig" pseudonym, was filmed as The Squeeze, starring Stacy Keach, Edward Fox and David Hemmings. The fourth Harpur & Iles novel, Protection, was televised by the BBC in 1996 as Harpur & Iles, starring Aneirin Hughes as Harpur and Hywel Bennett as Iles. ****Wikipédia

Joel Townsley Rogers

Joel Townsley Rogers (1896–1984) was an American writer who wrote science fiction, air-adventure, and mystery stories and a handful of mystery novels. Joel Townsley Rogers was born in 1896 in Sedalia, Missouri. He studied at Harvard University. He joined the navy air corps and became one of its first few hundred flyers. He went through training in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The Great War seemed an adventure to the young men of that generation. Rogers was aching to go overseas, and in fact he managed to get himself in a position to do so, had the armistice not intervened. He was sent to Pensacola as a flight instructor instead. According to one of his letters, the planes he flew and taught others to fly were tiny pontooned biplanes made of spruce and linen. After the war he made use of his experiences and vivid imagination to sell short stories to the many pulp magazines that sold in the 1920s and 1930s for fifteen or twenty cents.[1] His most famous novel is The Red Right Hand which was first published in 1945. The book sold fairly well and was reissued several times in paperback format. Besides that book, Rogers published hundreds of short stories and two or three other full-length novels which were not as successful. Joel Townsley Rogers died in Washington, D.C. in 1984. ****Wikipédia

John Creasey

John Creasey MBE (17 September 1908 – 9 June 1973) was an English crime and science fiction writer who wrote more than six hundred novels using twenty-eight different pseudonyms. He created several characters which are now famous, such as The Toff (The Honourable Richard Rollison), Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard, Inspector Roger West, The Baron (John Mannering), Doctor Emmanuel Cellini and Doctor Stanislaus Alexander Palfrey. The most popular of these was Gideon of Scotland Yard, who was the basis for the television series Gideon's Way and for the John Ford movie Gideon of Scotland Yard (1958), also known by its British title Gideon's Day. The Baron character was also made into a 1960s TV series starring Steve Forrest as The Baron. John Creasey was born in Southfields, Surrey, to a working-class family. He was the seventh of nine children of Ruth and Joseph Creasey, a poor coach maker. Creasey was educated at Fulham Elementary School and Sloane School, both in London. From 1923 to 1935 he worked various clerical, factory, and sales jobs while trying to establish himself as a writer. After a number of rejections, Creasey's first book was published in 1930. His first crime novel, Seven Times Seven, was published in January 1932 by Melrose. It was a story about a gang of criminals. In 1935 he became a full-time writer. In 1937 alone, twenty-nine of his books were published. A phenomenally fast writer, he once suggested that he could be shut up in a glass-box and write there a whole book. In 1938, he created the character The Toff with the first novel Introducing the Toff. The Toff series would continue for 59 novels from 1938 to 1978. The Toff, The Honourable Richard Rollison, is an aristocrat and an amateur sleuth. ("Toff" is a British slang expression for an aristocrat.) During World War II, he created the character of Dr. Stanislaus Alexander Palfrey, a British secret service agent, who forms Z5, a secret underground group that owes its allegiance to the Allies. The first novel of the Dr. Palfrey 34-book series was Traitor's Doom, published in 1942 by John Long Ltd., while the last was The Whirlwind in 1979. Several adaptations were made of Creasey's novels. On film these included: Salute the Toff (1952, also known as Brighthaven Express in the USA), Hammer the Toff (1952), John Ford's Gideon's Day (1958, also known as Gideon of Scotland Yard in the USA), released by Columbia Pictures, and Cat and Mouse (1958, also known as The Desperate Men in the USA), written as Michael Halliday. On television, a series based on the Commander George Gideon character, Gideon's Way, was produced from 1964 to 1965 by ITC Entertainment and starring John Gregson in the title rôle. ITC followed this with a version of Creasey's The Baron character (1965–66), starring Steve Forrest. Between 1967 and 1971 the BBC produced a radio version of Creasey's Roger West stories with actor Patrick Allen in the title role as Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Roger "Handsome" West, with Allen's real-life wife Sarah Lawson playing the role of West's wife Janet. In 1962, Creasey won an Edgar Award for Best Novel, from the Mystery Writers of America (MWA), for Gideon's Fire, written under the pseudonym J. J. Marric. In 1969 he received the MWA's greatest honour, the Grand Master Award. Creasey had as many publishers as he had pseudonyms, but enjoyed enduring relations with John Long and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK. After he finally broke into the American market in the 1950s, many of his books were released by Harper and Scribners; Walker reissued many older titles in the revised editions. He died at Salisbury, Wiltshire in 1973. In 2007, his family transferred all of Creasey's copyrights and other legal rights to Owatonna Media. Owatonna Media on-sold these copyrights to Coolabi Plc in 2009, but retained a master licence in radio and audio rights. These rights are commercially licensed in the UK and abroad. Richard Creasey[edit] John's son Richard Creasey is also an author as well as a distinguished television producer, having served both in the private sector and at the BBC, and as the British producer of Patrick Watson's worldwide Canadian television documentary series The Struggle for Democracy. He has developed his father's "Doctor Palfrey" series by penning a new series of techno-thrillers around the character of Doctor Thomas Palfrey. Crime Writers' Association (CWA)[edit] In 1953, John Creasey founded the Crime Writers' Association (CWA) in the UK. The CWA New Blood Dagger is awarded in his memory, for first books by previously unpublished writers; sponsored by BBC Audiobooks, it includes a prize of £1000. This award was known previously as the John Creasey Memorial Dagger. ****Wikipédia

John D. MacDonald

John Dann Macdonald (Sharon, 24 de julho de 1916 - Milwaukee, 28 de dezembro de 1986) foi um escritor americano. Suas obras mais famosas são do gênero suspense e crime. Uma delas foi o clássico romance aclamado pela crítica Os Carrascos que foi adapatado para um filme intitulado Cabo do Medo, adaptado para o cinema em 1962 com Robert Mitchum e Gregory Peck e posteriormente um remake trazendo no elenco o famoso ator Robert DeNiro. Biografia[editar | editar código-fonte] Ele nasceu em Sharon, Pensilvânia ,onde seu pai trabalhou para Savage Arms. A família mudou-se para Utica, NY em 1926, onde seu pai era agora Tesoureiro do ramo Utica da Corporação de Armas Savage. Em 1934, o jovem John foi enviado à Europa durante várias semanas e isso aguçou o apetite para o curso, e para a fotografia. MacDonald se matriculou na Escola Wharton da Universidade da Pensilvânia, mas desistiu durante seu segundo ano, onde ele não estava indo bem. Trabalhou trabalhos braçais em Nova York por um tempo curto, e depois foi aceito na Universidade de Syracuse. Lá, ele conheceu Dorothy Prentiss. Eles se casaram em 1937. Ele se formou em Siracusa no ano seguinte. Em 1939, ele recebeu um MBA da Harvard University. MacDonald mais tarde foi capaz de fazer bom uso de sua educação em economia e negócios através da incorporação de fraudes empresariais elaborados para as parcelas de um número de seus romances. Em 1940, MacDonald aceitou uma comissão direta como primeiro-tenente do Exército Ordnance Corps. Mais tarde, servido no OSS no Teatro China-Birmânia-Índia de Operaçõesdurante a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Ele recebeu alta em setembro de 1945 como um tenente-coronel. Carreira literária de MacDonald começou acidentalmente, em 1945, enquanto no serviço militar, ele escreveu uma história curta e enviado para a casa de sua esposa. Ele tinha crescido cansado de tentar escrever quando tudo tinha de passar os censores militares. Ela apresentou-o à revista Esquire, onde foi rejeitado, e depois ela submeteu a história da revista. Foi aceite por US$ 25,00. Ele foi informado desta logo após desembarcar do navio casa. Após sua demissão do serviço, ele passou os próximos quatro meses escrevendo histórias curtas, gerando cerca de 800.000 palavras e perder 20 libras (9,1 kg) durante a digitação durante 14 horas de sessões diárias sete dias por semana. Esse esforço lhe rendeu apenas algumas centenas de deslizamentos de rejeição, mas no quinto mês, a venda de US$ 40 para a pasta de revista Detective Dime definir sua carreira em movimento, e ele continuou a vender cerca de 500 histórias para o detetive, aventura, mistério, esportes, ocidental e de ficção científica polpas. Em alguns casos, histórias MacDonald foram os únicos na revista, mas escondido através de pseudônimos. À medida que o estouro na brochura de romances expandiu, MacDonald fez com sucesso o salto para mais ficção com o seu primeiro romance, The Cupcake Brass, publicado em 1950 por Fawcett Publicações 'Livros da medalha de ouro. Sua ficção científica incluiu a história "Cosméticos" em Astounding (1948) e os três romances Vinho dos Sonhadores (1951), Salão dos Céus (1952), e The Girl, o relógio de ouro, e Tudo (1962), que foram coletadas como um ônibus no Tempo e Amanhã (1980). Entre 1953 e 1964, MacDonald especializada em filmes policiais, muitos dos quais agora são considerados obras-primas do hardboiled gênero. A maioria desses romances foram publicados como brochuras originais, embora alguns foram mais tarde republicadas em edições de capa dura. Muitos, como a maré baixa Mortos (1953), foram fixados em seu lar adotivo da Flórida, e foram eficazes na sugerindo uma aura sinistra que espreita abaixo da superfície brilhante do que o estado. Romances como O Executioners (1957) (que foi duas vezes filmado como Cape Fear, primeiro em 1962 e novamente em 1991) e Uma segunda-feira Nós matou todos eles (1962) penetrou nas mentes de assassinos psicopatas.Como MacDonald aperfeiçoou sua arte, ele desenvolveu sua narrativa "voz", um dos mais distintivo no campo ficção suspense. Ele é creditado com a escrita sobre o efeito do boom de construção sobre o meio ambiente, e seu romance, A Flash of Green (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962), é um bom exemplo deste esforço. Muitos escritores posteriores da Florida crime, detetive e mistério, como Randy Wayne White, James Hall, eo rei Jonathon, seguiram o exemplo. Morte[editar | editar código-fonte] MacDonald morreu aos 70 anos de idade, em 28 de dezembro de 1986, no Hospital St. Mary, em Milwaukee, Wisconsin, por causa de complicações de uma anterior operação de ponte de safena. ****Wikipédia

John Dickson Carr (Carter Dickson)

John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1906 – February 27, 1977) was an American author of detective stories, who also published using the pseudonyms Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn. Carr is generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of so-called "Golden Age" mysteries; complex, plot-driven stories in which the puzzle is paramount. He was influenced in this regard by the works of Gaston Leroux and by the Father Brown stories of G. K. Chesterton. He was a master of so-called locked room mystery, in which a detective solves apparently impossible crimes. The Dr. Fell mystery The Hollow Man (1935), usually considered Carr's masterpiece, was selected during 1981 as the best locked-room mystery of all time by a panel of 17 mystery authors and reviewers. He was also an author of historical mystery. A resident of England for a number of years, Carr is often grouped among "British-style" mystery writers. Most (though not all) of his novels had English settings, especially country villages and estates, and English characters. His two best-known fictional detective characters were English. The son of Wooda Nicholas Carr, a U.S. congressman from Pennsylvania, Carr graduated from The Hill School in Pottstown during 1925 and Haverford College during 1929. During the early 1930s, he relocated to England, where he married an Englishwoman. He began his mystery-writing career there, returning to the United States as an internationally known author during 1948. During 1950, his biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle earned Carr the first of his two Special Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America; the second was awarded during 1970, in recognition of his 40-year career as a mystery writer. He was also presented the MWA's Grand Master award during 1963. Carr was one of only two Americans ever admitted to the British Detection Club. During early spring 1963, while living in Mamaroneck, New York, Carr suffered a stroke, which paralyzed his left side. He continued to write using one hand, and for several years contributed a regular column of mystery and detective book reviews, "The Jury Box", to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Carr eventually relocated to Greenville, South Carolina, and he died there of lung cancer on February 28, 1977. Carr's two major detective characters, Dr. Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale, are superficially quite similar. Both are large, upper-class, eccentric Englishmen somewhere between middle-aged and elderly. Dr. Fell, who is fat and walks only with the aid of two canes, was clearly modelled on the British writer G. K. Chesterton and is at all times civil and genial. He has a great mass of untidy hair that is often covered by a "shovel hat" and he generally wears a cape. He lives in a modest cottage and does not have any official association with public authorities. Henry Merrivale or "H.M.", on the other hand, although stout and with a majestic "corporation", is active physically and is feared for his ill-temper and noisy rages. In a 1949 novel, A Graveyard To Let, for example, he demonstrates an unexpected talent for hitting baseballs improbable distances. A wealthy descendant of the "oldest baronetcy" in England, he is part of the Establishment (even though he frequently rails against it) and in the earlier novels is the director of the British Secret Service. In The Plague Court Murders he is said to be qualified as both a barrister and a medical doctor. Even in the earliest books the bald, bespectacled, and scowling H.M. is clearly a Churchillian figure and in the later novels this similarity is somewhat more consciously evoked. Many of the Merrivale novels, written using the Carter Dickson byline, rank with Carr's best work, including the much-praised The Judas Window (1938). Many of the Fell novels feature two or more different impossible crimes, including He Who Whispers (1946) and The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941). The novel The Crooked Hinge (1938) combines a seemingly impossible throat-slashing, witchcraft, a survivor of the ship Titanic, an eerie automaton modelled on Johann Maelzel's chess player, and a case similar to that of the Tichborne Claimant into what is often cited as one of the greatest classics of detective fiction. But even Carr's biographer, Douglas G. Greene,[2] notes that the explanation, like many of Carr's in other books, seriously stretches plausibility and the reader's credulity. Dr. Fell's own discourse on locked room mysteries in chapter 17 of The Hollow Man is acclaimed critically and is sometimes printed as a stand-alone essay in its own right. Other works[edit] Besides Dr. Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale, Carr mysteries feature two other series detectives: Henri Bencolin and Colonel March. A few of his novels do not feature a series detective. The most famous of these, The Burning Court (1937), involves witchcraft, poisoning, and a body that disappears from a sealed crypt in suburban Philadelphia; it was the basis for the French movie La chambre ardente (1962). Carr wrote in the short story format as well. "Most of Carr's stories are compressed versions of his locked-room novels, and at times they benefit from the compression. Probably the best of them are in the Carter Dickson book, The Department of Queer Complaints (1940), although this does not include the brilliantly clever H.M. story The House in Goblin Wood or a successful pastiche which introduces Edgar Allan Poe as a detective."[2] During 1950, Carr wrote a novel named The Bride Of Newgate, set during 1815 at the close of the Napoleonic Wars, one of the earliest full-length historical mysteries. The Devil In Velvet and Fire, Burn! are the two historical novels with which he said he himself was most pleased. With Adrian Conan Doyle, the youngest son of Arthur Conan Doyle, Carr wrote Sherlock Holmes stories that were published in the 1954 collection The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes. He was also honored by the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by being asked to write the biography for the legendary author. The book, The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was published during 1949 and received generally favorable reviews for its vigor and entertaining style. Critical appraisal[edit] Dr. Fell has generally been considered to be Carr's major creation. The British novelist Kingsley Amis, for instance, writes in his essay, "My Favorite Sleuths", that Dr. Fell is one of the three great successors to Sherlock Holmes (the other two are Father Brown and Nero Wolfe) and that H.M., "according to me is an old bore." This may be in part because in the Merrivale novels written after World War II, H.M. frequently became a comic caricature of himself, especially in the physical misadventures in which he found himself at least once in every novel. Humorous as these episodes were intended to be, they also tended to have the effect of decreasing the mystique of the character. Earlier, however, H.M. had been regarded more favorably by a number of critics. Howard Haycraft, author of the seminal Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story, wrote during 1941 that H.M. or "The Old Man" was "the present writer's admitted favorite among contemporary fictional sleuths". During 1938 the British mystery writer R. Philmore wrote in an article called "Inquest on Detective Stories" that Sir Henry was "the most amusing of detectives". And further: "Of course, H.M. is so much the best detective that, once having invented him, his creator could get away with any plot." There is a book-length critical study by S. T. Joshi, John Dickson Carr: A Critical Study (1990) (ISBN 0-87972-477-3). The definitive biography of Carr is by Douglas G. Greene, John Dickson Carr: The Man Who Explained Miracles (1995) (ISBN 1-883402-47-6). From an obituary published in Greenville, South Carolina, Carr allegedly also published using the name of Fenton Carter, but no works by anyone of this name have yet been identified. Radio plays[edit] Carr also wrote many radio scripts, particularly for the Suspense radio anthology series in America and for its UK equivalent Appointment With Fear introduced by Valentine Dyall, as well as many other dramas for the BBC, and some screenplays. His 1943 half-hour radio play Cabin B-13 was expanded into a series on CBS during 1948–49[3] for which Carr wrote all 25 scripts, basing some on earlier works or re-presenting devices that Chesterton had used.[4] The 1943 play Cabin B-13 was also expanded into the script for the 1953 movie Dangerous Crossing, directed by Joseph M. Newman and featuring Michael Rennie and Jeanne Crain. Carr worked extensively for BBC Radio during World War II, writing both mystery stories and propaganda scripts. During the late 1940s he hosted Murder by Experts transmitted by Mutual radio. He introduced works by other mystery writers who were the week's guest writers. The show originated from Mutual's main station WOR in New York City. Many of these shows are available for free listening or downloading at the Internet Archive. Film and television[edit] Carr's works were the basis for several movies, including The Man With a Cloak (1951) and Dangerous Crossing (1953). The Emperor's Snuffbox was filmed as That Woman Opposite (1957), and La chambre ardente (1962) was a loose adaptation of The Burning Court. Various Carr stories formed the basis for episodes of television series, particularly those without recurring characters such as General Motors Presents. During 1956, the television series Colonel March Of Scotland Yard, featuring Boris Karloff as Colonel March, was based on Carr's character and his stories and was broadcast for 26 episodes. *****Wikipédia

John Franklin Bardin

John Franklin Bardin (November 30, 1916 – July 9, 1981) was an American crime writer, best known for three novels he wrote between 1946 and 1948. Bardin was born in Cincinnati, Ohio,[1][2] where his father was a well-to-do coal merchant and his mother an office worker.[3] Nearly all of his immediate family died of various illnesses, however,[1] with an elder sister dying of septicaemia, and, a year later, his father succumbing to a coronary and leaving little money.[3] Bardin, who by then had graduated from Walnut Hills High School, was studying engineering at the University of Cincinnati, and had to leave in his first year in order to work full-time as a ticket-taker and bouncer at a roller-skating rink, and later as a night clerk at a bookstore, where he would educate himself by reading.[4] "Mother had become a paranoid schizophrenic by then," Bardin said. "It was on visits to her that I first had an insight into the 'going home' hallucinations" that would later form the core of his third novel, Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly.[3] Other jobs, held in some combination of Cincinnati and New York City, to which he moved before turning 30, including working as a bench hand in a valve foundry; in the advertising department of a bank; in the production department of an advertising agency; and doing freelance market research for Barron Collier.[1] In New York, he began working in 1944 for the ad agency Edwin Bird Wilson, Inc.,[1] and from 1946 to 1948 completed the three novels for which he would be best known: The Deadly Percheron, The Last of Philip Banter, and Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly, published over the course of 18 months, though that last not in the United States until the 1960s.[3] Bardin would eventually write 10 novels over the course of his lifetime.[3] His magazine articles include "The Disadvantages of Respectability", a review of the book Father of the Man: How Your Child Gets His Personality, by W. Allison Davis and Robert J. Havighurst, in The Nation, May 3, 1947.[5] After gradually rising to become vice president and director of Edwin Bird Wilson, Bardin left that agency in 1963. Two years earlier he had begun teaching creative writing and advertising at the New School for Social Research, which he would continue to do through 1966. That year he worked as associate publicity director for the United Negro College Fund, and from 1967 to 1968, he wrote for the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York. Turning to magazines, he then served as an editor at Coronet through 1972.[1] For the next two years at least, Bardin lived in Chicago, Illinois, where he served as managing editor of the American Medical Association magazine Today's Health through 1973; and through 1974 originated, and served as managing editor of, two American Bar Association Press magazines, Learning and the Law and Barrister.[1] While his official site states he returned to New York in 1974, one source places him in Chicago still in 1978.[2] He resided in New York City's East Village. He died on July 9, 1981 at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, New York City.[6] He was survived by his second wife, Phyllida. Legacy[edit] As of at least 2010, Bardin's copyrights are held by Franklin C. Bardin and Judith A. Bardin,[7] a.k.a. Judith Aycock, his children from his first marriage.[6] [6] Novels[edit] In 1946, Bardin entered a period of intense creativity during which he wrote three crime novels that were relatively unsuccessful at first, one of them not even being published in America until the late 1960s, but which have since become well-regarded cult novels.[citation needed] He went on to write four more novels under the pen names Gregory Tree or Douglas Ashe; the writer Julian Symons, in his introduction to an omnibus collection of Bardin's first three works, called those later novels "slick, readable, unadventurous crime stories". Under his own name, Bardin also wrote three more novels, the first two of which Symons called, respectively, "an interesting but unsuccessful experiment" and "disastrously sentimental".[3] His best-regarded works, The Deadly Percheron, The Last of Philip Banter and Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly experienced renewed interest in the 1970s when they were discovered by British readers. As Symons said of their reemergence: Denis Healey was the guest of honour at a Crime Writers' Association dinner a few years ago, one of those years when he was no more than a shadow Minister, and so had time for criminal frivolity. In the course of his speech Mr. Healey showed a considerable, almost a dazzling, knowledge of crime fiction. It was an impressive performance, one nearly too much for some of the audience. People who write crime stories are often not great readers of them, feeling perhaps that anything they read will be inferior to what they have written. And when, near the end of his peroration, Mr. Healey picked out for special praise the crime novels of John Franklin Bardin, they looked at each other in astonishment. Who was John Franklin Bardin? One is safe in saying than no more than a dozen of the hundred and fifty people at dinner than night had ever heard of him.[3] Symons, who compiled the omnibus, had difficulty tracking down information on Bardin. He was unable to find any American critic who had heard of him and even his original publishers and agents did not know how to contact him or even whether he was still alive. Symons wrote that Third Degree, the journal of Mystery Writers of America, found Bardin in Chicago, editing an American Bar Association magazine, and willing and eager to see his work republished. The Deadly Percheron tells the story of a psychiatrist who encounters a patient with apparent delusions and a strange story to tell, but who does not otherwise exhibit signs of mental instability. His story turns out to have at least some connection to reality, drawing the psychiatrist into a complicated alternate identity that changes his life. The Last of Philip Banter sees a man receiving (or apparently writing) disturbing predictions about his life. The predictions partly become true, the effect of the predictions themselves being destructive and mind-altering. Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly, perhaps his most acclaimed work,[citation needed] is a complicated story told almost entirely in terms of the psychology of the protagonist Ellen, a mental patient who experiences mental disintegration. Bardin gave his literary influences as Graham Greene, Henry Green and Henry James.[3] In the film Mona Lisa one of the characters is reading The Deadly Percheron and makes several conversational references to it. The Library of Congress' Rule Interpretations (October 2009), in its chapter "Uniform Titles", uses The John Franklin Bardin Omnibus as its example of an author's name as an integral part of a copyrighted book title. *****Wikipédia

Kelley Roos

Kelley Roos, pseudonyme du couple marié William Roos (1911-1987) et Audrey Kelley (1912-1982), est un auteur américain de roman policier. William Roos et Audrey Kelley se rencontrent dans les années 1930 alors qu’ils suivent tous deux un cours de diction dans l’espoir de faire une carrière à la scène. Ils jouent d’abord sur un show-boat des rives de l’Ohio avant de décrocher de petits rôles à New York. Ils se marient à cette époque. Pendant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, ils adoptent le pseudonyme de Kelley Roos pour se lancer dans l’écriture de romans policiers. Made Up to Kill (1940), le premier roman de la série mettant en scène le couple Jeff et Haila Troy, se déroule dans les coulisses d'un théâtre et obtient un succès immédiat. Jeff, un photographe, et Haila, une ancienne actrice, se trouvent ensuite mêlés à une douzaine de whodunits classiques, mâtinés de comédie, livrés par Kelley Roos sous forme de romans ou de longues nouvelles. La notoriété des Troy est telle qu'ils sont incarnés dès 1942 par Brian Aherne et Loretta Young dans le film hollywoodien Une nuit inoubliable de Richard Wallace, puis, en 1950, à la télévision, par Robert Sterling et Virginia Gilmore. Le titre le plus connu de la série, L’Ombre d’une chance, connaît également une adaptation cinématographique intitulée Scent of Mystery et réalisée par Jack Cardiff sur un scénario de William Roos qui en retire toutefois les Troy et déplace l’intrigue en Espagne. Après avoir mis fin à la série des Troy, en 1966, Kelley Roos signe plusieurs romans policiers orientés vers le thriller. En 1960, Audrey Roos reçoit un Prix Edgar-Allan-Poe du meilleur roman adapté 1960 pour une adaptation La Chambre ardente (The Burning Court) de John Dickson Carr. William Roos a par ailleurs signé seul quelques pièces de théâtre et comédies musicales, dont certaines montées avec plus ou moins de succès sur Broadway. Audrey Kelley Roos est morte d’un cancer sur l’île de Martha's Vineyard le 11 décembre 1982. William Roos lui survit à peine quatre ans et meurt le 13 mars 1987. ****Wikipédia

Kyle Hunt

John Creasey MBE (17 September 1908 – 9 June 1973) was an English crime and science fiction writer who wrote more than six hundred novels using twenty-eight different pseudonyms. He created several characters which are now famous, such as The Toff (The Honourable Richard Rollison), Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard, Inspector Roger West, The Baron (John Mannering), Doctor Emmanuel Cellini and Doctor Stanislaus Alexander Palfrey. The most popular of these was Gideon of Scotland Yard, who was the basis for the television series Gideon's Way and for the John Ford movie Gideon of Scotland Yard (1958), also known by its British title Gideon's Day. The Baron character was also made into a 1960s TV series starring Steve Forrest as The Baron.John Creasey was born in Southfields, Surrey, to a working-class family. He was the seventh of nine children of Ruth and Joseph Creasey, a poor coach maker. Creasey was educated at Fulham Elementary School and Sloane School, both in London. From 1923 to 1935 he worked various clerical, factory, and sales jobs while trying to establish himself as a writer. After a number of rejections, Creasey's first book was published in 1930. His first crime novel, Seven Times Seven, was published in January 1932 by Melrose. It was a story about a gang of criminals. In 1935 he became a full-time writer. In 1937 alone, twenty-nine of his books were published. A phenomenally fast writer, he once suggested that he could be shut up in a glass-box and write there a whole book. In 1938, he created the character The Toff with the first novel Introducing the Toff. The Toff series would continue for 59 novels from 1938 to 1978. The Toff, The Honourable Richard Rollison, is an aristocrat and an amateur sleuth. ("Toff" is a British slang expression for an aristocrat.) During World War II, he created the character of Dr. Stanislaus Alexander Palfrey, a British secret service agent, who forms Z5, a secret underground group that owes its allegiance to the Allies. The first novel of the Dr. Palfrey 34-book series was Traitor's Doom, published in 1942 by John Long Ltd., while the last was The Whirlwind in 1979. Several adaptations were made of Creasey's novels. On film these included: Salute the Toff (1952, also known as Brighthaven Express in the USA), Hammer the Toff (1952), John Ford's Gideon's Day (1958, also known as Gideon of Scotland Yard in the USA), released by Columbia Pictures, and Cat and Mouse (1958, also known as The Desperate Men in the USA), written as Michael Halliday. On television, a series based on the Commander George Gideon character, Gideon's Way, was produced from 1964 to 1965 by ITC Entertainment and starring John Gregson in the title rôle. ITC followed this with a version of Creasey's The Baron character (1965–66), starring Steve Forrest. Between 1967 and 1971 the BBC produced a radio version of Creasey's Roger West stories with actor Patrick Allen in the title role as Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Roger "Handsome" West, with Allen's real-life wife Sarah Lawson playing the role of West's wife Janet. In 1962, Creasey won an Edgar Award for Best Novel, from the Mystery Writers of America (MWA), for Gideon's Fire, written under the pseudonym J. J. Marric. In 1969 he received the MWA's greatest honour, the Grand Master Award. Creasey had as many publishers as he had pseudonyms, but enjoyed enduring relations with John Long and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK. After he finally broke into the American market in the 1950s, many of his books were released by Harper and Scribners; Walker reissued many older titles in the revised editions. He died at Salisbury, Wiltshire in 1973. In 2007, his family transferred all of Creasey's copyrights and other legal rights to Owatonna Media. Owatonna Media on-sold these copyrights to Coolabi Plc in 2009, but retained a master licence in radio and audio rights. These rights are commercially licensed in the UK and abroad. ****Wikipédia

Kenneth John Alexander Wishnia (K.J.A.Wishnia)

Kenneth Wishnia was born in Hanover, NH to a roving band of traveling academics. He earned a B.A. from Brown University (1982) and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from SUNY Stony Brook (1996). He teaches writing, literature and other deviant forms of thought at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood, Long Island, where he is a professor of English. Ken’s novels have been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity Awards, and have made Best Mystery of the Year lists at Booklist, Library Journal, and The Washington Post. His short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Murder in Vegas, Long Island Noir, Queens Noir, Politics Noir, Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail, and elsewhere. His most recent novel, The Fifth Servant, was an Indie Notable selection, one of the “Best Jewish Books of 2010” according to the Association of Jewish Libraries, a finalist for the Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery Award, and winner of a Premio Letterario ADEI-WIZO, a literary prize awarded by the Associazione Donne Ebree d’Italia, the Italian branch of the Women’s International Zionist Organization. He is married to a wonderful Catholic woman from Ecuador, and they have two children who are completely insane. *****http://kennethwishnia.com/biography/

Laura Lippman

Laura Lippman (born January 31, 1959) is an American author of detective fiction. Lippman was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the daughter of Theo Lippman, Jr., a well known and respected writer at the Baltimore Sun, and Madeline (Mabry) Lippman, a retired school librarian for the Baltimore City Public School System.[1] Her paternal grandfather was Jewish, and the remainder of her ancestry includes Scots-Irish.[2][3] Lippman was raised Presbyterian.[4] She attended high school in Columbia, Maryland, where she was the captain of the Wilde Lake High School It's Academic team. She also participated in several dramatic productions, including Finian's Rainbow, The Lark, and Barefoot in the Park. She was graduated from Wilde Lake High School in 1977.[citation needed] Lippman is a former reporter for the (now defunct) San Antonio Light and the Baltimore Sun. She is best known for writing a series of novels set in Baltimore and featuring Tess Monaghan, a reporter (like Lippman herself) turned private investigator. Lippman's works have won the Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, Nero, Gumshoe and Shamus awards. Her 2007 release, What the Dead Know, was the first of her books to make the New York Times bestseller list, and was shortlisted for the Crime Writer's Association Dagger Award (see side box for more awards). In addition to the Tess Monaghan novels, Lippman wrote 2003's Every Secret Thing, which has been optioned for the movie by Academy Award–winning actor Frances McDormand. Lippman lives in the South Baltimore neighborhood of Federal Hill and frequently writes in the neighborhood coffee shop Spoons.[5] In addition to writing, she teaches at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, just outside Baltimore. In January, 2007, she taught at the 3rd Annual Writers in Paradise at Eckerd College. In March 2013, she was the Guest of Honor at Left Coast Crime. Lippman is married to David Simon, another former Baltimore Sun reporter, and creator and an executive producer of the HBO series The Wire. The character Bunk is shown to be reading one of her books in episode eight of the first season of The Wire. She appeared in a scene of the first episode of the last season of The Wire as a reporter working in the Baltimore Sun newsroom. ****Wikipédia

Lawrence Sanders

Lawrence Sanders (Nova Iorque, 15 de março de 1920 – Pampano Beach, Flórida, 7 de fevereiro de 1998) foi um romancista norte-americano. Escreveu, entre outros, Sullivan's Sting ("A Traição de Sullivan") de 1990 e The First Deadly Sin ("O Primeiro Pecado Mortal") de 1973, que em 1980 deu origem ao filme homônimo, com Frank Sinatra.»»»Lawrence Sanders (March 15, 1920 – February 7, 1998) was an American novelist and short story writer. Lawrence Sanders was born in Brooklyn in New York City. After public school he attended Wabash College, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then returned to New York and worked at Macy's Department Store. In 1943 he joined the United States Marine Corps and was discharged in 1946. Sanders was a former magazine editorial writer and later turned to full-time fiction writing. He wrote his first novel, The Anderson Tapes, in 1970, at the age of 50. It deals with a plot by a group of criminals to rob a luxury apartment building. In 1971, Sanders received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for best first novel. His Archy McNally series was continued by author Vincent Lardo. ****Wikipédia

Leopold Horace Ognall (Hartley Howard e Harry Carmichael)

Hartley Howard (1908–1979) was a pen name of Leopold Horace Ognall, a British crime novelist. Ognall was born in Montreal and worked as a journalist before starting his fiction career. He wrote over ninety novels before his death in 1979. The private eye Glenn Bowman was one of his most successful characters. As Harry Carmichael, Ognall's primary series characters were John Piper (an insurance assessor) and "Quinn," a crime reporter. Ognall's son Harry Ognall became a high court judge and conducted the hearings regarding former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet. ****Wikipédia

Leslie Charteris

Leslie Charteris (12 May 1907 – 15 April 1993), born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, was a British-Chinese author of adventure fiction, as well as a screenwriter. He was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint." Parents and early life[edit] Charteris was born in Singapore to a Chinese father, Dr S. C. Yin (Yin Suat Chwan, 1877-1958),[2] and his wife Lydia Florence Bowyer, who was English. His father was a physician who claimed to be able to trace his lineage back to the emperors of the Shang Dynasty.[1] Charteris became interested in writing at an early age. At one point he created his own magazine with articles, short stories, poems, editorials, serials and even a comic strip. He attended Rossall School in Fleetwood, Lancashire, England. Career[edit] Once his first book, written during his first year at King's College, Cambridge, was accepted, he left the university and embarked on a new career. Charteris was motivated by a desire to be unconventional and to become financially well off by doing what he liked to do. He continued to write English thriller stories, while he worked at various jobs from shipping out on a freighter to working as a barman in a country inn. He prospected for gold, dived for pearls, worked in a tin mine and on a rubber plantation, toured England with a carnival, and drove a bus. In 1926, he legally changed his last name to Charteris, after Colonel Francis Charteris[citation needed], although, in the BBC Radio 4 documentary Leslie Charteris – A Saintly Centennial, his daughter stated that he selected his surname from the telephone directory. Origin of Simon Templar[edit] His third novel, Meet the Tiger (1928), introduced his most famous creation, Simon Templar.[3] However, in his 1980 introduction to a reprint by Charter Books, Charteris indicated he was dissatisfied with the work, suggesting its only value was as the start of the long-running Saint series. Occasionally he chose to ignore the existence of Meet the Tiger altogether and claimed that the Saint series actually began with the second volume, Enter the Saint (1930); an example of this can be found in the introduction Charteris wrote to an early 1960s edition of Enter the Saint published by Fiction Publishing Company (an imprint of Doubleday). Although he would write a few other books (including a novelisation of his screenplay for the Deanna Durbin mystery-comedy Lady on a Train, and the English translation of Juan Belmonte: Killer of Bulls by Manuel Chaves Nogales) his lifework — at least in the literary world — would consist primarily of Simon Templar Saint adventures, which would be relayed in novel, novella, and short story format over the next 35 years (with other authors ghost writing the stories on Charteris' behalf from 1963 onward; Charteris acted as an editor for these books, approving stories and making revisions when needed). Move to the United States[edit] Charteris relocated to the United States in 1932, where he continued to publish short stories and also became a writer for Paramount Pictures, working on the George Raft film, Midnight Club.[4] However, Charteris was excluded from permanent residency in the United States because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, a law which prohibited immigration for persons of "50% or greater" Oriental blood. As a result, Charteris was forced to continually renew his six-month temporary visitor's visa. Eventually, an act of Congress personally granted him and his daughter the right of permanent residence in the United States, with eligibility for naturalisation which he later completed.[5] Other activities[edit] In the 1940s, Charteris, besides continuing to write The Saint stories, scripted the Sherlock Holmes radio series featuring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.[6] In 1941, he appeared in a Life Magazine photographic adaptation of a short story of The Saint, with himself playing The Saint.[7][8] The Saint on TV[edit] Long-term success eluded Charteris' creation outside the literary arena until the 1962–1969 British-produced television series The Saint went into production with Roger Moore in the Simon Templar role. Many episodes of the TV series were based upon Charteris' short stories. Later, as original scripts were commissioned, Charteris permitted some of these scripts to be novelised and published as further adventures of the Saint in printed form (these later books, with titles such as The Saint on TV and The Saint and the Fiction Makers, carried Charteris' name as author, but were in fact written by others). Charteris would live to see a second British TV series, Return of the Saint starring Ian Ogilvy as Simon Templar, enjoy a well-received, if brief, run, and in the 1980s a series of TV movies produced by an international co-production and starring Simon Dutton kept interest in The Saint alive. There was also an aborted attempt at a 1980s TV series in the United States, which resulted in only a pilot episode being produced and broadcast. Later life[edit] The adventures of The Saint were chronicled in nearly 100 books (approximately 50 published in the UK and US, with others published in France). Charteris himself stepped away from writing the books after The Saint in the Sun (1963). The next year Vendetta for the Saint was published and while it was credited to Charteris, it was actually written by science fiction writer Harry Harrison. Following Vendetta, as noted above, came a number of books adapting televised episodes; these books were credited to Charteris but were actually by others (although Charteris himself did collaborate on several Saint books in the 1970s). Several Return of the Saint scripts were also adapted, and there were also some original stories thrown into the mix. Charteris appears to have served in an editorial capacity for these later volumes. He also edited (and contributed to) The Saint Mystery Magazine, a digest-sized publication. The final book in the Saint series was Salvage for the Saint, published in 1983. Two additional books were published in 1997, a novelization of the film loosely based on the character, and an original novel published by "The Saint Club" a fan club that Charteris himself founded in the 1930s. Both books were written by Burl Barer, who also wrote the definitive history on Charteris and The Saint. Charteris spent 55 years - 1928 to 1983 - as either writer of or custodian of Simon Templar's literary adventures, one of the longest uninterrupted spans of a single author in the history of mystery fiction, equalling that of Agatha Christie who wrote her novels and stories featuring the detective Hercule Poirot over a similar 55-year period. Personal life and death[edit] Besides being a fiction writer, Charteris also wrote a column on cuisine for an American magazine, as a sideline. He also invented a wordless, pictorial sign language called Paleneo and wrote a book on it. In addition, Charteris was also one of the earliest members of Mensa.[9][10] In 1952 he married the Hollywood actress Audrey Long (1922-2014); the couple eventually returned to England where Charteris spent his last years living in Surrey. Charteris died at Windsor, Berkshire, survived by his wife and a daughter, Patricia. ****Wikipédia

Liliane Korb

Claude Izner est le nom de plume commun utilisé par Liliane Korb (née à Paris le 6 janvier 1940) et sa sœur Laurence Korb (née à Paris le 10 avril 1951, également connue sous le nom de Laurence Lefèvre), pour signer, depuis 2003, les Enquêtes de Victor Legris, romans policiers historiques situés à Paris la fin du xixe siècle. Cette série est publiée en collection « Grands détectives » aux éditions 10/18. Avant d'adopter ce pseudonyme unique, les sœurs Korb ont signé en commun plusieurs œuvres, allant du roman d'aventures pour les enfants au roman de suspense pour les adultes, en passant par la science-fiction.L'aînée des deux sœurs, Liliane Korb, est chef monteuse de cinéma, avant de devenir bouquiniste sur la rive droite de la Seine à Paris. La cadette, Laurence Korb, étudie l'archéologie jusqu'à l'obtention d'une licence, puis publie deux romans à la fin des années 1970, avant de devenir à son tour bouquiniste sur les bords de Seine. Le besoin d'écrire, et de préférence en commun, les prendra (ou reprendra) à partir de la fin des années 1980, leur carrière d'écrivains étant menée de front avec leur activité de bouquinistes et de cinéastes. Amorcée en 2003, la série des Enquêtes de Victor Legris a pour héros un libraire d'une trentaine d'années, propriétaire de la librairie L'Elzévir, sise au 18 rue des Saints-Pères, dans le Paris des années 1890-1900. Passionné de photographie et d'ouvrages anciens, il se trouve mêlé à des affaires criminelles qui défraient souvent la chronique. Parmi les autres personnages qu'il côtoie, citons Kenji Mori, père adoptif de Legris et son associé, Iris, fille de Mori, Tasha, peintre et épouse de Legris, Joseph, commis de librairie et friand de comptes rendus d'affaires criminelles dans les journaux, et époux d'Iris. La série est en outre l'occasion de croiser des personnages historiques réels, parmi lesquels, au premier rang, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, mais aussi Alphonse Bertillon, La Goulue, Ravachol, Paul Verlaine et d'autres célébrités de l'époque. ****Wikipédia

Lillian O'Donnell

Lillian O'Donnell (1926–2005) was an American crime novelist notable for being one of the first to introduce a female police officer as the lead character in a book series. She was born in Trieste, Italy but spent most of her life in New York. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, New York and her first career was in the theatre - as an actress on stage and television and as first female stage manager on Broadway. Until 1954 she worked as a director and stage manager of summer stock packages for the Schubert Organization. In 1954 she married J. Leonard O’Donnell. From 1960 she published ten stand-alone novels. They varied from fairly stock murder mysteries to novels of psychological suspense. Only one, The Face of the Crime, was a police procedural. In 1972, her first book with Nora Mulcahaney The Phone Calls was published. It brought back characters from her earlier police novel, but with the addition of the female lead. In total, 17 books were published in this series, the last in 1998. Each book focused on a single major crime and Nora's concerns about her personal life were intertwined with her working life. In 1977, 1979 and 1980 she tried an interesting idea in a separate series - a protagonist, Mici Anhalt, who is an investigator for a Crime Victims Compensation Board. In 1990, she moved with the times, following other women who had begun series centered on female private detectives. In total she published four books with lead character Gwen Rammadge, a genteel woman turned private investigator to pay the bills. One of the Norah Mulcahaney books, No Business Being a Cop was filmed for TV as Prime Target, starring Angie Dickinson, Joseph Bologna and David Soul. ****Wikipédia

Lionel White

Lionel White (9 July 1905 – 26 December 1985) was an American journalist and crime novelist,[1] several of whose dark, noirish stories were made into films. His books include The Snatchers (made into a film as The Night of the Following Day by Hubert Cornfield starring Marlon Brando), The Money Trap (made into a movie by Burt Kennedy starring Glenn Ford and Elke Sommer), The Big Caper (made into a film by Robert Stevens starring Rory Calhoun), Death Takes the Bus, Clean Break (adapted by Stanley Kubrick as the basis for his 1956 film, The Killing),[2] and Obsession (adapted by Jean-Luc Godard as the basis for his 1965 film, Pierrot le fou) and by the Finnish director Seppo Huunonen for the 1974 film The Hair (Karvat) and Rafferty, adapted by 1980 Soviet Lenfilm production of the same title. White (also known as L.W. Blanco) had been a crime reporter and began writing suspense novels in the 1950s. He wrote more than 35 books, all translated into a number of different languages. His earlier novels were published as Gold Medal pulp hard-boiled crime fiction, but when Duttons began a line of mystery and suspense books, he also wrote for them. He was most well known as what a New York Times review described as "the master of the big caper." Seven years after White's death, director Quentin Tarantino credited him, among others, as an inspiration in his 1992 film Reservoir Dogs. ****Wikipédia

Louis Joseph Vance

Louis Joseph Vance (September 19, 1879–December 16, 1933) was an American novelist, born in Washington, D. C., and educated in the preparatory department of the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. He wrote short stories and verse after 1901, then composed many popular novels. His character "Michael Lanyard", also known as "The Lone Wolf", was featured in eight books and 24 films between 1914 and 1949, and also appeared in radio and television series. Vance was separated from his wife (whom he had married in 1898 and who had borne him a son in 1899) when he was found dead in 1933. He was in a burnt armchair inside his New York apartment. A cigarette had ignited some benzene (used for cleaning his clothes or for his broken jaw) that he had on his body, and he had been intoxicated at the time of death. He had recently returned from the West Indies, where he had gathered material for a new book. The death was ruled accidental. ****Wikipédia

Magdalen Nabb

Magdalen Nabb (16 January 1947 – 18 August 2007) was a British author, best known for the Marshal Guarnaccia detective novels. Born near Blackburn in Lancashire as Magdalen Nuttal, she was educated at the Convent Grammar School, Bury, before going on to art college in Manchester, where she studied arts and pottery, which she taught in an art school. In 1975 she moved to Florence in Italy with her son, Liam, even through she didn't speak Italian. There, she continued to work on pottery in a pottery town near Florence, and began writing. It was in Montelupo that she met the model for "Marshal Guarnaccia". Her first book, Death of an Englishman, was first published in 1981. All her stories take place in Florence which she describes as a "very secret city". She lived near enough to the Carabinieri station to stroll there regularly and have a chat with the marshal, who kept her up to date on crime in the city. She also wrote the Josie Smith books for children and did occasional journalistic pieces for English, German and Italian papers. In 1991 she won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for Josie Smith and Eileen, the second book in the series. Her final novel, Vita Nuova, was posthumously published in 2008. She died in Florence of a stroke, aged 60. *****Wikipédia

Manfred B. Lee (Ellery Queen)

Ellery Queen é um dos heterónimos colectivos criado em 1929 pelos primos Frederic Dannay e Manfred B. Lee, dois prolíficos escritores norte americanos de romances policiais. É também, ao mesmo tempo, um personagem fictício dos romances produzidos por aqueles autores. Autores[editar | editar código-fonte] Frederic Dannay (à esquerda), com James Yaffe (1943) Frederic Dannay e Manfred B. Lee eram primos e nasceram ambos na cidade de Nova Iorque, Estados Unidos da América, em 1905. Na verdade, mesmo estes são pseudónimos, uma vez que os seus nomes originais são, respectivamente, Daniel Nathan e Maniord Lepofsky. Dannay e Lee conceberam Ellery Queen como um autor que resolvia mistérios e os relatava por escrever romances. Assim, tornava-se uma espécie de personagem que imita os seus próprios autores. Foi criado para um concurso literário, num romance intitulado The Roman Hat Mystery, em 1929, e as suas aventuras foram publicadas por um período de 42 anos. A criação de heterónimos e pseudónimos, incluindo Ellery Queen, autor e personagem que imitava a vida dos seus próprios criadores por ser ele mesmo um escritor de romances policiais, acabou por confundir os leitores. Durante muito tempo, o público acreditava que Ellery Queen seria realmente um escritor verídico e não apenas um heterónimo e, mais ainda, de duas pessoas. Os dois autores eram também especialistas na pesquisa histórica do género policial, publicando inúmeras colecções e antologias de contos policiais, tal como The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes. A antologia com quase mil páginas, intitulada 101 Years' Entertainment, The Great Detective Stories, 1841-1941, tornou-se uma obra de referência, mantendo-se nas livrarias por muitas décadas. Foram ainda os co-fundadores da associação Mystery Writers of America. Este romance inicial estabeleceu a fórmula básica das aventuras seguintes. Ellery Queen é um detective e escritor com um grande poder de observação e dedução, um misto de Sherlock Holmes e Dr. Watson. Mas, assim como Holmes precisava de Watson, Ellery precisava do pai, o Inspector Richard. Outro personagem é Sergeant Velie, o irascível assistente do Inspector Queen. Outros condimentos são um crime incomum, uma série complexa de pistas, e aquilo que viria a tornar-se a parte mais famosa dos romances: "Ellery's Challenge to the Reader" (O Desafio de Ellery ao Leitor). Tratava-se de uma única página, próxima do fim do livro, informado que, naquela parte específica do romance, o leitor já possuía todas as pistas na posse de Ellery, desafiando-o a tentar resolver o mistério antes da leitura do restante da obra. O Detective Ellery Queen[editar | editar código-fonte] Quando uma revista da época estabeleceu um prémio para a melhor obra de estreia no género policial, os primos Frederic Dannay e Manfred B. Lee, ambos escritores, decidiram criar um heterónimo colectivo com o mesmo nome da personagem que haviam criado. Apesar de terem vencido o concurso, o romance não chegou a ser publicado na revista uma vez que esta havia sido vendida a novos proprietários. Assim, os primos resolveram levar este primeiro romance a outros editores resultando na publicação da primeira aventura do Detective Ellery Queen, intitulada The Roman Hat Mystery. A personagem Ellery era, ele mesmo, um escritor de romances policiais, presunçoso, educado em Harvard, com uma fortuna considerável dedicando-se à pesquisa policial simplesmente por considerar a resolução de crimes uma actividade intelectualmente estimulante. Estas características eram herdadas da mãe, a filha de um rico aristocrata nova iorquino que casou com o Inspector Queen, um irlandês de origens humildes. No entanto, ao se iniciarem as histórias de Ellery, a sua mãe já havia morrido. Apesar da sua atitude arrogante e presunçosa, retratada nos romances iniciais, a partir do livro Calamity Town, publicado em 1940, Ellery torna-se mais humano e várias vezes chega a ficar emocionalmente afectado pelas pessoas com quem se cruza nos seus casos. No entanto, nas suas últimas obras, Ellery torna-se uma pessoa quase sem personalidade, cujo papel é meramente o de solucionar os mistérios apresentados. As aventuras de Ellery Queen foram levadas ao rádio, cinema e televisão. O primeiro de uma série de longa-metragens sobre o detective foi o filme intitulado Ellery Queen, Master Detective. Dannay e Lee criaram também a Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, em 1941, revista que publicou o que havia de melhor em ficção policial na época, ainda hoje considerada uma das melhores do género, durante o Século XX. Outros escritores escreveram para Ellery Queen. Talmage Powell e Richard Deming escreveram a série de Tim Cornagan. Outros romancistas anónimos também escreveram para Ellery Queen e Barnaby Ross, outro dos pseudónimos dos primos escritores. Estilo dos romances de Ellery Queen[editar | editar código-fonte] O romance inicial estabeleceu a fórmula básica das aventuras seguintes. Ellery Queen é um detective e escritor com um grande poder de observação e dedução, um misto de Sherlock Holmes e Dr. Watson. Mas, assim como Holmes precisava de Watson, Ellery precisava do pai, o Inspector Richard. Outro personagem é Sergeant Velie, o irascível assistente do Inspector Queen. Outros condimentos são crimes incomuns, uma série complexa de pistas, e aquilo que viria a tornar-se a parte mais famosa dos romances: "Ellery's Challenge to the Reader" (O Desafio de Ellery ao Leitor). Tratava-se de uma única página, próxima do fim do livro, informado que, naquela parte específica do romance, o leitor já possuía todas as pistas na posse de Ellery, desafiando-o a tentar resolver o mistério antes da leitura do restante da obra. Os romances de Queen são o exemplo clássico das histórias policiais em que se tenta encontrar o autor do crime, marcando aquela que se veio a tornar a época áurea das obras policiais. Todas as pistas são dadas ao leitor, dessa forma tornando a leitura um verdadeiro desafio intelectual. No livro The Greek Coffin Mystery, de 1932, são propostas soluções múltiplas para o mistério, particularidade que veio a ser retomada em romances posteriores, nomeadamente Double, Double e Ten Days' Wonder. A típica "falsa solução, seguida pela verdadeira" veio a tornar-se uma marca distintiva dos mistérios de Ellery. Em 1932, os primos criaram um outro herói, mais um detective fictício, Drury Lane, sob o pseudónimo Barnaby Ross. Este outro detective era mais teatral do que Ellery. Durante a década de 30, do Século XX, "Ellery Queen" e "Barnaby Ross" chegaram mesmo a realizar uma série de debates públicos, sendo que cada um dos primos encarnava um dos detectives, ambos usando máscaras para manter o anonimato. Após o sucesso cinematográfico de Ellery, tanto o escritor como o seu personagem começaram a sofrer mudanças, introduzindo-se mais elementos psicológicos e temas mais introspectivos. O "Desafio ao Leitor" deixou de ser publicado. Apesar de alguns romances das décadas posteriores serem considerados clássicos, especialmente Calamity Town e Cat of Many Tails (um dos primeiros romances a incluir um serial killer, ou assassino em série), alguns criticaram a combinação de elementos religiosos com os métodos policiais, considerando essa experiência desastrada e pretensiosa. Vários dos últimos romances atribuídos a Ellery Queen foram na verdade escritos por escritores-fantasma ou anónimos, tais como Theodore Sturgeon e Avram Davidson. Já no final das suas carreiras, os primos Frederic Dannay e Manfred B. Lee publicaram outros romances, alguns da sua autoria, outros escritos por escritores anónimos, lançados sob o nome de Ellery Queen, apesar de o personagem com o mesmo nome não surgir no enredo das obras. Entre eles estão três romances protagonizados pelo personagem Mike McCall e intitulados The Campus Murders, em 1969, escrito por Gil Brewer, The Black Hearts Murder, de 1970, escrito por Richard Deming e The Blue Movie Murders, de 1972, escrito por Edward D. Hoch. O bem conhecido autor de ficção científica Jack Vance também escreveu três destes livros de Ellery, incluindo o claustrofóbico A Room to Die In. Os dois primos, sob o seu pseudónimo colectivo, Ellery Queen, receberam o Grand Master Award pela excelência na área do romance de mistério policial, atribuído pelo Mystery Writers of America em 1961. ****Wikipédia

Margery Allingham

Margery Louise Allingham (20 May 1904 – 30 June 1966) was an English writer of detective fiction, best remembered for her "golden age" stories featuring gentleman sleuth Albert Campion. Margery Allingham was born in Ealing, London in 1904 to a family immersed in Literature. Her father, Herbert, and her mother Emily Jane (née Hughes), were both writers – he was editor of the Christian Globe and The New London Journal (to which Margery later contributed articles and Sexton Blake stories), before becoming a successful pulp fiction writer, while her mother was a contributor of stories to women's magazines. Soon after Margery's birth, the family left London for Essex, where they lived in an old house in Layer Breton, a village near Colchester. She went to a local school and then to the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge, all the while writing stories and plays; she earned her first fee at the age of eight, for a story printed in her aunt's magazine. Returning to London in 1920, she attended the Regent Street Polytechnic studying Drama and Speech-Training, curing a stammer she had suffered since childhood; it was at this time that she first met her future husband, Philip Youngman Carter. In 1927, she married Carter, who collaborated with her and designed the jackets for many of her books. They lived on the edge of the Essex Marshes in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, near Maldon. South Street, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Allingham and Carter lived in the far house Her first novel, Blackkerchief Dick, was published in 1923 when she was 19. It was allegedly based on a story she heard during a séance, though later in life this was debunked by her husband. Nevertheless, Allingham continued to include occult themes in many novels. Blackkerchief Dick was well received, but was not a financial success. She wrote several plays in this period, and attempted to write a serious novel, but finding her themes clashed with her natural light-heartedness, she decided instead to try the mystery genre. She wrote steadily through her school days. After her return to London in 1920 she enrolled at the Regent Street Polytechnic, where she studied drama and speech training in a successful attempt to overcome a childhood stammer. Here she wrote the verse play Dido and Aeneas, which was performed at St. George's Hall and the Cripplegate Theatre. Allingham played the role of Dido; the scenery was designed by Philip Youngman Carter, whom she would marry in 1927. Campion and success Her breakthrough occurred in 1929 with the publication of The Crime at Black Dudley. This introduced Albert Campion, albeit originally as a minor character. He returned in Mystery Mile, thanks in part to pressure from her American publishers, much taken with the character. By now, with three novels behind her, Allingham's skills were improving, and with a strong central character and format to work from, she began to produce a series of popular Campion novels. At first she had to continue writing short stories and journalism for magazines such as The Strand Magazine, but as her Campion saga went on, her following, and her sales, grew steadily. Campion proved so successful that Allingham made him the centrepiece of another 17 novels and over 20 short stories, continuing into the 1960s. Campion is a mysterious, upper-class character (early novels hint that his family is in the line of succession to the throne), working under an assumed name. He floats between the upper echelons of the nobility and government on one hand and the shady world of the criminal class in the United Kingdom on the other, often accompanied by his scurrilous ex-burglar servant Lugg. During the course of his career he is sometimes detective, sometimes adventurer. As the series progresses he works more closely with the police and MI6 counter-intelligence. He falls in love, gets married and has a child, and as time goes by he grows in wisdom and matures emotionally. As Allingham's powers developed, the style and format of the books moved on: while the early novels are light-hearted whodunnits or "fantastical" adventures, The Tiger in the Smoke (1952) is more character study than crime novel, focusing on serial killer Jack Havoc. In many of the later books Campion plays a subsidiary role no more prominent than his wife Amanda and his police associates; by the last novel he is a minor character. In 1941, she published a non-fiction work, The Oaken Heart, which described her experiences in Essex when an invasion from Germany was expected and actively being planned for, potentially placing the civilian population of Essex in the front line. Allingham suffered from breast cancer and died at Severalls Hospital, Colchester, England, on 30 June 1966, aged 62. Her final Campion novel, Cargo of Eagles, was completed by her husband as her final request and was published in 1968. Other compilations of her work, both with and without Albert Campion, continued to be released through the 1970s. The Margery Allingham Omnibus, comprising Sweet Danger, The Case of the Late Pig and The Tiger in the Smoke, with a critical introduction by Jane Stevenson, was published in 2006. Vintage Classics of Random House, Australia, began a reissue programme for Margery Allingham in 2004: to date they have reissued her nineteen major Campion novels beginning with The Crime at Black Dudley(1929) and ending with Cargo of Eagles (1968). In the United States, the Vintage division of Felony and Mayhem Press has also reissued these books. A film version of Tiger in the Smoke was made in 1956; a highly popular series of Campion adaptations was shown by the BBC in 1989–90, starring Peter Davison as Campion and Brian Glover as Lugg (available on DVD). *** Wikipédia

Maria O'Neill

Maria da Conceição Infante de Lacerda Pereira de Eça Custance O'Neill (Lisboa, 19 de novembro de 1873 - Costa brasileira, 23 de março de 1932) foi uma escritora, poetisa, feminista, jornalista, teosofista e espírita portuguesa. Estreou nas Letras com o livro de poesia "Nimbos", com prefácio de Raimundo António de Bulhão Pato. Seguiram-se outros trabalhos, como "A Luta de Sentimentos", "Ilusão Desfeita", "Um Drama de Ciúme", "Amar é sofrer", "Um noivado feliz", "Salmos de Amor", "Vida Real", "Almas Femininas", "A Víbora", "Folhas Soltas", "O Colar de Vera", "O Amor tudo consegue", entre outros. Os seus contos infantis, considerados dos melhores em língua portuguesa à época, foram traduzidos para vários idiomas. Encontra-se colaboração da sua autoria nas revistas Brasil-Portugal[1] (1899-1914), Serões[2] (1910-1911), Illustração portugueza[3] (1903-) e A Sátira [4] (1911). Participou no I Congresso Espírita Português (1925), tendo posteriormente colaborado com a Federação Espírita Portuguesa. Fez parte da redação da "Revista de Espiritismo", em que sempre colaborou. Registou referências elogiosas em "O Comércio do Porto" (17 de novembro de 1929), na "Gazeta de Coimbra" (28 de novembro de 1929), "O Primeiro de Janeiro” (28 de novembro de 1929), entre outros. Em 1930 viajou para o Brasil, onde realizou uma série de conferências sobre assuntos literários e espíritas. Retornou ao Brasil em Fevereiro de 1932, para novo ciclo de conferências sobre o espiritismo. Entretanto, o seu estado de saúde era bastante grave quando desembarcou em Salvador, na Bahia, tendo decidido retornar com urgência a Lisboa. Faleceu em alto mar a bordo do vapor alemão "General Osório", dois dias depois de ter iniciado a viagem de regresso, tendo o seu corpo sido sepultado no mar. Foi vegetariana.

****Wikipédia

Mary Roberts Rinehart

Mary Roberts Rinehart (August 12, 1876 – September 22, 1958) was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie, although her first mystery novel was published 14 years before Christie's first novel in 1922. Rinehart is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it" from her novel The Door (1930), although the novel does not use the exact phrase. Rinehart is also considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing, with the publication of The Circular Staircase (1908). She also created a costumed super-criminal called "the Bat", cited by Bob Kane as one of the inspirations for his "Batman". Biography[edit] House where Mary Roberts Rinehart lived, and wrote The Circular Staircase, at 954 Beech Avenue in the Allegheny West neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Mary Roberts Rinehart was born Mary Ella Roberts in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, now a part of Pittsburgh. Her father was a frustrated inventor, and throughout her childhood, the family often had financial problems. Left-handed at a time when that was considered inappropriate, she was trained to use her right hand instead. She attended public schools and graduated at age 16, then enrolled at the Pittsburgh Training School for Nurses at Pittsburgh Homeopathic Hospital, where she graduated in 1896. She described the experience as "all the tragedy of the world under one roof." After graduation, she married Stanley Marshall Rinehart (1867–1932), a physician she had met there. They had three sons and one daughter: Stanley Jr., Frederick, Alan, and Elizabeth Glory. During the stock market crash of 1903, the couple lost their savings, spurring Rinehart's efforts at writing as a way to earn income. She was 27 that year, and produced 45 short stories. In 1907, she wrote The Circular Staircase, the novel that propelled her to national fame. According to her obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1958, the book sold 1.25 million copies. Her regular contributions to The Saturday Evening Post were immensely popular and helped the magazine mold American middle-class taste and manners. In 1911, after the publication of five successful books and two plays, the Rineharts moved to Glen Osborne, Pennsylvania, where they purchased a large home at the corner of Orchard and Linden Streets called "Cassella." Before they moved into the house, however, Mrs. Rinehart had to have the house completely rebuilt, as it had fallen into disrepair. "The venture was mine, and I had put every dollar I possessed into the purchase. All week long I wrote wildly to meet the payroll and contractor costs." she wrote in her autobiography. In 1925, the Rineharts sold the house to the Marks family and the house was demolished in 1969.[4] Today, a Mary Roberts Rinehart Nature Park sits in the borough of Glen Osborne at 1414 Beaver Street, Sewickley, Pennsylvania.[5] Rinehart's commercial success sometimes conflicted with her domestic roles of wife and mother, yet she often pursued adventure, including a job as a war correspondent for The Saturday Evening Post at the Belgian front during World War I.[6] During her time in Belgium, she interviewed Albert I of Belgium, Winston Churchill and Mary of Teck, writing of the latter, "This afternoon I am to be presented to the queen of England. I am to curtsey and to say 'Your majesty,' the first time!"[7] Rinehart was working in Europe in 1918 to report on developments to the War Department and was in Paris when the armistice was signed.[8] Mary Roberts Rinehart lunching after a morning's trouting on Flathead River, Glacier National Park (c. 1921) In 1922, the family moved to Washington, DC, when Dr. Rinehart was appointed to a post in the Veterans Administration. She was a member of the Literary Society of Washington from 1932 to 1936.[9] Her husband died in 1932, but she continued to live in Washington until 1935, when she moved to New York City. There she helped her sons found the publishing house Farrar & Rinehart, serving as its director. She also maintained a vacation home in Bar Harbor, Maine. In 1947, a Filipino chef who had worked for her for 25 years fired a gun at her and then attempted to slash her with knives, until other servants rescued her. The chef committed suicide in his cell the next day. Rinehart suffered from breast cancer, which led to a radical mastectomy. She eventually went public with her story, at a time when such matters were not openly discussed. The interview "I Had Cancer" was published in a 1947 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal; in it, Rinehart encouraged women to have breast examinations. "The Rinehart career was crowned with a Mystery Writers of America Special Award a year after she published her last novel ... and by the award, as early as 1923, of an honorary Doctorate in Literature from George Washington University."[1] On November 9, 1956, Rinehart appeared on the CBS Television interview program Person to Person.[10] She died at age 82 at her apartment at 630 Park Avenue in New York City.[11] Writing[edit] Rinehart wrote hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues and articles. Many of her books and plays were adapted for movies, such as The Bat (1926), The Bat Whispers (1930), Miss Pinkerton (1932), and The Bat (1959 remake). In 1933 RCA Victor released The Bat as one of the earliest talking book recordings. Based on Rinehart's novel Lost Ecstasy (1927), I Take This Woman (1931), starring Carole Lombard and Gary Cooper, was an early sound film based on Rinehart's works. While many of her books were best sellers, critics were most appreciative of her murder mysteries. Rinehart, in The Circular Staircase (1908), is credited with inventing the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing. In The Circular Staircase "a middle-aged spinster is persuaded by her niece and nephew to rent a country house for the summer. The gentle, peace-loving trio is plunged into a series of crimes solved with the help of the aunt."[12] The Had-I-But-Known mystery novel is one where the principal character (frequently female) does things in connection with a crime that have the effect of prolonging the action of the novel. Ogden Nash parodied the school in his poem Don't Guess Let Me Tell You: "Sometimes the Had I But Known then what I know now I could have saved at least three lives by revealing to the Inspector the conversation I heard through that fortuitous hole in the floor." The phrase "The butler did it," which has become a cliché, came from Rinehart's novel The Door, in which the butler actually did murder someone, although that exact phrase does not appear in the work.[13] Tim Kelly adapted Rinehart's play into a musical, The Butler Did It, Singing. This play includes five lead female roles and five lead male roles. ****Wikipédia

Maurice Leblanc

Maurice Leblanc (Rouen, 11 de novembro de 1864 — Perpignan, 6 de novembro de 1941) foi um escritor francês. Filho de um constructor naval. Estudou Direito e trabalhou certo tempo na empresa familiar. Mais tarde se fez conhecer em Paris com novelas analíticas, que conquistaram a estima e a proteção de Guy de Maupassant. Leblanc alcançou a fama por sua personagem Arsène Lupin, que apareceu pela primeira vez numa publicaçao mensal chamada "Je sais tout"(eu sei de tudo) entre 1905 e 1907, com o título Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur. Desde então, se dedicou quase exclusivamente às aventuras do seu herói, em várías novelas e recompilações de histórias. Biografia[editar | editar código-fonte] Em 1870 seu pai o manda para a Escócia, fugindo da guerra. Regressa no ano seguinte, passando a estudar no pensionato Patry e no Liceu Corneille, onde foi excelente aluno. Mais tarde esse fato o afligirá: "Ganhava todos os prêmios", dizia, "e declaro, com um romantismo consciente, que isso era deplorável." Em Croisset, para onde viajava freqüentemente, ouvirá histórias maravilhosas de Gustave Flaubert. Dois escritores normandos, como ele, irão influenciar de forma decisiva em sua juventude e em sua obra: Gustave de Flaubert e Guy de Maupassant. Entretanto, é como industrial que Maurice Leblanc inicia sua vida, na fábrica de cardas Mirourde-Pichard. As cardas... Ignorará sempre como se fabricam. Instala-se no lavatório da fábrica e lá escreve, escreve... "A fábrica, com seu barulho, se desvanecia. Evolava-se a turma dos operários, como fantasmas inúteis. Eu estava feliz, escrevia." Leblanc vai à inauguração do medalhão de Flaubert, no Square Solferino. Estão lá Edmond de Goncourt, Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant e Mirabeau. Junta-se a eles o jovem Leblanc, almoça com eles e toma o trem com os que regressam a Paris. Os mestres consagrados ouvem o jovem desconhecido, que lhes fala do Flaubert que conheceu, da mulher que inspirou a personagem de Madame Bovary. De volta a Rouen confessa ao pai a falta de vocação para construir cardas e a vontade de ir para Paris. Vai, no início, para estudar Direito, mas com sua desenvoltura para escrever se tornara um jornalista "muito parisiense". Suas crônicas saem no Gil Blas, no Figaro, no Comœdia... Publica a coleção de novelas "Des couples" e alguns romances, que mesmo comparados a Flaubert não têm muito sucesso. Pierre Laffitte, o grande editor que acabara de lançar a revista "Je Sais Tout", pede-lhe que escreva uma novela policial, cujo herói fosse o equivalente na França ao que representavam juntos Sherlock Holmes e Raffles na Inglaterra. Foi assim que, por encomenda, nasceu Arsène Lupin. Não se chama Arsène Lupin ainda, mas logo Leblanc o rebatiza. A personagem se impõe rapidamente. É diferente de Sherlock Holmes e de Raffles. Cada mês Arsène Lupin vive aventuras que nada devem às deduções feitas sobre pontas de cigarro ou marcas de passos, embora seu mistério venha de atmosferas criminais pesadas. Ao contrário, tudo na vida de Lupin é alegre, otimista e claro. Sabe-se logo que, se houve um roubo ou desaparecimento, o culpado é Arsène Lupin. Maurice Leblanc morreu de uma congestão pulmonar. Obras da série Arsène Lupin[editar | editar código-fonte] Maurice Leblanc escreveu também outras obras, mas foi com a série Arsène Lupin que se celebrizou. *****Wikipédia

Michael Gilbert

Michael Francis Gilbert, CBE (17 July 1912 – 8 February 2006) was a British writer of both fictional mysteries and thrillers who wrote as Michael Gilbert. Life and work[edit] Gilbert was a lawyer in London for many years and at one point had Raymond Chandler as his client.[1] He had a very long and very productive writing career, beginning with his first novel, Close Quarters, in 1946 and continuing through 1999 with Over and Out. He wrote almost every sort of mystery and thriller, perhaps spreading himself too thin over too many fields to achieve the reputation that many critics felt he deserved.[2] He wrote police procedurals, spy novels and short stories, courtroom dramas, classical mysteries, adventure thrillers, crime novels, and almost every possible combination of these, all with the same competence and dry, detached wit. He also wrote plays and serials for radio and TV[1] and non-fiction on legal topics.[3] Perhaps among his very best books are two collections of short stories about two gentlemanly but exceedingly hard-boiled fictional British counterspies, Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens, "middle-aged cut-throats" as one of their adversaries bitterly refers to them. One of his earliest novels, Smallbone Deceased, is also highly regarded by many, including writer and critic HRF Keating, who included it on his list of the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published.[2] Britain's Crime Writers' Association listed it in their Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time. Gilbert was educated at Blundell's School and the University of London, where he read Law.[2] After a spell teaching at a prep school, he joined the Honourable Artillery Company when war broke out, serving in North Africa and Italy. In 1943 he was captured and imprisoned in northern Italy, escaping after the Italian surrender.[2] His POW experience and the roughly 500-mile trek he and another escaping soldier made south to the Allied lines provided material in some of his later books.[1] Reportedly, much of his writing was done on the daily train from his home in Kent to his London law firm.[2] His busy practice included a stint as legal adviser to the government of Bahrain, another experience that surfaced in his books.[1] Gilbert was appointed CBE in 1980. He was a founder-member of the British Crime Writers' Association. The Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master in 1988.[2] In 1990, he was presented Bouchercon's Lifetime Achievement Award.[4] He was the father of the writer and broadcaster Harriett Gilbert and the Independent journalist Gerard Gilbert. ****Wikipédia

Michael Innes

John Innes Mackintosh Stewart (30 September 1906 – 12 November 1994) was a Scottish novelist and academic. He is equally well known for the works of literary criticism and contemporary novels published under his real name and for the crime fiction published under the pseudonym of Michael Innes. Many devotees of the Innes books were unaware of his other "identity", and vice versa. Stewart was born in Edinburgh, the son of Elizabeth Jane (née Clark) and John Stewart of Nairn. His father was a lawyer and Director of Education in the city of Edinburgh. Stewart attended Edinburgh Academy, where Robert Louis Stevenson had been a pupil for a short time, and later studied English literature at Oriel College, Oxford. It was here he was presented with the Matthew Arnold Memorial Prize and was named a Bishop Frazer's scholar. In 1929 he went to Vienna to study psychoanalysis. He was lecturer in English at the University of Leeds from 1930 to 1935 and then became Jury Professor of English in the University of Adelaide, South Australia.[1] He returned to the United Kingdom to become Lecturer in English at the Queen's University of Belfast from 1946 to 1948. In 1949 he became a Student (equivalent of Fellow in other Oxford colleges) of Christ Church, Oxford. By the time of his retirement in 1973, he was a professor of the university.[1] He died at Coulsdon. Stewart wrote several critical studies, including full-length studies of James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Hardy, as well as many novels and short stories. His last publication was his autobiography Myself and Michael Innes (1987). Michael Innes[edit] Between 1936 and 1986, Stewart, writing under the pseudonym of Michael Innes, published nearly fifty crime novels and short story collections, which he later described as "entertainments".[1] These abound in literary allusions and in what critics have variously described as "mischievous wit", "exuberant fancy" and a "tongue-in-cheek propensity" for intriguing turns of phrase.[1][2] Julian Symons identified Innes as one of the "farceurs"—crime writers for whom the detective story was "an over-civilized joke with a frivolity which makes it a literary conversation piece with detection taking place on the side"—and described Innes's writing as being "rather in the manner of Peacock strained through or distorted by Aldous Huxley".[3] His mysteries have also been described as combining "the elliptical introspection ... [of] a Jamesian character's speech, the intellectual precision of a Conradian description, and the amazing coincidences that mark any one of Hardy's plots".[1] The best-known of Innes's detective creations is Sir John Appleby, who is introduced in Death at the President's Lodging, in which he is a Detective Inspector at Scotland Yard. Appleby features in many of the later novels and short stories, in the course of which he rises to become Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Other novels feature portrait painter and Royal Academician, Charles Honeybath, an amateur but nonetheless effective sleuth. The two detectives meet in Appleby and Honeybath. Some of the later stories feature Appleby's son Bobby as sleuth. In 2007, his family transferred all the Innes copyrights and other legal rights to Owatonna Media. Owatonna Media on-sold these copyrights to Coolabi Plc in 2009, but retained a master licence in radio and audio rights. [4] Literary rights are currently held by John Stewart Literary Management, and published by House of Stratus. ****Wikipédia

Mickey Spillane

Frank Morrison Spillane (March 9, 1918 – July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, many featuring his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally. Spillane was also an occasional actor, once even playing Hammer himself.Born in Brooklyn, New York City, and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Spillane was the only child of his Irish bartender father, John Joseph Spillane, and his Scottish mother, Catherine Anne. Spillane attended Erasmus Hall High School, graduating in 1935.[3] He started writing while in high school, briefly attended Fort Hays State College in Kansas and worked a variety of jobs, including summers as a lifeguard at Breezy Point, Queens, and a period as a trampoline artist for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. During World War II Spillane enlisted in the Army Air Corps, becoming a fighter pilot and a flight instructor.[4] While flying over Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, he said, "That is where I want to live."[5] Later, he would use his celebrity status to publicize the Grand Strand on TV, but when it became a popular resort area and traffic became a problem, Spillane said, "I shouldn't have told people about it."[5] Photo of Lt. Frank M. Spillane from Greenwood Army Air Field yearbook for 1943. He was an active Jehovah's Witness.[6] Mickey and Mary Ann Spillane had four children (Caroline, Kathy, Michael, Ward), and their marriage ended in 1962. In November 1965, he married his second wife, nightclub singer Sherri Malinou. After that marriage ended in divorce (and a lawsuit) in 1983, Spillane shared his waterfront house in Murrells Inlet with his third wife, Jane Rogers Johnson, whom he married in October 1983, and her two daughters (Jennifer and Margaret Johnson). In the 1960s, Spillane became a friend of the novelist Ayn Rand. Despite their apparent differences, Rand admired Spillane's literary style, and Spillane became, as he described it, a "fan" of Rand's work.[7] In 1989, Hurricane Hugo ravaged his Murrells Inlet house to such a degree it had to be almost entirely reconstructed. A television interview showed Spillane standing in the ruins of his house. He received an Edgar Allan Poe Grand Master Award in 1995. Spillane's novels went out of print, but in 2001, the New American Library began reissuing them. Spillane died July 17, 2006 at his home in Murrells Inlet, of pancreatic carcinoma.[8][9][10] After his death, his friend and literary executor, Max Allan Collins, began the task of editing and completing Spillane's unpublished typescripts, beginning with a Mike Hammer novel, The Goliath Bone (2008). In July 2011, the town of Murrells Inlet named U.S 17 Business the "Mickey Spillane Waterfront 17 Highway." The proposal first passed the Georgetown County Council in 2006 while Spillane was still alive, but the South Carolina General Assembly rejected the plan then.[5] He is survived by his wife, Jane Spillane. Writing career[edit] Comic books[edit] Spillane started as a writer for comic books. While working as a salesman in Gimbels department store basement in 1940, he met tie salesman Joe Gill, who later found a lifetime career in scripting for Charlton Comics. Gill told Spillane to meet his brother, Ray Gill, who wrote for Funnies Inc., an outfit that packaged comic books for different publishers. Spillane soon began writing an eight-page story every day. He concocted adventures for major 1940s comic book characters, including Captain Marvel, Superman, Batman and Captain America. Two-page text stories, which he wrote in the mid-1940s for Timely, appeared under his name and were collected in Primal Spillane (Gryphon Books, 2003). Novels[edit] Spillane joined the United States Army Air Forces on December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the mid-1940s he was stationed as a flight instructor in Greenwood, Mississippi, where he met and married Mary Ann Pearce in 1945. The couple wanted to buy a country house in the town of Newburgh, New York, 60 miles north of New York City, so Spillane decided to boost his bank account by writing a novel. In 19 days he wrote I, the Jury. At the suggestion of Ray Gill, he sent it to E. P. Dutton. With the combined total of the 1947 hardcover and the Signet paperback (December 1948), I, the Jury sold 6 1/2 million copies in the United States alone. I, the Jury introduced Spillane's most famous character, hardboiled detective Mike Hammer. Although tame by current standards, his novels featured more sex than competing titles, and the violence was more overt than the usual detective story.[2] An early version of Spillane's Mike Hammer character, called Mike Danger, was submitted in a script for a detective-themed comic book. " 'Mike Hammer originally started out to be a comic book. I was gonna have a Mike Danger comic book,' [Spillane] said in a 1984 interview."[11] Two Mike Danger comic-book stories were published in 1954 without Spillane's knowledge, as well as one featuring Mike Lancer (1942). These were published with other material in "Byline: Mickey Spillane," edited by Max Allan Collins and Lynn F. Myers, Jr. (Crippen & Landru publishers, 2004). ****Wikipédia

Mignon G. Eberhart

Mignon Good Eberhart (July 6, 1899, Lincoln, Nebraska – October 8, 1996, Greenwich, Connecticut) was an American author of mystery novels. She had one of the longest careers (from the 1920s to the 1980s) among major American mystery writers. Mignonette Good was born July 6, 1899, in Lincoln, Nebraska.[1] As a teenager, Good often wrote short stories and novels to occupy herself.[2] From 1917 to 1920, she attended Nebraska Wesleyan University, but did not complete the coursework for a degree.[3] In 1923, she married Alanson Clyde Eberhart,[2] and began writing short stories to combat boredom. Within several years, she had begun writing novels.[3] In 1929, she published her first novel, The Patient in Room 18.[2] Her second novel, While the Patient Slept, received the $5000 Scotland Yard Prize in 1931. Four years later, her alma mater presented her with an honorary doctorate.[3] By the end of the 1930s, Eberhart had become the leading female crime novelist in the United States and was one of the highest-paid female crime novelists in the world, next to Agatha Christie. Known as "America's Agatha Christie,"[4] she wrote a total of 59 novels, the last published in 1988, shortly before her 89th birthday.[3] Eight of her novels were adapted as movies, beginning in 1935 with While the Patient Slept. The last adaptation, based on the book Hasty Wedding, was the movie Three's a Crowd, released in 1945.[5] The normally prolific Eberhart wrote fewer books in the 1940s, possibly due to upheaval in her personal life.[5] After 20 years of marriage, she divorced Alanson Eberhart, and in 1946 married John Hazen Perry.[3] But within two years, she had divorced Perry and remarried Eberhart.[4] The Eberharts remained married until his death in 1974. Eberhart was one of the founders of the modern romantic suspense novel.[4] In an unusual twist for the time, her mysteries featured female heroines. The year after her first novel was published, Agatha Christie followed her lead and introduced another female detective, Jane Marple.[6] Her works often featured female heroines, and tended to include exotic locations, wealthy characters, and suspense and romance.[3] Her characterization is good, and her characters always have "genuine and believable motives for everything they do." Her "writing is spare but almost lyrical."[4] In 1971, she was awarded the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award. Eberhart also served as president of the Mystery Writers of America.[2] In 1994, she received the Agatha Award: Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement. Eberhart died in 1996. She is buried at Long Island National Cemetery, a Veterans Administration burial site, beside husband Alanson Eberhart, who had served as a Navy lieutenant commander in World War II. In 2007, a posthumous collection of her short stories, Dead Yesterday and Other Stories, was edited by Rick Cypert and Kirby McCauley, and published by Crippen & Landru. ****Wikipédia

Minette Walters

Minette Walters (born 26 September 1949) is an English crime writer.After her birth in Bishop's Stortford to a serving army officer, Capt Samuel Jebb (Royal Signals) and his wife Colleen, the first 10 years of Minette's life were spent moving between army bases in the north and south of England. Following the death of her father from kidney failure in 1960, Minette spent a year at the Abbey School in Reading, Berkshire, before being granted a free Foundation Scholarship at the Godolphin boarding school in Salisbury. During a gap year between school and Durham University, 1968, she went to Israel as a volunteer with The Bridge in Britain, working on a kibbutz and in a delinquent boys' home in Jerusalem. She graduated from Trevelyan College, Durham in 1971 with a BA in French. Minette met her husband Alec Walters while she was at Durham and they married in 1978. They have two sons, Roland and Philip. Walters joined IPC Magazines as a sub-editor in 1972 and became an editor of Woman's Weekly Library the following year. She supplemented her salary by writing romantic novelettes, short stories and serials in her spare time. She turned freelance in 1977 but continued to write for magazines to cover her bills. Her first full-length novel, The Ice House, was published in 1992. It took two and a half years to write and was rejected by numerous publishing houses until Maria Rejt, Macmillan Publishers, bought it for £1250. Within four months, it had won the Crime Writers' Association John Creasey award for best first novel[1] and had been snapped up by 11 foreign publishers. With her next two books, The Sculptress and The Scold's Bridle, Walters won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award and the CWA Gold Dagger respectively, giving her a unique treble. She was the first crime/thriller writer to win three major prizes with her first three books. Walter's themes include isolation, family dysfunction, rejection, marginalisation, justice and revenge. Her novels are often set against real backgrounds and real events to draw her readers into the 'reality' of what she is writing about. With no series character tying her to particular people, places or times, she moves freely around settings – a sink estate (Acid Row), a Dorset village (Fox Evil), a suburb of London (The Shape of Snakes) – although every setting is 'claustrophobic' to encourage the characters 'to turn on each other'. Walters describes herself as an exploratory writer who never uses a plot scheme, begins with simple premises, has no idea 'whodunit' until half-way through a story, but who remains excited about each novel because she, along with her reader, wants to know what happens next. As part of the British project 'Quick Reads', to encourage literacy amongst adults with reading difficulties, Walters wrote a 20,000-word novella called Chickenfeed. In competition with works by other best-selling authors, such as Ruth Rendell, Maeve Binchy and Joanna Trollope, Chickenfeed has won two awards as the best novella in the 'Quick Reads' genre. It has also been translated into several languages. In September 2007, Walters released her fourteenth book, The Chameleon's Shadow, in the UK. On 3–7 March 2008, BBC2 aired Murder Most Famous,[2] a five-part TV talent contest series, in which Walters tutors and judges six competing celebrity writers, with the winner having his or her crime fiction novel published by Pan Macmillan on World Book Day 2009. The series was won by the actress Sherrie Hewson, whose debut novel The Tannery was published in March 2009. Since publishing The Chameleon's Shadow Walters has been working on a novel set during the Black Death. ****Wikipédia

Nancy Barr Mavity

Nancy Barr Mavity (1890-1959) was an American biographer and reviewer. She was born Nann Clark Barr and married Arthur Benton Mavity, with whom she wrote Responsible Citizenship in 1923. She was a reporter and the book reviewer for the Oakland Tribune. She also published a volume of poetry, A Dinner of Herbs. She also wrote a number of travel articles in the '20's for Sunset Magazine when she traveled on her own to Japan, China, Indonesia Australia and New Zealand. She was widowed when her first husband Arthur Benton Mavity passed away in the midst of her writing career and she remarried a photographer, "Doc" Rogers, who had photographed the great San Francisco earthquake and fire. She also wrote articles and biographies, including one of Aimee Semple Macpherson. Mike Grost classifies her within the American Scientific school. Her series detective is Peter Piper, who appears in all but her final two mystery novels. ****http://gadetection.pbworks.com/w/page/7931030/Mavity,%20Nancy%20Barr

Ngaio Marsh

Dame Ngaio Marsh DBE (23 April 1895 – 18 February 1982), born Edith Ngaio Marsh, was a New Zealand crime writer and theatre director. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966. Internationally Marsh is known primarily for her creation Inspector Roderick Alleyn, a gentleman detective who works for the Metropolitan Police (London). She is known as one of the "Queens of Crime" alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Margery Allingham. Marsh was born in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, where she also died. Her father neglected to register her birth until 1900 and there is some uncertainty about the date.[1] She was the only child of Rose and bank clerk Henry Marsh, described by Marsh as "have-nots."[2] Her mother's sister Ruth married the geologist, lecturer, and curator Robert Speight.[3] Ngaio Marsh was educated at St Margaret's College in Christchurch, where she was one of the first students when the school was founded. She studied painting at the Canterbury College (NZ) School of Art before joining the Allan Wilkie company as an actress and touring New Zealand. From 1928 she divided her time between living in New Zealand and in the United Kingdom.[4] From 1928 to 1932 she operated an interior decorating business in Knightsbridge, London.[5] Career[edit] Internationally she is best known for her 32 detective novels published between 1934 and 1982. Along with Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and Agatha Christie, she has been classed as one of the four original "Queens of Crime"—female writers who dominated the crime fiction genre in the Golden Age of the 1920s and 1930s. All her novels feature British CID detective Roderick Alleyn. Several novels feature Marsh's other loves, the theatre and painting. A number are set around theatrical productions (Enter a Murderer, Vintage Murder, Overture to Death, Opening Night, Death at the Dolphin, and Light Thickens), and two others are about actors off stage (Final Curtain and False Scent). Her short story "'I Can Find My Way Out" is also set around a theatrical production and is the earlier "Jupiter case" referred to in Opening Night. Alleyn marries a painter, Agatha Troy, whom he meets during an investigation (Artists in Crime), and who features in several later novels. Most of the novels are set in England, but four are set in New Zealand, with Alleyn either on secondment to the New Zealand police (Colour Scheme, and Died in the Wool), or on holiday (Vintage Murder and Photo Finish); Surfeit of Lampreys begins in New Zealand but continues in London. Theatre[edit] Marsh's great passion was the theatre. In 1942 she produced a modern-dress Hamlet for the Canterbury University College Drama Society (now University of Canterbury Dramatic Society Incorporated or Dramasoc[6]), the first of many Shakespearean productions with the society until 1969. In 1944, Hamlet and a production of Othello toured a theatre-starved New Zealand to rapturous acclaim. In 1949, assisted by entrepreneur Dan O'Connor, her student players toured Australia with a new version of Othello and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. In the 1950s she was involved with the New Zealand Players, a relatively short-lived national professional touring repertory company. In 1972 she was invited by the Christchurch City Council to direct Shakespeare's Henry V, the inaugural production for the opening of the newly constructed James Hay Theatre in Christchurch; she made the unusual choice of casting two male leads, who alternated on different nights. She lived long enough to see New Zealand set up with a viable professional theatre industry with realistic Arts Council support, with many of her protégés to the forefront. The 430-seat Ngaio Marsh Theatre at the University of Canterbury is named in her honour.[7] Her home on the Cashmere Hills is preserved as a museum.[8] Personal life[edit] She never married nor had children and had close friendships with women "companions", most notably her lifelong friend Sylvia Fox. Marsh also wore trousers and had a deep voice, but denied flatly that she was a lesbian throughout her life, according to her biographer Joanne Drayton.[2] 'I think Ngaio Marsh wanted the freedom of being who she was in a world, especially in a New Zealand that was still very conformist in its judgments of what constituted ‘decent jokers, good Sheilas, and ‘weirdos’’,' Roy Vaughan wrote after meeting her on a P&O Liner.[9] In 1965 she published an autobiography, Black Beech and Honeydew. British author and publisher Margaret Lewis wrote an authorized biography, Ngaio Marsh, A Life in 1991. New Zealand art historian Joanne Drayton's biography, Ngaio Marsh: Her Life in Crime was published in 2008. She died in Christchurch, and was buried at the Church of the Holy Innocents, Mount Peel. ****Wikipédia

Nicholas Blake

Nicholas Blake Born in Ballintubbert, Ireland April 27, 1904 DiedMay 22, 1972 GenreMystery & Thrillers, Poetry, Children's Books edit data Nicholas Blake is the pseudonym of poet Cecil Day-Lewis C. Day Lewis who was born in Ireland in 1904. He was the son of the Reverend Frank Cecil Day-Lewis and his wife Kathleen (nee Squires). His mother died in 1906 and he and his father moved to London where he was brought up by his father with the help of an aunt. He spent his holidays in Wrexford and regarded himself very much as anglo-irish, although when the Republic of Ireland was declared in 1948 he chose British citizenship. He was married twice, to Mary King in 1928 and to Jill Balcon in 1951 and during the 1940s he had a long love affair with novelist Rosamond Lehmann. He had four children from his two marriages with actor Daniel Day-Lewis, documentary filmmaker and television chef Tamasin Day-Lewis and TV critic and writer Sean Day-Lewis being three of his children. He began work as a schoolmaster and during World War II he worked as a publications editor in the Ministry of Information. After the war he joined Chatto & Windus as a senior editor and director and then in 1946 he began lecturing at Cambridge University. He later taught poetry at Oxford University, where he was Professor of Poetry from 1951-1956 and from 1962-1963 he was the Norton Professor at Harvard University. But he was by then earning his living mainly from his writings, having had some poetry published in the late 1920s and early 1930s and then in 1935 beginning his career as a thriller writer with 'A Question of Proof', which featured his amateur sleuth Nigel Strangeways, reputedly modelled on W H Auden. He continued the Strangeways series, which finally totalled 16 novels ending with 'The Morning After Death' in 1966. He also wrote four detective novels which did not feature Strangeways. He continued to write poetry and became Poet Laureate in 1968, a post he held until his death in 1972. He was also awarded the CBE. He died from pancreatic cancer on 22 May 1972 at the Hertfordshire home of Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard, where he and his wife were staying. He is buried in Stinsford churchyard, close to the grave of one of his heroes Thomas Hardy, something that he had arranged before his death. *****http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/99752.Nicholas_Blake

Nicolas Freeling

Nicolas Freeling, born Nicolas Davidson (March 3, 1927 – July 20, 2003), was a British crime novelist, best known as the author of the Van der Valk series of detective novels. A television series based on the character was produced for the British ITV network by Thames Television during the 1970s, and revived in the 1990s. Freeling was born in London, but travelled widely, and ended his life at his long-standing home at Grandfontaine to the west of Strasbourg. He had followed a variety of occupations, including the armed services and the catering profession. He began writing during a three-week prison sentence, after being convicted of taking home some veal from a restaurant where he worked, though this was common practice in the restaurant trade.[citation needed] Freeling's The King of the Rainy Country received a 1967 Edgar Award, from the Mystery Writers of America, for Best Novel Gun Before Butter won France's Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and was a runner up for the 1963 Gold Dagger Award. In 1968 his novel Love in Amsterdam was adapted as the film Amsterdam Affair directed by Gerry O'Hara and starring Wolfgang Kieling as Van Der Valk. ****Wikipédia

Pat McGerr

Patricia ("Pat") McGerr (1917–1985) was an American crime writer, primarily known for her puzzle mystery novels. She won an Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine/MWA prize for her 1968 story Match Point in Berlin and was awarded the Grand Prix de Literature Policiere in 1952 for her 1951 novel Follow, As the Night (adapted as the 1954 film Bonnes à tuer, aka One Step to Eternity). Her first novel, Pick Your Victim (1946), was selected as one of the Fifty Classics of Crime Fiction, 1900-1950.[1] She was born in Falls City, Nebraska and grew up in Lincoln. She earned a bachelor's degree at University of Nebraska, Lincoln and a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University.[1] She is principally known for having created a hitherto-unknown twist on the traditional whodunnit. Her best-known novel, Pick Your Victim (1946),[2] tells the story of a small group of American soldiers in an isolated Arctic base who are desperate for reading material and diversion. They find a torn scrap of newspaper which has arrived as the cushioning for a parcel. The torn scrap tells part of the story of a man who has been convicted of a murder, and who is known personally by one of the GIs—the murderer is identified, but the name of the victim has been torn away. The GIs form a betting pool and pump their informant for every bit of information about any potential victim to enable them to better place their bets, and the story told by the informant is the body of the novel. At the end, the name of the victim is revealed. McGerr's other novels were sometimes ingenious but rarely commercially successful. The Seven Deadly Sisters (1947)[3] attempts a similar inversion of the whodunnit formula, with less success. The reader learns that one of seven sisters has murdered her husband, but which sister is not known until the end. Near the end of her writing career, McGerr created a continuing character, Selena Mead, who became involved in espionage-based plots in and around Washington D.C. The 1954 French film One Step to Eternity was based on one of her novels. McGerr also wrote Johnny Lingo and the Eight Cow Wife, which was the basis for the 1969 movie Johnny Lingo made by the BYU Film Studio.[4] More recently, the 2003 film, The Legend of Johnny Lingo, was also based upon her story. ****Wikipédia

Patrick Quentin

Patrick Quentin, Q. Patrick and Jonathan Stagge were pen names under which Hugh Callingham Wheeler (19 March 1912 – 26 July 1987), Richard Wilson Webb (August 1901 – December 1966), Martha Mott Kelley (30 April 1906 – 2005) and Mary Louise White Aswell (3 June 1902 – 24 December 1984) wrote detective fiction. In some foreign countries their books have been published under the variant Quentin Patrick. Most of the stories were written by Webb and Wheeler in collaboration, or by Wheeler alone. Their most famous creation is the amateur sleuth Peter Duluth. In 1963, the story collection The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow was given a Special Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. In 1931 Richard Wilson Webb (born in 1901 in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, an Englishman working for a pharmaceutical company in Philadelphia) and Martha Mott Kelley collaborated on the detective novel Cottage Sinister. Kelley was known as Patsy (Patsy Kelly was a well-known character actress of that era) and Webb as Rick, so they created the pseudonym Q. Patrick by combining their nicknames—adding the Q "because it was unusual". Webb's and Kelley's literary partnership ended with Kelley's marriage to Stephen Wilson. Webb continued to write under the Q. Patrick name, while looking for a new writing partner. Although he wrote two novels with the journalist and Harper's Bazaar editor Mary Louise Aswell, he would find his permanent collaborator in Hugh Wheeler, a Londoner who had moved to the US in 1934. Wheeler's and Webb's first collaboration was published in 1936. That same year, they introduced two new pseudonyms: Murder Gone to Earth, the first novel featuring Dr. Westlake, was credited to Jonathan Stagge, a name they would continue to use for the rest of the Westlake series. A Puzzle for Fools introduced Peter Duluth and was signed Patrick Quentin. This would become their primary and most famous pen name, even though they also continued to use Q. Patrick until the end of their collaboration (particularly for Inspector Trant stories). In the late 1940s, Webb's contributions gradually decreased due to health problems. From the 1950s and on, Wheeler continued writing as Patrick Quentin on his own, and also had one book published under his own name. In the 1960s and '70s, Wheeler achieved success as a playwright and librettist, and his output as Quentin Patrick slowed and then ceased altogether after 1965. However, Wheeler did write the book for the 1979 musical Sweeney Todd about a fictional London mass murderer, showing he had not altogether abandoned the genre. The early Q. Patrick detective stories generally follow the Golden Age "whodunit" conventions, with elaborate puzzle mysteries reminiscent of Agatha Christie or John Dickson Carr. From the time when Wheeler joined the writing, the stories become more psychologically acute, with increasingly realistic, fleshed-out characters. In the 1940s, the stories start to move away from the traditional detective pattern: Puzzle for Fiends is a Hitchcockian thriller, Puzzle for Pilgrims a film noir in written form, and Run to Death a pulpy spy novel. The majority of the Webb-Wheeler collaborations feature one of their recurring characters: Peter Duluth, a Broadway director, WWII veteran and recovering alcoholic who, with his wife Iris, always seems to stumble across murders; Inspector Timothy Trant of the New York Police, a Princeton-educated dandy whose remorseless investigations often seem to be aimed at some innocent person before he reveals his real target; and the country doctor, Dr. Hugh Cavendish Westlake with his daughter Dawn. When Webb bowed out on the writing, these characters disappeared or receded into the background. The late Patrick Quentin novels are increasingly dark and brooding. Deceit and betrayal, particularly adultery, already a frequent theme, becomes even more central. Although at the end of the story the murder is solved, the impact of the crime, and the corruption uncovered in the investigation, remain. ****Wikipédia

Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 – February 4, 1995) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for her psychological thrillers, which led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. Highsmith wrote 22 novels, including her series of five novels with Tom Ripley as protagonist, and many short stories. Michael Dirda observed, "Europeans honored her as a psychological novelist, part of an existentialist tradition represented by her own favorite writers, in particular Dostoyevsky, Conrad, Kafka, Gide, and Camus." Highsmith was born Mary Patricia Plangman in Fort Worth, Texas. She was the only child of artists Jay Bernard Plangman (1889–1975), who was of German descent,[3] and Mary Plangman (née Coates; September 13, 1895 – March 12, 1991). The couple divorced ten days before their daughter's birth.[4] In 1927, Highsmith, her mother and her adoptive stepfather, artist Stanley Highsmith, whom her mother had married in 1924, moved to New York City.[4] When she was 12 years old, Highsmith was sent to Fort Worth and lived with her grandmother for a year. She called this the "saddest year" of her life and felt "abandoned" by her mother. She returned to New York to continue living with her mother and stepfather, primarily in Manhattan, but also in Astoria, Queens. According to Highsmith, her mother once told her that she had tried to abort her by drinking turpentine, although a biography of Highsmith indicates Jay Plangman tried to persuade his wife to have the abortion but she refused.[4] Highsmith never resolved this love–hate relationship, which reportedly haunted her for the rest of her life, and which she fictionalized in her short story "The Terrapin", about a young boy who stabs his mother to death.[4] Highsmith's mother predeceased her by four years, dying at the age of 95. Highsmith's grandmother taught her to read at an early age, and she made good use of her grandmother's extensive library. At the age of nine, she found a resemblance to her own imaginative life in the case histories of The Human Mind by Karl Menninger, a popularizer of Freudian analysis.[4] In 1942, Highsmith graduated from Barnard College, where she studied English composition, playwriting, and the short story.[4] After graduating from college, she applied without success for work at such magazines as Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, The New Yorker, Mademoiselle, and Good Housekeeping, offering "impressive" recommendations from "highly placed" professionals.[4] Personal life[edit] According to her biographer Andrew Wilson, Highsmith's personal life was a "troubled one;" she was an alcoholic who, allegedly, never had an intimate relationship that lasted for more than a few years, and she was seen by some of her contemporaries and acquaintances as misanthropic and cruel.[5] She famously preferred the company of animals to that of people and once said, "My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people."[6] Highsmith loved cats, and she bred about three hundred snails in her garden at home in Suffolk, England.[7] Highsmith once attended a London cocktail party with a "gigantic handbag" that "contained a head of lettuce and a hundred snails" which she said were her "companions for the evening".[7] "She was a mean, cruel, hard, unlovable, unloving human being", said publisher Otto Penzler. "I could never penetrate how any human being could be that relentlessly ugly."[8] Other friends and acquaintances held different views of Highsmith. Editor Gary Fisketjon, who published her later novels through Knopf, said that "She was very rough, very difficult...But she was also plainspoken, dryly funny, and great fun to be around."[8] Phyllis Nagy, who adapted Highsmith's second novel The Price of Salt into the film Carol, said that Highsmith was "very sweet" and "encouraging" to her as a young writer, as well as "wonderfully funny".[9][10] Highsmith loved woodworking tools and made several pieces of furniture. She worked without stopping. In later life, her stance became stooped, with an osteoporotic hump.[4] Though her writing – 22 novels and 8 books of short stories – was highly acclaimed, especially outside of the United States, Highsmith preferred her personal life to remain private.[11] Highsmith was a lifelong diarist. She left behind eight thousand pages of handwritten notebooks and diaries.[12] Sexuality[edit] Highsmith appearing on the British television discussion programme After Dark in June 1988 Highsmith had sexual relationships mostly with women.[13] Although she had occasionally engaged in sex with men she did not feel physical attraction for them and wrote in her diary that "the male face...isn't beautiful to me."[14][a] She never married or had children. In 1943, Highsmith had an affair with artist Allela Cornell, who committed suicide in 1946 by drinking nitric acid.[5] During her stay at the Yaddo artist's colony in 1948,[15] Highsmith met British novelist Marc Brandel (the son of J.D. Beresford) and entered into a short-lived relationship with him.[16] While she was working on Strangers on a Train, he convinced her to visit him in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he introduced her to painter Ann Smith, and the two became involved. After Smith left Provincetown, Highsmith felt she was "in prison" with Brandel and told him she was leaving. "[B]ecause of that I have to sleep with him, and only the fact that it is the last night strengthens me to bear it." Highsmith, who had never been sexually exclusive with Brandel, resented having sex with him. In a 1970 letter to her stepfather Stanley, Highsmith described their sexual encounters as "steel wool in the face, a sensation of being raped in the wrong place—leading to a sensation of having to have, pretty soon, a boewl [sic] movement." Highsmith temporarily broke off the relationship with Brandel and continued to be involved with several women; reuniting after the well-received publication of his new novel. Beginning November 30, 1948, and continuing for the next six months, Highsmith underwent psychoanalysis in an effort "to regularize herself sexually" so she could marry Brandel. To help pay for the therapy she took a sales job in the toy section of Bloomingdale's department store. The analysis was brought to a stop by Highsmith, after which she ended her relationship with Brandel.[14] Ironically, it was during this attempt to 'cure' her homosexuality that Highsmith was inspired to write The Price of Salt, in which two women meet in a department store and begin a passionate affair.[17] In early September 1951, she began an affair with sociologist Ellen Blumenthal Hill, traveling back and forth to Europe to meet with her.[4] When Highsmith and Hill came to New York in early May 1953, their affair ostensibly "in a fragile state," Highsmith began an "impossible" affair with the German homosexual photographer Rolf Tietgens, who had played a "sporadic, intense, and unconsummated role in her emotional life since 1943."[4] She was reportedly attracted to Tietgens on account of his homosexuality, confiding that she felt with him "as if he is another girl, or a singularly innocent man." Tietgens shot several nude photographs of Highsmith, but only one has survived.[18] It has been torn in half at the waist so that only her upper body appears.[4] She dedicated The Two Faces of January (1964) to Tietgens. Between 1959 and 1961, she fell in love with Marijane Meaker,[19] who wrote under the pseudonyms "Vin Packer" and "Ann Aldrich" and later wrote young adult fiction as "M.E. Kerr".[19][20] In the late 1980s, after 27 years of separation, Highsmith began corresponding with Meaker again, and one day showed up on Meaker's doorstep, slightly drunk and ranting bitterly. Meaker later said she was horrified at how Highsmith's personality had changed.[b] Religious and racial views[edit] Highsmith was a "consummate" atheist. She was never comfortable with black people and she was outspokenly anti-semitic. When she was living in Switzerland in the 1980s, she used nearly 40 aliases when writing to various government bodies and newspapers deploring the state of Israel and the "influence" of the Jews. Nevertheless, some of her best friends were Jewish, such as authors Arthur Koestler[21] and Saul Bellow.[5] Her work was assessed as having a "misogynist streak,"[22] particularly after the publication of her short-stories collection Little Tales of Misogyny.[23][c] Politics[edit] Highsmith believed in American democratic ideals and in "the promise" of U.S. history, but she was also highly critical of the reality of the country's 20th-century culture and foreign policy. Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes, her 1987 anthology of short stories, was notoriously anti-American, and she often cast her homeland in a deeply unflattering light. Beginning in 1963, she resided exclusively in Europe.[4] She retained her United States citizenship, despite the tax penalties, of which she complained bitterly while living for many years in France and Switzerland. Death[edit] Highsmith died of aplastic anemia and cancer in Locarno, Switzerland, aged 74. She was cremated at the cemetery in Bellinzona, and a memorial service was conducted at the Catholic Church in Tegna, Switzerland.[4] She left her estate, worth an estimated $3 million, and the promise of any future royalties to the Yaddo colony, where she spent two months in 1948 writing the draft of Strangers on a Train.[15][d] Patricia Highsmith bequeathed her literary estate to the Swiss Literary Archives at the Swiss National Library in Bern, Switzerland. ****Wikipédia

Patricia Wentworth

Patricia Wentworth (nascida Dora Amy Elles ; 10 de novembro de 1878 — 28 de janeiro de 1961) foi uma escritora britânica especializada em romances policiais. Foi a criadora da personagem "Miss Silver". Patrícia nasceu em Mussoori, Uttarakhand, India (então Índia britânica), e foi educada na “Blackheath High School”, em Londres. Após a morte de seu primeiro marido, George F. Dillon, em 1906, ela se fixou em Camberley, Surrey; casou, em 1920, com George Oliver Turnbull, e tiveram uma filha. Patrícia escreveu uma série de 32 romances policiais que apresentavam a personagem Miss Silver, sendo que o primeiro deles foi publicado em 1928, e o último no ano de sua morte. Miss Silver é comparada, algumas vezes, com Jane Marple, a detetive criada por Agatha Christie. Miss Silver é uma governanta aposentada que se torna detetive particular, e trabalha em estreita colaboração com a Scotland Yard, especialmente com o inspetor Frank Abbott. Ela gosta de citar o poeta Alfred Tennyson, e é bem conhecida nos círculos sociais. “Na maioria dos casos, há um jovem casal cujo romance parece malogrado por causa do assassinato a ser resolvido, mas nas mãos do competente Miss Silver o caso é resolvido, o jovem casal é exonerado, e tudo fica certo no seu mundo tradicional” . Wentworth também escreveu 34 livros fora da série com Miss Silver. Ela venceu o Prêmio Melrose em 1910 por seu primeiro romance A Marriage Under The Terror, ambientado durante a Revolução Francesa. ****Wikipédia

Peter Cheyney

Reginald Evelyn Peter Southouse Cheyney (Londres, 1896 — 1951) foi um escritor britânico de livros de mistério que teve bastante sucesso entre 1936 e 1951. Cheyney é considerado por muitos como o primeiro autor britânico a escrever o género literário hard-boiled, ou romance policial negro. Peter Cheyney nasceu em 22 de Fevereiro de 1896 em Londres, sendo o mais novo de cinco irmãos. Após terminar os estudos no Clark's College, trabalhou num escritório de advogados. Porém, a vida sedentária e rotineira de um escritório não o seduziu e em breve decidiu seguir as pegadas do irmão mais velho e enveredar pelo mundo do espectáculo. Durante a Primeira Guerra Mundial trabalhou no Labour Corps Record Office. Neste período publicou dois volumes de poemas. O sucesso chegou-lhe tarde na vida. A publicação do seu primeiro romance policial em 1936 (This Man is Dangerous) pô-lo finalmente no caminho da fama. Os seus grandes heróis são Lemmy Caution, um agente do FBI, e Slim Callaghan, um detective particular. Cheyney era um homem alto e vistoso, usava sempre um cravo vermelho na lapela e um monóculo de ouro. Sabia jogar golfe, judo e boxe, e conduzia um automóvel desportivo. Cheyney viveu em grande estilo e deixou fortuna. Muitas das suas obras foram adaptadas ao cinema, algumas protagonizadas por Eddie Constantine. Criou outras personagens incluindo Alonzo MacTavish, Julia Herron, Abie Hy-mie Finkelstein, Etienne MacGregor, Everard Peter Quayle e os detectives privados Nicholas Gale, Terence O'Day, Johnny Vallon e Carlyle O'Hara. Peter Cheyney morreu em Junho de 1951. ****Wikipédia

Peter Lovesey

Peter (Harmer) Lovesey (born 1936), also known by his pen name Peter Lear, is a British writer of historical and contemporary detective novels and short stories. His best-known series characters are Sergeant Cribb, a Victorian-era police detective based in London, and Peter Diamond, a modern-day police detective in Bath. Early life Lovesey was born in Middlesex, England, and attended Hampton Grammar School. He went to Reading University in 1955 but since he did not have the requisite Latin qualification, he chose a degree in Fine Art which included History and English as elective subjects. Two of his English tutors, John Wain (1925–94) and Frank Kermode (1919-2010), thought well enough of Lovesey's essays to get him into the English course after all. He graduated from Reading with an honours degree in 1958; he then did three years of National Service in the Royal Air Force. Signing up for the third year - National Service was ordinarily for two years - enabled him to train, and obtain better pay, as an Education Officer. When he left the Air Force it also gave him an edge in starting his teaching career. He married Jacqueline (Jax) Lewis, whom he had met at Reading, in 1959. Teaching career Lovesey's career in education lasted fourteen years. He started as a Lecturer in English at Thurrock Technical College in Essex, 1961; he then became Head of the General Education Department at London’s Hammersmith College for Further Education (now West London College). He quit teaching to become a full-time writer in 1975. Later life Peter Lovesey lives near Chichester. His son Phil Lovesey also writes crime novels. His son was born in 1963 and worked as an English teacher at Wolverhampton Grammar School until the end of the autumn 2012. His daughter, Kathy Lovesey, was born in 1960, and now lives with her family in Greenwich, Connecticut. ****Wikipédia

Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler (Chicago, 23 de Julho de 1888 — La Jolla, 26 de Março de 1959) foi um romancista e roteirista dos Estados Unidos. Exerceu uma influência imensa no gênero dos romances policiais modernos, especialmente no que diz respeito ao estilo da escrita e nas atitudes que atualmente são características do gênero. Seu protagonista, Philip Marlowe, juntamente com o Sam Spade de Dashiell Hammett (ambos interpretados no cinema por Humphrey Bogart, respectivamente, em "À Beira do Abismo" dirigido por Howard Hawks; e em "Reliquia Macabra" dirigido por John Huston), é considerado praticamente um sinônimo do "detetive particular". Além de sua obra em prosa, também foi autor de diversos poemas. Raymond Thornton Chandler nasceu a 23 de Julho de 1888 em Chicago, Illinois, nos Estados Unidos. A partir de 1895, após o divórcio dos pais, passou os primeiros anos de vida na Irlanda e a juventude em Londres, onde frequentou o Dulwich College, com o apoio financeiro de um tio materno, um advogado de sucesso. Em Londres publicou os seus primeiros escritos, ensaios e poesia, enquanto trabalhava como free-lancer no The Westminster Gazette e no The Spectator. Chandler retornou aos Estados Unidos em 1912 onde trabalhou como contabilista. Em 1917, alistou-se no Exército Canadense e combateu na França. Após o armistício mudou-se para Los Angeles, Califórnia, onde iniciou um caso amoroso com uma mulher já divorciada duas vezes, Cissy Pascal, uma pianista dezessete anos mais velha do que ele, com quem veio a casar em 1924. Por esta altura, Chandler possuía dupla nacionalidade, americana e britânica. Em 1932 Chandler ocupava a vice-presidência na Dabney Oil Syndicate, uma empresa petrolífera em Signal Hill, Califórnia, mas acabou por perder este emprego bem remunerado devido a problemas de alcoolismo. A Grande Depressão pôs fim à sua carreira de negócios. No princípio dos anos 1930 publicou histórias policiais no Black Mask Magazine. Publicou The Big Sleep (À Beira do Abismo), o seu primeiro romance policial, em 1939, apresentando o detetive Philip Marlowe, herói de mais seis romances ("Adeus Minha Adorada", "Janela para a Morte", "A Dama do Lago", "A Irmãzinha", "O Longo Adeus" e "Playback"). Por causa dos resultados dd seus ganhos na Inglaterra acabou por ter problemas com os serviços fiscais e renunciou à sua cidadania britânica em 1948. Ainda assim, realizou o seu sonho de levar Cissy a Inglaterra em 1952. Cissy morreu em 1954 e Chandler, emocionalmente arrasado e a sofrer de uma dolorosa doença nervosa voltou novamente a refugiar-se no álcool. A sua escrita sofreu bastante, tanto em qualidade como em quantidade, e acabou por tentar o suicídio em 1955. A vida tornou-se ainda mais complicada ao atrair a atenção de algumas mulheres, especialmente da sua noiva Helga Greene e de Jean Fracasse. Depois de uma tentativa fracassada de se estabelecer na Inglaterra, voltou aos Estados Unidos e faleceu em La Jolla de pneumonia, em 26 de Março de 1959. Depois de uma batalha legal pelos seus bens entre Greene e Fracasse, o tribunal decidiu a favor de Greene, que se tornou a sua herdeira. *****Wikipédia

Reinaldo Ferreira

Reinaldo Ferreira, conhecido pelo pseudónimo de Repórter X, (Lisboa, 10 de Agosto de 1897 - Lisboa, 4 de Outubro de 1935), foi um repórter, jornalista, dramaturgo e realizador de cinema português. Era pai do poeta Reinaldo Ferreira (filho), que viveu em Moçambique. Iniciou a sua carreira jornalística aos doze anos de idade e foi, desde os vinte até à sua morte, considerado o maior repórter português. Em 1926, instalou residência permanente no Porto.Imaginou entrevistas com Mata Hari e Conan Doyle, enviou reportagens da "Rússia dos sovietes" sem nunca lá ter posto os pés, criou um dos primeiros detectives de gabinete da literatura policial, deu forma a uma galeria interminável de heróis de folhetim, fundou jornais, realizou filmes, previu, ao jeito de Júlio Verne, como seriam Lisboa e o Porto no ano 2000. Reinaldo Ferreira. R de realidade e F de ficção. Nasceu há um século. Os 38 anos da sua breve passagem pelo mundo foram vividos à beira do delírio, com a morfina a ajudar. Um tipógrafo distraído inventou a alcunha que o iria consagrar: Repórter X. O menino já fez incêndios? Na redacção de "A Capital", a mãos com a cobertura da recém-deflagrada Primeira Guerra Mundial, Garibaldi Falcão, jornalista da velha guarda, interpelava um jovem aprendiz de 16 ou 17 anos. Interpretando mal a pergunta, e julgando que o tomavam por pirómano, Reinaldo Ferreira retorquiu com um indignado "Não, senhor!". Foi a primeira reportagem do futuro Repórter X: um fogo posto na rua lisboeta da Estefânia. Mas a sua adolescência, formada na leitura dos folhetins policiais e de espionagem, enfadava-se com a insossa rotina dos "casos do dia". E como a realidade se obstinava em lhe negar assuntos palpitantes, só lhe restava inventar. E inventou, há que dizê-lo, a torto e a direito. Ainda hoje será difícil determinar todas as suas "reinaldices", para usar a expressão posta a correr pelos que lhe iam desmascarando as farsas. Ele, porventura consciente de que essa pulsão para confundir factos e ficções era, afinal, o sinal distintivo do seu génio peculiar, retorquia com um neologismo da sua própria lavra: "reporterxizar". Em 1917, com dezenove anos - nasceu em Lisboa no dia 10 de Agosto de 1897 - arrepia os lisboetas com o crime, tão tenebroso quanto inexistente, da Rua Saraiva de Carvalho, que metia malfeitores empuçados, um presumível cadáver e um vilão, apropriadamente designado como "o homem dos olhos tortos". A história veio a lume n' "O Século", em forma de cartas enviadas "por um desconhecido", que se assinava Gil Goes. E a coisa atingiu tais proporções que o jornal achou prudente revelar o embuste. Mas o folhetim, finalmente assumido como ficção, prosseguiu até ao seu desenlace, e não tardou a transformar-se em livro - "O Mistério da Rua Saraiva de Carvalho" -, que José Leitão de Barros tentou mesmo adaptar ao cinema com o título "O Homem dos Olhos Tortos". Segundo Joel Lima, minucioso biógrafo do Repórter X e autor de um extenso prefácio à recente reedição conjunta das suas histórias do "Dr. Duque, o Cartomante do Raciocínio" - uma espécie de Nero Wolfe "avant la lettre" -, a Cinemateca Nacional conserva ainda mil metros de película rodados para este abortado projecto. Escassos meses após ter encerrado as aventuras de Gil Goes, Reinaldo Ferreira publica em "A Manhã", em Março de 1918, um "inquérito à mendicidade". Fez-se fotografar mal barbeado e andrajoso, de mão estendida, e o público convenceu-se de que o repórter fizera, de facto, vida de mendigo. Mas, salvo o retrato, era tudo inventado, incluindo os $47 centavos que lhe teria rendido esta incursão na indigência. Neste mesmo ano, volta à carga em "O Século" com o suposto assassinato de uma estrangeira, perpetrado pelo respectivo marido numa pensão de Lisboa. Desta vez, auxiliado por Stuart Carvalhais, vai ao ponto de pôr um quarto da dita pensão em pantanas e de espalhar sangue de galinha pelo aposento. E, a encerrar o ano de 1918, "recolhe" as últimas palavras do presidente Sidónio Pais, assassinado na Estação do Rossio: "Morro eu, mas salva-se a Pátria", "Morro, mas morro bem. Salve-se a Pátria" ou simplesmente "Morro bem. Salve-se a Pátria". A verdade é que não presenciou o sucedido em virtude de ter chegado tarde para a reportagem prevista e, ao que parece, o estadista tombou sem ter tido tempo de dizer seja o que for, uma vez que foi atingido num pulmão e, consequentemente, não conseguiria falar. Ir à Russia sem sair de Paris Já casado com Lucília Ferreira - de quem depois procurará debalde divorciar-se -, e sendo já pai de uma filha, Yolanda, Reinaldo Ferreira abala em 1920 para Paris, ao serviço da filial francesa da Agência Americana, que fora fundada pelo escritor brasileiro Olavo Bilac. Pelos finais do ano seguinte já deixara esta empresa e radica-se em Barcelona com a família, incuindo a mãe, que o pai abanonara. É aqui que nasce Edgar Reinaldo, que depois será o poeta Reinaldo Ferreira (filho). Com a subida ao poder de Primo de Rivera, o jornalista regressa a Portugal, mas não sem antes enviar de Barcelona uma crónica à imprensa de Lisboa, atacando o ditador. Assina o artigo com o seu próprio nome, mas um amigo faz-lhe ver que poderia sofrer represálias e, prudente, Reinaldo escreve por cima "Repórter". Todavia, por um desses acasos do destino, o tipógrafo que recebe a peça vê um "x" no que não era mais do que o rabisco final da mal escondida assinatura. Nascia, assim, o Repórter X. Já empregado no "ABC", o jornal envia-o à Rússia, em 1925, para acompanhar a luta intestina desencadeada após a morte de Lenine. De Paris, onde terá experimentado pela primeira vez a morfina, Reinaldo informa que lhe está a ser difícil conseguir um visto, mas vai mandando trabalho, designadamente uma entrevista forjada a Conan Doyle. E, finalmente, começam a chegar as crónicas de Moscovo, onde o jornalista passa a vida a tropeçar em portugueses, desde o porteiro do Kremlin ao homem que embalsamou Lenine. A convicção de Joel Lima é a de que o nosso repórter nunca pôs os pés na Rússia e que se limitou a ficar em Paris, aguardando os artigos de Henri Béraud, que para lá fora destacado pelo "Le Journal". Em 1926 está de novo em Portugal, fixando-se agora no Porto e escrevendo simultaneamente para o ABC e para "O Primeiro de Janeiro". Também se encontra colaboração da sua autoria no semanário O Domingo Ilustrado [1] (1925-1927) bem como na revista Ilustração [2] (1926-). É em Março desse ano que se dá em Lisboa o célebre assassinato da corista Maria Alves, estrangulada num táxi e lançada morta para a sarjeta. Baseando-se em anteriores crimes congéneres e na intriga de um romance espanhol, Reinaldo aventa nos jornais que o culpado é o ex-empresário da vítima, Augusto Gomes. E o espantoso é que acerta. Aproveitando mais este sucesso do então já famoso Repórter X, o "Janeiro" publica-lhe o folhetim "O Táxi nº 9297", que irá ser publicado em livro, levado ao palco e convertido em filme, que o próprio Reinaldo Ferreira dirigirá no Porto, nos estúdios da falida Invicta Film, com Alves da Costa no papel do protagonista. Já em 1924 vira adaptada ao cinema, em Espanha, a novela El Botones del Rit (O Groom do Ritz), e a sua Repórter X Film produzirá ainda três curtas-metragens. O desvairado caso das libras de louça Abandonado por Lucília em 1928, Reinaldo passa a viver no ano seguinte com Carmen Cal, ainda aparentada com a família portuense dos advogados Cal Brandão. Continua, entretanto, a trabalhar no "Janeiro", onde congemina a mais inverosímil das suas "reinaldices": uma alegada campanha alemã para desacreditar a moeda inglesa, que passaria pela produção de libras de louça. Isso mesmo, de louça; quebravam-se e tudo. O pior é que envolveu na trama o banqueiro Francisco Borges, do Banco Borges & Irmão, e a coisa, naturalmente, deu para o torto. Despedido do diário portuense, que ainda assim voltará depois a empregá-lo, funda vários jornais de pouca dura, até que, em 1930, financiado por um irmão, Ângelo, lança, em Lisboa, o "Repórter X", que durará até 1933. A chefia da redacção é confiada a Mário Domingues, que fora seu condiscípulo no Colégio Francês e que não tarda a abandonar o projecto para fundar "O Detective", onde denunciará, aliás, algumas "reinaldices". De novo no Porto, Reinaldo Ferreira é internado, em finais de 1932, para uma cura de desintoxicação. E escassos meses depois decide confessar a sua morfinomania nas páginas do "Repórter X", dando também à estampa o primeiro volume - e o único que publicou em vida - das "Memórias de um ex-morfinómano". No final da vida ainda lançará os efémeros jornais "A Reportagem da Semana" e o "X". Mas, regressado à dependência da morfina, separa-se em 1935 de Carmen - de quem tivera um filho, Oswaldo - e, no dia 4 de Outubro desse ano, morre em Lisboa, num prédio do actual Largo de S. Carlos. Além das suas reportagens, entre as quais se contam fascinantes visões futuristas do Porto e Lisboa do ano 2000, Reinaldo Ferreira deixou ainda uma quantidade assombrosa de novelas, sobretudo policiais e de espionagem, além de várias peças de teatro. No "Diabo", Fernando de Araújo Lima garantirá, após a sua morte, que o viu escrever de jacto, a uma mesa do café portuense Avenida, para ganhar uma aposta de 250 escudos, a novela "Impossível", editada em 1929. Se, como jornalista, e não obstante os seus múltiplos talentos, Reinaldo Ferreira merece óbvias reservas, já a sua inspiração torrencial, e até as acidentadas circunstâncias da sua biografia, fazem dele uma das nossas mais fascinantes figuras da primeira metade do século: uma espécie de Camilo da "série B". *****Wikipédia

Rex Stout

Rex Stout, de seu nome completo Rex Todhunter Stout, (Noblesville, Indiana, 1 de dezembro de 1886 — Danbury, Connecticut, 27 de outubro de 1975) foi um escritor norte-americano, especialmente conhecido por ter criado a personagem do detective privado Nero Wolfe. Rex Stout nasceu numa família de quakers. Pouco depois do seu nascimento, os seus pais, John Wallace Stout e Lucetta Elizabeth Todhunter Stout mudaram-se junto com os seus nove filhos para o estado do Kansas. O seu pai era professor e encorajou-o a ler sendo que, por volta dos quatro anos de idade, Rex já havia lido a Bíblia inteira por duas vezes. Aos treze anos foi campeão estadual do concurso de soletrar. Estudou na Universidade do Kansas. De 1906 a 1908 serviu na Marinha dos Estados Unidos da América, e durante os quatro anos seguintes trabalhou em cerca de treze empregos diferentes em seis estados. Trabalhou como paquete num escritório, foi empregado de loja, guarda-livros e gerente de hotel e, esporadicamente, vendia poemas, histórias e artigos para diversas revistas, entre as quais a All-Story Magazine. Em 1916, devido à invenção de um sistema bancário escolar, ganhou dinheiro suficiente para lhe permitir extensas viagens pela Europa. Tratava-se de um sistema de registo de poupanças efectuadas pelos alunos, do qual recebia royalties, e que foi adoptado em cerca de 400 instituições de ensino dos Estados Unidos. Casou-se com Fay Kennedy em 1916, de quem se viria a separar em 1933, casando-se no mesmo ano com Pola Hoffman. Em 1929, em Paris, escreveu o seu primeiro livro, How Like a God. Após escrever mais três romances bem sucedidos, regressou aos Estados Unidos e começou uma carreira literária que incluiu romances policiais, contos e ficção científica. O detective Nero Wolfe surgiu pela primeira vez no romance Fer-de-Lance (Picada Mortal), inicialmente publicado em fascículos no jornal The Saturday Evening Post, sendo posteriormente editado em livro em 1934. O livro The League of the Frightened Men (A Liga dos Homens Assustados), publicado em 1935, foi adaptado ao cinema em 1937. Em 1937 Stout criou a personagem Dol Bonner, uma detective privada, que viria a protagonizar diversos outros livros de Rex Stout. Durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, interrompeu os seus escritos e integrou a Fight for Freedom Organization. Foi presidente do Author's Guild e dos Mystery Writers of America. Em 1959 recebeu o Grand Master Award desta última organização. Stout foi activo em causas liberais e ignorou uma intimação da Comissão das Actividades Antiamericanas, no auge da era McCarthy. Anos mais tarde, perdeu muitos amigos liberais devido à sua posição a favor da intervenção dos Estados Unidos na guerra do Vietname. Escreveu mais de 70 romances policiais, 46 dos quais com Nero Wolfe, detective excêntrico e obeso, gourmet e grande apreciador de cerveja, cujo companheiro, o intrépido Archie Goodwin, o ajuda na resolução dos crimes. Após a morte de Stout, o escritor Robert Goldsborough continuou as aventuras de Nero Wolte, a partir do final dos anos 80. Nero Wolfe foi representado no cinema entre as décadas de 30 e 80, do século XX. Em 1981, Nero Wolfe, representado por William Conrad, deu título a uma série de televisão de 14 episódios produzida pela Paramount Television e transmitida pela National Broadcasting Company (NBC), tendo sido nomeada para dois prémios Emmy. Em 2001 foi iniciada uma série televisiva com Maury Chaykin no papel de Nero Wolfe e Timothy Hutton representando Archie Goodwin. Esta série, sob o título genérico A Nero Wolfe Mystery, foi produzida pela A&E, que transmitiu 29 episódios em duas temporadas, tendo sido nomeada para quatro prémios de diversas instituições. Uma associação de fãs de Stout e de Wolfe, designada The Wolfe Pack, organiza eventos para os leitores incluindo discussões bimensais sobre os livros e um congresso e banquete anual em Nova Iorque. Publica também a revista semestral Gazette. ****Wikipédia

Richard Hull

Richard Hull was the pseudonym of Richard Henry Sampson (1896–1973), who became successful as a crime novelist with his first book in 1934. The son of Nina Hull and S.A. Sampson, he was born in London on 6 September 1896, and attended Rugby School, Warwickshire. He entered the British army at eighteen with the outbreak of the First World War and served as an officer in an infantry battalion and in the Machine Gun Corps. At the end of the war after three years in France he worked for a firm of chartered accountants in the early 1920s and then later set up his own practice. He moved into full-time writing in 1934 after the success of The Murder of My Aunt. In the Second World War, he was recalled to the army and became an auditor with the Admiralty in London, a position he retained until his retirement in the 1950s. While he ceased to write detective fiction after 1953, he did continue to take a close interest in the affairs of the Detection Club, assisting Agatha Christie with her duties as President. He was a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

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Richard Austin Freeman

Richard Austin Freeman (11 April 1862 – 28 September 1943) was a British writer of detective stories, mostly featuring the medico-legal forensic investigator Dr. Thorndyke. He claimed to have invented the inverted detective story (a crime fiction in which the commission of the crime is described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator, with the story then describing the detective's attempt to solve the mystery). Freeman used some of his early experiences as a colonial surgeon in his novels. Many of the Dr. Thorndyke stories involve genuine, but often quite arcane, points of scientific knowledge, from areas such as tropical medicine, metallurgy and toxicology. Early life[edit] Austin Freeman was the youngest of the five children of tailor Richard Freeman and Ann Maria Dunn. He first trained as an apothecary and then studied medicine at Middlesex Hospital, qualifying in 1887. The same year he married Annie Elizabeth, with whom he had two sons. He entered the Colonial Service and was sent to Accra on the Gold Coast. Career[edit] In 1891 he returned to London after suffering from blackwater fever but was unable to find a permanent medical position, and so decided to settle down in Gravesend and earn money from writing fiction, while continuing to practise medicine. His first stories were written in collaboration with John James Pitcairn (1860–1936), medical officer at Holloway Prison, and published under the nom de plume "Clifford Ashdown". His first Thorndyke story, The Red Thumb Mark, was published in 1907, and shortly afterwards he pioneered the inverted detective story, in which the identity of the criminal is shown from the beginning. Some short stories with this feature were collected in The Singing Bone in 1912. During the First World War he served as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps and afterwards produced a Thorndyke novel almost every year until his death in 1943. Freeman claimed to have invented the inverted detective story in his 1912 collection of short stories The Singing Bone. "Some years ago I devised, as an experiment, an inverted detective story in two parts. The first part was a minute and detailed description of a crime, setting forth the antecedents, motives, and all attendant circumstances. The reader had seen the crime committed, knew all about the criminal, and was in possession of all the facts. It would have seemed that there was nothing left to tell, but I calculated that the reader would be so occupied with the crime that he would overlook the evidence. And so it turned out. The second part, which described the investigation of the crime, had to most readers the effect of new matter."[1] Political views[edit] Freeman held conservative political views.[2] In his 1921 book Social Decay and Regeneration Freeman put forth the view that mechanization had flooded Britain with poor-quality goods and created a "homogenized, restless, unionized working class".[2] Freeman also supported some progressive ideas, such as the eugenics movement and argued with Margaret Sanger that people with "undesirable" biological traits should be prevented from breeding through "segregation, marriage restriction, and sterilization".[3] The book also attacked the British Labour movement and criticised the British government for permitting immigrants (whom Freeman referred to as "Sub-Man") to settle in Britain. Sections of Social Decay and Regeneration were reprinted in Eugenics Review, the journal of the British Eugenics Society. *****Wikipédia

Richard Stanley (Dick Francis)

Richard Stanley "Dick" Francis CBE FRSL (31 October 1920 – 14 February 2010) was a British steeplechase jockey and crime writer, whose novels centre on horse racing in England. After wartime service in the RAF, Francis became a full-time jump-jockey, winning over 350 races and becoming champion jockey of the British National Hunt. He came to further prominence in 1956 as jockey to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, riding her horse Devon Loch when it fell, for unexplained reasons, while close to winning the Grand National. He then retired from the turf and became a professional journalist and novelist. All his novels deal with crime in the horse-racing world, some of the criminals being outwardly respectable figures. The stories are narrated by one of the key players, often a jockey, but sometimes a trainer, an owner, a bookie, or someone in a different profession, peripherally linked to racing. This person is always facing great obstacles, often including physical injury, from which he must fight back with determination. More than forty of these novels became international best-sellers.Francis was born in Coedcanlas, Pembrokeshire, Wales.[5] Some sources report his birthplace as the inland town of Lawrenny, but at least two of his obituaries stated his birthplace as the coastal town of Tenby.[6][7] His autobiography says that he was born at his maternal grandparents' farm at Coedcanlas on the estuary of the River Cleddau,[8] roughly a mile north-west of Lawrenny. He was the son of a jockey and stable manager[9] and he grew up in Berkshire, England.[10] He left school at 15 without any qualifications,[11] with the intention of becoming a jockey and became a trainer in 1938.[12] During World War II, Francis volunteered, hoping to join the cavalry. Instead, he served in the Royal Air Force, working as ground crew and later piloting fighter and bomber aircraft, including the Spitfire and Hurricane.[11] He said in an interview that he spent much of his six years in the Air Force in Africa.[5] In October 1945, he met Mary Margaret Brenchley (17 June 1924 – 30 September 2000)[11] at a cousin's wedding. In most interviews, they say that it was love at first sight. (Francis has some of his characters fall similarly in love within moments of meeting, as in the novels Flying Finish, Knockdown, and The Edge.) Their families were not entirely happy with their engagement, but Dick and Mary were married in June 1947 in London. She had earned a degree in English and French from London University at the age of 19, was an assistant stage manager, and later worked as a publisher's reader. She also became a pilot, and her experiences flying contributed to many novels, including Flying Finish, Rat Race, and Second Wind. She contracted polio while pregnant with their first child, a plight dramatized to a greater extent in the novel Forfeit, which Francis called one of his favorites. They had two sons, Merrick and Felix[11] (born 1953).[13] In the 1980s, Francis and his wife moved to Florida; in 1992, they moved to the Cayman Islands, where Mary died of a heart attack in 2000. In 2006, Francis had a heart bypass operation; in 2007 his right leg was amputated.[14] He died of natural causes on 14 February 2010 at his Caribbean home in Grand Cayman,[15] survived by both sons.[16] Horse racing career[edit] After leaving the RAF in 1946, Francis became a celebrity in the world of British National Hunt racing.[9] He won over 350 races, becoming champion jockey in the 1953–54 season.[9] Shortly after becoming a professional, he was offered the prestige job of first jockey to Vivian Smith, Lord Bicester.[17][18] From 1953 to 1957 he was jockey to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.[19] His most famous moment as a jockey came while riding the Queen Mother's horse, Devon Loch, in the 1956 Grand National when the horse inexplicably fell when close to winning the race.[20][21] Decades later, Francis considered losing that race his greatest regret and called it "a disaster of massive proportions."[5] Like most jump jockeys, Francis had his share of injuries. Unlike most, he was hospitalized at the age of 12 when a pony fell on him and broke his jaw and nose.[17] A career featuring broken bones and damaged organs found its way into many novels, whose narrators suffer a variety of damaged bodies. In 1957, after one too many serious falls, the Queen Mother's adviser, Lord Abergavenny, advised him that she wanted him to retire from racing for her. Contributions to racing[edit] In 1983, the Grand National at Aintree Racecourse in England "stood at the brink of extinction," according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. News reporter Don Clippinger wrote, "Britain's Jockey Club negotiated a $14 million deal to buy the land and save the race forever. The only problem was that the Jockey Club did not have $14 million, so two prominent racing personalities—Lord Derby and novelist Dick Francis—were selected to raise the money in a worldwide campaign."[22] Other philanthropists, including Charles C. Fenwick Jr., who rode Ben Nevis to victory in the 1980 Grand National, and Paul Mellon, a breeder and racing enthusiast, also contributed to save the race. Writing career[edit] Francis wrote more than 40 international best-sellers. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens (1957), for which he was offered the aid of a ghostwriter, which he spurned.[23] The book's success led to his becoming the racing correspondent for London's Sunday Express newspaper, and he remained in the job for 16 years. In 1962, he published his first thriller, Dead Cert, set in the world of racing. Subsequently he regularly produced a novel a year for the next 38 years, missing only 1998 (during which he published a short-story collection). Although all his books were set against a background of horse racing, his male heroes held a variety of jobs including artist (In the Frame and To the Hilt), private investigator (Odds Against, Whip Hand, Come to Grief, Under Orders—all starring injured ex-jockey Sid Halley, one of only two heroes used more than once), investigator for the Jockey Club (The Edge), pilot (Rat Race and Flying Finish), wine merchant (Proof) and many others. (The other is Kit Fielding of Break In and Bolt.) All the novels are narrated by the hero, who in the course of the story discovers himself to be more resourceful, brave, tricky, than he had thought, and usually finds a certain salvation for himself as well as bestowing it on others. Details of other people's occupations fascinated Francis, and the reader finds himself or herself immersed in the mechanics of such things as photography, accountancy, the gemstone trade, restaurant service on transcontinental trains—but always in the interests of the plot. Dysfunctional families were a subject which he exploited particularly well (Reflex, a baleful grandmother; Hot Money, a multi-millionaire father and serial ex-husband; Decider, the related co-owners of a racecourse). A columnist for The Houston Chronicle said that Francis "writes believable fairy tales for adults—ones in which the actors are better than we are but are believable enough to make us wonder if indeed we could not one day manage to emulate them."[24] Many of Francis' books are featured in volumes of Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Writing routine[edit] Francis described a typical year of research and writing to an interviewer in 1989: In January, he sits down to write, staring down the barrel of a deadline. "My publisher comes over in mid-May to collect the manuscript," he says, "and it's got to be done." The book's publication takes place in England in September. American publication in past years has been in February, although his next book, Straight, is set to be published in November. Once the manuscript is out of his hands, he takes the summer off, while percolating the plot of his next book. Research on the next book begins in late summer and continues through the autumn, while he's gearing up for his promotional tour for the just-published book. Come January, he sits down to write again. He doesn't like book tours. He is not one for revelations, major life changes, and intimacies with strange interviewers, and he says he gets tired of answering the same questions again and again. He shuns the lecture circuit. He'd prefer to let his novels and his sales volume speak for themselves... And though he doesn't love the act of writing a 2287038nd [sic] [and] could easily retire, he finds himself planning his new book as each summer ends. He says, "Each one, you think to yourself, 'This is the last one,' but then, by September, you're starting again. If you've got money, and you're just having fun, people think you're a useless character." Or, as independently wealthy Tor Kelsey says in The Edge, explaining why he works for a minuscule salary: "I work... because I like it, I'm not all that bad at what I do, really, and it's useful, and I'm not terribly good at twiddling my thumbs."[25] Collaboration[edit] Francis collaborated extensively in his fiction with his wife, Mary, until her death, which came as a later surprise to some readers and reviewers.[14][26][27] He credited her with being a great researcher for the novels. In 1981, Don Clippinger interviewed the Francises for The Philadelphia Inquirer and wrote, "When Dick Francis sits down each January to begin writing another of his popular mystery-adventure novels, it is almost a certain bet that his wife, Mary, has developed a new avocation... For instance, in Rat Race, [the protagonist] operated an air-taxi service that specialized in carrying jockeys, trainers and owners to distant race courses. Before that book came out in 1970, Mrs. Francis obtained a pilot's licence and was operating an air-taxi service of her own. Francis' newest novel, Reflex, is built around photography, and sure enough, Mary Francis has become accomplished behind the camera and in the darkroom... And, in their condominium, they have set up the subject of his 20th novel [Twice Shy] - a computer. While he is touring the country, she is working on new computer programs."[28] According to journalist Mary Amoroso, "Mary does much of the research: She went so far as to learn to fly a plane for Flying Finish. She also edits his manuscripts, and serves as sounding board for plot line and character development. Says Francis, 'At least the research keeps her from going out shopping.'"[25] Francis told interviewers Jean Swanson and Dean James, Mary and I worked as a team. ... I have often said that I would have been happy to have both our names on the cover. Mary's family always called me Richard due to having another Dick in the family. I am Richard, Mary was Mary, and Dick Francis was the two of us together.[5] Francis's manager (and co-author of his later books) was his son Felix, who left his post as teacher of A-Level Physics at Bloxham School in Oxfordshire in order to work for his father. Felix was the inspiration behind a leading character, a marksman and physics teacher, in the novel Twice Shy. The older son, Merrick, was a racehorse trainer and later ran his own horse transport business, which inspired the novel Driving Force. Father and son collaborated on four novels; after Dick's death, Felix carried on to publish novels with his father's name in the title (Dick Francis's Gamble (2011), Dick Francis's Bloodline (2012), Dick Francis's Refusal (2013), Dick Francis's Damage (2014), Front Runner: A Dick Francis Novel (2015)). Adaptations[edit] His first novel, Dead Cert, was filmed under the same title in 1974. Directed by Tony Richardson, it starred Scott Antony, Judi Dench and Michael Williams.[29] It was adapted again as Favorit (a Russian made-for-television movie) in 1977.[30] Francis's protagonist Sid Halley was featured in six TV movies made for the program The Dick Francis Thriller: The Racing Game (1979-1980), starring Mike Gwilym as Halley and Mick Ford as his partner, Chico Barnes. One of the shows, Odds Against, used a Francis title; the others were created for the program. Three more TV films of 1989 were adaptations of Bloodsport, In the Frame, and Twice Shy, all starring Ian McShane and featuring protagonist David Cleveland, a name actually used only once by Francis, in the novel Slayride. Honours[edit] Francis is the only three-time recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best Novel, winning for Forfeit in 1970, Whip Hand in 1981, and Come To Grief in 1996. Britain's Crime Writers Association awarded him its Gold Dagger Award for fiction in 1979 and the Cartier Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. he was granted another Lifetime Achievement Award . Tufts University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1991. In 1996 he was given the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award, the highest honour bestowed by the MWA. In 2000, he was granted the Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was created an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1983 and promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000.[31] Amoroso wrote in 1989, "And yet he has a keen sense of the evanescence of literary endeavors. 'Whole months of work can be gone in four hours,' he says ruefully. 'People say they can't put my books down, and so they read them in one sitting of four hours.' Francis has been long accustomed to celebrity as a British sports star, but today he is a worldwide phenomenon, having been published in 22 languages. In Australia, he is recognized in restaurants, from his book-jacket picture. He and Mary will see people reading the novels on planes and trains."[25] Francis was elected in 1999 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. ****Wikipédia

Robert Barr

Robert Barr (16 September 1849 – 21 October 1912[1]) was a Scottish-Canadian short story writer and novelist, born in Glasgow, Scotland. Early Years in Canada[edit] Barr emigrated with his parents to Upper Canada at age four and was educated in Toronto at Toronto Normal School. Barr became a teacher and eventual headmaster of the Central School of Windsor, Ontario. While he had that job he began to contribute short stories—often based on personal experiences—to the Detroit Free Press. In 1876 Barr quit his teaching position to become a staff member of that publication, in which his contributions were published with the pseudonym "Luke Sharp." This nom de plume was derived from the time he attended school in Toronto. At that time he would pass on his daily commute a shop sign marked, "Luke Sharpe, Undertaker", a combination of words Barr considered amusing in their incongruity.[2] Barr was promoted by the Detroit Free Press, eventually becoming its news editor.[3] London years[edit] Robert Barr with Arthur Conan Doyle In 1881 Barr decided to "vamoose the ranch", as he stated, and relocated to London, to establish there the weekly English edition of the Detroit Free Press.[4] In 1892 he founded the magazine The Idler, choosing Jerome K. Jerome as his collaborator (wanting, as Jerome said, "a popular name"). He retired from its co-editorship in 1895. In London of the 1890s Barr became a more prolific author—publishing a book a year—and was familiar with many of the best-selling authors of his day, including Bret Harte and Stephen Crane. Most of his literary output was of the crime genre, then quite in vogue. When Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were becoming well-known Barr published in the Idler the first Holmes parody, "The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs" (1892), a spoof that was continued a decade later in another Barr story, "The Adventure of the Second Swag" (1904). Despite the jibe at the growing Holmes phenomenon Barr and Doyle remained on very good terms. Doyle describes him in his memoirs Memories and Adventures as, "a volcanic Anglo—or rather Scot-American, with a violent manner, a wealth of strong adjectives, and one of the kindest natures underneath it all."[5] Death[edit] Robert Barr died from heart disease on 21 October 1912, at his home in Woldingham, a small village to the southeast of London. ****Wikipédia

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (Edimburgo, Escócia, 13 de novembro de 1850 — Vailima, Ilhas Samoa, 3 de dezembro de 1894), tendo nascido Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson, foi um influente novelista, poeta e escritor de roteiros de viagem britânico, nascido na Escócia. Escreveu clássicos como A Ilha do Tesouro, O Médico e o Monstro e As Aventuras de David Balfour. Considerado um dos mais importantes escritores britânicos do século XIX, está entre os autores mais traduzidos em todo o mundo . Foi, em vida, também um ferrenho ativista político, crítico social e humanista. Robert Louis (originalmente Lewis) Balfour Stevenson nasceu em Edimburgo, capital da Escócia. Filho de engenheiro civil, era pressionado pelo pai a seguir mesma carreira, mas a saúde debilitada e a fraca inclinação para a área fizeram com que decidisse por uma carreira alternativa. Em 1866 entrou para a faculdade de Engenharia de Edimburgo. Lá, escreveu durante 1871 e 1872 para o jornal universitário, o Edimburgh University Magazine, revelando seu gosto e talento para a arte e literatura. No ano de 1873, após concluir a faculdade, Robert muda-se para a cidade de Londres, Inglaterra, pois sentia-se deslocado no ambiente familiar, marcado por um clima coercitivo e pela inexorável moral e religiosidade puritanas. Em sua curta estadia na cidade, passa a frequentar os salões literários para, algum tempo depois, partir numa longa viagem pela Europa. O ano de 1876 é importante na sua vida particular, pois, nesse ano, conhece uma mulher norte-americana dez anos mais velha, Cinthia Vandergrift Osbourne, com a qual se casa em 1880, em São Francisco, Estados Unidos. Volta à Inglaterra e traz consigo esposa e um enteado, chamado Cher Lloyd. No ano seguinte é internado na cidade de Davos, Suíça, para tratar sua tuberculose, que há anos o vinha acompanhando. Conhece a notoriedade artística ao escrever, em 1886, The Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (O Médico e o Monstro), um de seus maiores sucessos literários. Com a morte do pai, em 1887, Stevenson retorna aos Estados Unidos, onde volta a tratar de sua tuberculose. No ano seguinte aventura-se num veleiro em diversos arquipélagos do Pacífico-Sul, junto com a esposa e o enteado. Apaixonado pela paisagem paradisíaca, se estabelece definitivamente em Apia, nas Ilhas Samoa, em 1889. Morre prematuramente, em 3 de dezembro de 1894, aos 44 anos, enquanto escrevia sua obra-prima inacabada, Weir of Hermiston, vítima de uma hemorragia cerebral. Encontra-se sepultado em Stevenson Family Estate Grounds, Vailima, Tuamasaga em Samoa. ****Wikipédia

Rupert Croft Cooke (Leo Bruce)

Rupert Croft-Cooke (20 June 1903 – 1979) was an English writer, a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction, including screenplays and biographies under his own name and detective stories under the pseudonym of Leo Bruce. For legal reasons, he spent fifteen years in Morocco. Born on 20 June 1903, in Edenbridge, Kent, Croft-Cooke was educated at Tonbridge School and Wellington College. At the age of seventeen, he was working as a private tutor in Paris. He spent two years in Buenos Aires, where he founded the journal La Estrella. In 1925 he returned to London and began a career as a freelance journalist and writer. His work appeared in a variety of magazines, including New Writing, Adelphi, and the English Review. In the late 1920s the American magazine Poetry published several of his plays. He was also a radio broadcaster on psychology. In 1930 he spent a year in Germany. In 1940 he joined the British Army and served in Africa and India until 1946. He later wrote several books about his military experiences. From 1947 to 1953 he was a book reviewer for The Sketch.[1] Croft-Cooke was a homosexual, which brought him into conflict with the laws of his time. In 1953, at a time when the Home Office was seeking to clamp down on homosexuality, he was sent to prison for six months on conviction for acts of indecency, although the evidence was dubious. Croft-Cooke's secretary and companian, Joseph Alexander, had met two Navy cooks, Harold Altoft and Ronald Charles Dennis, in the Fitzroy Tavern near Tottenham Court Road in London, and invited them to spend the weekend at Croft-Cooke's house in Ticehurst, East Sussex. During the weekend, they consumed food and alcohol and had sex with both Croft-Cooke and his assistant. On their way home from the weekend, they got drunk and assaulted two men, one of whom was a policeman. They were arrested and agreed to testify against Croft-Cooke to get immunity from prosecution for the assault charges.[2] The case of Croft-Cooke was discussed by the Committee who produced the Wolfenden report into changing the law on prostitution and homosexuality, specifically by Philip Allen, a civil servant testifying on behalf of the Home Office. Allen described Croft-Cooke and Alexander as attempting to "interfere" with the sailors, who "resisted" the advances. Michael Graham-Harrison, a junior Home Office civil servant, attempted to correct Allen's rhetorical overreaching, noting that the sailors were "picked up in a place frequented by homosexuals" and arguing that he did "not think anybody could believe for a moment that they did not know what they were going for".[2] Croft-Cooke went to Wormwood Scrubs and Brixton Prison and later wrote about the British penal system in The Verdict of You All (1955).[3] The 1957 war film Seven Thunders was based on his novel. He also wrote for television, including an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He is best known today for the detective stories he wrote under the name of Leo Bruce. His detectives were called Carolus Deene and Sergeant Beef.[4] From 1953 to 1968 he lived in Morocco before moving on to live in a number of other countries, Tunisia, Cyprus, West Germany and Ireland.[3] Croft-Cooke died in 1979 in Bournemouth. ****Wikipédia

Ruth Barbara Rendell (Ruth Rendell)

Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE (née Grasemann; 17 February 1930 – 2 May 2015) was an English author of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries. Rendell's best-known creation, Chief Inspector Wexford, was the hero of many popular police stories, some of them successfully adapted for TV. But Rendell also generated a separate brand of crime fiction that deeply explored the psychological background of criminals and their victims, many of them mentally afflicted or otherwise socially isolated. This theme was developed further in a third series of novels, written under her pseudonym Barbara VineRendell was born Ruth Barbara Grasemann in 1930, in South Woodford, London. Her parents were teachers. Her mother, Ebba Kruse, was born in Sweden and brought up in Denmark; her father, Arthur Grasemann, was English. As a result of spending Christmas and other holidays in Scandinavia, Rendell learned Swedish and Danish.[2] Rendell was educated at the County High School for Girls in Loughton, Essex, the town to which the family moved during her childhood. After high school she became a feature writer for her local Essex paper, the Chigwell Times. However, she was forced to resign after filing a story about a local sports club dinner she hadn't attended and failing to report that the after-dinner speaker had died midway through the speech.[3] Rendell met her husband, Don Rendell when she was working as a newswriter. They married when she was 20, and in 1953 had a son, Simon,[4] now a psychiatric social worker who lives in the U.S. state of Colorado. The couple divorced in 1975 but remarried two years later.[5] Don Rendell died in 1999 from prostate cancer.[4] She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1996 Birthday Honours[6] and a life peer as Baroness Rendell of Babergh, of Aldeburgh in the County of Suffolk, on 24 October 1997.[7] She sat in the House of Lords for the Labour Party. In 1998 Rendell was named in a list of the party's biggest private financial donors.[8] She introduced into the Lords the bill that would later become the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. In August 2014, Rendell was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.[9] Awards[edit] Baroness Rendell received many awards, including the Silver, Gold, and Cartier Diamond Daggers from the Crime Writers' Association, three Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America, The Arts Council National Book Awards, and The Sunday Times Literary Award. A number of her works have been adapted for film or television. She was also a patron of the charity Kids for Kids[10] which helps children in rural areas of Darfur. There is a blue plaque on one of her homes, 45 Millsmead Way, in Loughton. This was unveiled by her son, Simon on 24 February 2016.[11] Death[edit] Rendell had a stroke on 7 January 2015[12] and died on 2 May 2015.. ****Wikipédia

S.A.Steeman

Stanislas-André Steeman (Liège, 23 janvier 1908 - Menton, 15 décembre 1970 (à 62 ans)) est un écrivain et illustrateur belge d'expression française, auteur de romans policiers, dont une douzaine a été portée à l'écran. Signe de reconnaissance pour cet écrivain exerçant au départ dans un secteur littéraire non légitimé, le roman policier : il a été choisi comme un des Cent Wallons du siècle par l'Institut Jules Destrée, en 1995, et un centre spécialisé en paralittératures à Chaudfontaine porte son nom. Stanislas-André Steeman nait à Liège le 23 janvier 1908 au no 22 de la rue Dartois dans le quartier des Guillemins, une plaque commémorative est apposée sur le bâtiment. Il se révèle d'abord dans plusieurs dizaines de bandes dessinées avant 1920, non publiées. En 1924, il publie à l'âge de 16 ans Éphémères, un recueil de contes dont plusieurs étaient déjà parus dans La Nation belge. Il publie un recueil de nouvelles, Histoires belges, en 1926, puis ses deux premiers romans : Un roman pour jeune fille (1927) et Les Amants puérils (1928). Il travaille comme journaliste à La Nation belge entre 1928-1933. Avec un autre journaliste de La Nation belge, Sintair, pseudonyme de Herman Sartini, il écrit un pastiche de roman policier, Le Mystère du zoo d'Anvers (1928). Ils écrivent quatre autres romans ensemble, puis Sintair s'arrête, alors que Steeman continue d'écrire seul. En 1931, il reçoit le prix du roman d'aventures pour Six hommes morts. C'est le premier roman où apparaît son héros, Wenceslas Vorobeïtchik, alias Monsieur Wens, déjà présent dans quelques nouvelles de 1930. Ses romans sont principalement publiés dans la collection Le Masque. L'apogée de sa carrière arrive en 1939 avec la publication de L'assassin habite au 21. Pour l'anecdote, ce roman est concocté à son adresse au square du Val de la Cambre au numéro 21, à Ixelles. Pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, il fait partie des Auteurs Associés avec Jules Stéphane, Thomas Owen, Evelyne Pollet et Jean Ray. Pendant la guerre, Henri-Georges Clouzot adapte pour le cinéma Six hommes morts et L'assassin habite au 21. Le premier donne Le Dernier des six, dont la réalisation est confiée à Georges Lacombe. Clouzot réalise lui-même le second. En 1947, c'est au tour de Légitime Défense de sortir sur le grand écran sous le titre Quai des Orfèvres. D'autres adaptations sortiront au cinéma dans les années 1950. S.-A. Steeman joue l'un des personnages dans deux d'entre elles : Mystère à Shanghai et Le Mannequin assassiné. Les critiques français l'ont surnommé le « Simenon belge », oubliant que Simenon l'était aussi1… Jean Cocteau l'avait surnommé « le Fregoli du roman policier »2. Il est le père de l'humoriste belge Stéphane Steeman. ****Wikipédia

S.S.Van Dine

S. S. Van Dine (also styled S.S. Van Dine) is the pseudonym used by American art critic Willard Huntington Wright (October 15, 1888 – April 11, 1939) when he wrote detective novels. Wright was an important figure in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-WWI New York, and under the pseudonym (which he originally used to conceal his identity) he created the once immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio.Willard Huntington Wright was born to Archibald Davenport Wright and Annie Van Vranken Wright on October 15, 1888, in Charlottesville, Virginia. His younger brother, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, became a respected painter, one of the first American abstract artists, and co-founder (with Morgan Russell) of the school of modern art known as "Synchromism". Willard and Stanton were raised in Santa Monica, California, where their father owned a hotel. Willard, a largely self-taught writer, attended St. Vincent College, Pomona College, and Harvard University without graduating. In 1907, he married Katharine Belle Boynton of Seattle, Washington; they had one child, Beverley. After divorcing Katharine, whom he had abandoned early in their marriage, he married for a second time in October 1930. His second wife was Eleanor Rulapaugh, known professionally as Claire De Lisle, a portrait painter and socialite.[2] At age 21, Wright began his professional writing career as literary editor of the Los Angeles Times, where he was known for his scathing book reviews and irreverent opinions. He was particularly caustic about romance and detective fiction. His friend and mentor H.L. Mencken was an early inspiration. Other important literary influences included Oscar Wilde and Ambrose Bierce. Wright was an advocate of the naturalism of Theodore Dreiser, and Wright's own novel, The Man of Promise (1916), was written in a similar style. He also published realist fiction as editor of the New York literary magazine The Smart Set, from 1912 to 1914, a job he attained with Mencken's help. He was fired from that position when the magazine's conservative owner felt that Wright was intentionally provoking their middle-class readership with his interest in unconventional and often sexually explicit fiction. In his two-year tenure, Wright published short stories by Gabriele D'Annunzio, Floyd Dell, Ford Madox Ford, D.H. Lawrence, and George Moore; a play by Joseph Conrad; and poems by Ezra Pound and William Butler Yeats. Wright's energies were devoted to numerous projects, reflecting his wide range of interests. His book What Nietzsche Taught appeared in 1915. An attempt to popularize the German philosopher with skeptical American audiences, it described and commented on all of Nietzsche's books and provided quotations from each work. Wright continued to write short stories in this period; in 2012 Brooks Hefner[3] revealed heretofore unknown short stories that featured an intellectual criminal, written by Wright under a pseudonym several years before his adoption of the Van Dine pseudonym. Wright was, however, most respected in intellectual circles for his writing about art. In Modern Painting: Its Tendency and Meaning (secretly co-authored in 1915 with his brother Stanton), he surveyed the important art movements of the last hundred years from Manet to Cubism, praised the largely unknown work of Cézanne, and predicted a coming era in which an art of color abstraction would replace realism. Admired by people like Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe, Wright became under his brother's tutelage one of the most progressive (and belligerently opinionated) art critics of the time and helped to organize several shows, including the "Forum Exhibition of Modern American Painters", that brought the most advanced new painters to the attention of audiences on both coasts. He also published a work of aesthetic philosophy, The Creative Will (1916), that O'Keeffe and William Faulkner both regarded as a meaningful influence on their thinking about artistic identity.[citation needed] In 1917, Wright published Misinforming a Nation,[4] in which he mounted a blistering attack on alleged inaccuracies and British biases in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition. A Germanophile, Wright did not support America's decision to join the Allied cause in World War I, and he was blackballed from journalism for more than two years after an overzealous secretary (erroneously) accused him of spying for Germany, an episode that became a much-publicized scandal in New York in November 1917. Though cleared, his favourable view of Prussian militarism cost him his friendships with Mencken and Dreiser. After suffering a nervous breakdown and the beginning of a long-term dependence on illegal drugs, Wright retreated to California, where he attempted to make a living as a newspaper columnist in San Francisco.[citation needed] Detective fiction[edit] Returning to New York in 1920, Wright took any freelance work that came his way but lived a restless, impoverished existence and, in his displays of temper and anxiety, alienated many of his old friends. By 1923, he was seriously ill, the result of a breakdown from overwork, he claimed, but in reality the consequence of his secret cocaine addiction, according to John Loughery's biography Alias S.S. Van Dine.[citation needed] Confined to bed for a prolonged period of recovery, he began in frustration and boredom reading hundreds of volumes of crime and detection. As a direct result of this exhaustive study, he wrote a seminal essay, published in 1926, which explored the history, traditions and conventions of detective fiction as an art form.[5] Wright also decided to try his own hand at detective fiction and approached Maxwell Perkins, the famous Scribner's editor whom he had known at Harvard, with an outline for a trilogy that would feature an affluent, snobbish amateur sleuth, a Jazz Age Manhattan setting, and lively topical references. In 1926, the first Philo Vance book, The Benson Murder Case, was published under the pseudonym "S.S. Van Dine". Within two years, following the publication of The Canary Murder Case and The Greene Murder Case, Wright was one of the best-selling authors in the United States.[citation needed] Frankly embarrassed by his turn from intellectual pursuits to mass market fiction, Wright never wanted to publish under his own name. He took his pseudonym from the abbreviation of "steamship" and from Van Dine, which he claimed was an old family name. According to Loughery, however, "there are no Van Dines evident in the family tree" (p. 176). He went on to write twelve mysteries in total, though their author's identity was unmasked by 1928. The first few books about the distinctive Philo Vance (who shared with his creator a love of art and a disdain for the common touch) were so popular that Wright became wealthy for the first time in his life. His readership was diverse and worldwide. David Shavit's study[6] of WWII POW reading habits revealed that Vance was one of the favorite detectives among officer POWs. However, according to critic Julian Symons:[7] [Van Dine's] fate is curiously foreshadowed in that of Stanford West, the hero of his only [non-crime] novel, who sells out by abandoning the unpopular work in which he searched for "a sound foundation of culture and aristocracy" and becoming a successful novelist. The title of an article Wright penned at the height of his fame, "I Used to be a Highbrow and Look at Me Now," reflects both his pleasure in his new-found fame and his regret that he would never again be regarded as a serious writer. Wright's later books declined in both quality and popularity. The reading public's tastes changed, and the "hard-boiled" school of detective fiction became the dominant style in the 1930s. The new mood was captured by Ogden Nash in his brief verse: Philo Vance Needs a kick in the pance. Philo Vance and Sam Spade occupy different aesthetic universes. Wright continued to make money, though, and by the end of the decade, he saw himself caught in a trap from which he could not escape: in the midst of the Depression, he could not return to literary journalism and art criticism which paid very little, now that he and his wife were accustomed to an extravagant way of life, and yet he no longer believed in the kind of novels he was producing each year in order to maintain that way of life.[citation needed] Study of detective fiction[edit] In addition to his success as a writer of fiction, Wright's lengthy introduction and notes to the anthology The World's Great Detective Stories (1928) are important in the history of the critical study of detective fiction. Although dated by the passage of time, this essay is still a core around which many other such commentaries have been constructed. He also wrote an article, "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories", in 1928 for The American Magazine[8] It has been frequently reprinted and compared to "Knox's (Ten) Commandments" by Ronald Knox.[citation needed] Late career and death[edit] Wright wrote a series of short stories for Warner Brothers film studio in the early 1930s. These stories were used as the basis for a series of twelve short films, each approximately 20 minutes long, that were released in 1931 - 1932. Of these, The Skull Murder Mystery shows Wright's vigorous plot construction.[citation needed] It is also notable for its non-racist treatment of Chinese characters, something quite unusual in its day.[citation needed] Donald Meek and John Hamilton were featured players, with Joseph Henabery directing. Three titles (first two and last) have been released on DVD as extras on Forbidden Hollywood Collection Volume 3 (Warner). The titles (with dates reviewed by Film Daily) [2]: The Clyde Mystery (September 27, 1931), The Wall Street Mystery (November 4), The Week End Mystery (December 6), The Symphony Murder Mystery (January 10, 1932), The Studio Murder Mystery (February 7), The Skull Murder Mystery (March release), The Cole Case (The Cole Murder Case) (April 3), Murder in the Pullman (May 22), The Side Show Mystery (June 11), The Campus Mystery (July 2), The Crane Poison Case (July 9), The Trans-Atlantic Murder Mystery (August 31) As far as it is known, none of Van Dine's screen treatments has been published in book form, and none of the manuscripts survive. Short films were popular then, and Hollywood made hundreds of them during the studio era. Except for a handful of comedy silents, however, most of these films are forgotten and not listed in film reference books.[citation needed] From a monetary perspective, Wright was fortunate in his experiences with Hollywood, and he was lionized on his visits to the movie capital.[citation needed] All but two of his novels were made into feature-length films, and the role of Philo Vance was played in different film versions by stars as popular as William Powell (before his Nick Charles period), Basil Rathbone, and Edmund Lowe. Louise Brooks, Jean Arthur, and Rosalind Russell also appeared in the S.S. Van Dine movies.[citation needed] On April 11, 1939, at age 50, Wright died in New York of a heart condition exacerbated by excessive drinking, a year after the publication of an unpopular experimental novel that incorporated one of the biggest stars in radio comedy, The Gracie Allen Murder Case. He left behind a complete novelette-length story that was intended as a film vehicle for Sonja Henie and was published posthumously as The Winter Murder Case. Max Perkins generously referred to Wright at the time of Wright's death as a "gallant, gentle man" who had been tormented by the pressures of a market-driven age.[9] His portrait, painted by his brother in 1914, hangs in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. ****Wikipédia

Salvatore Albert Lombino ( Ed McBain)

Ed McBain (October 15, 1926 – July 6, 2005) is one of the pen names of an American author and screenwriter. Born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952. While successful and well known as Evan Hunter, he was even better known as Ed McBain, a name he used for most of his crime fiction, beginning in 1956. He also used the pen names John Abbott, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, Dean Hudson, and Richard Marsten. Early life[edit] Salvatore Lombino was born and raised in New York City. He lived in East Harlem until age 12, when his family moved to the Bronx. He attended Olinville Junior High School, then Evander Childs High School, before winning an Art Students League scholarship. Later, he was admitted as an art student at Cooper Union. Lombino served in the Navy in World War II and wrote several short stories while serving aboard a destroyer in the Pacific. However, none of these stories was published until after he had established himself as an author in the 1950s. After the war, Lombino returned to New York and attended Hunter College, where he majored in English and psychology, with minors in dramatics and education, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He published a weekly column in the Hunter College newspaper as "S.A. Lombino". In 1981, Lombino was inducted into the Hunter College Hall of Fame, where he was honored for outstanding professional achievement.[1] While looking to start a career as a writer, Lombino took a variety of jobs, including 17 days as a teacher at Bronx Vocational High School in September 1950. This experience would later form the basis for his novel Blackboard Jungle (1954), written under the pen name Evan Hunter. In 1951, Lombino took a job as an executive editor for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, working with authors such as Poul Anderson, Arthur C. Clarke, Lester del Rey, Richard S. Prather, and P. G. Wodehouse. He made his first professional short story sale that same year, a science-fiction tale titled "Reaching for the Moon", credited to S.A. Lombino. Soon after his initial sale, Lombino sold stories under the pen names Evan Hunter and Hunt Collins. The name Evan Hunter is generally believed to have been derived from two schools he attended, Evander Childs High School and Hunter College, although the author himself would never confirm that. (He did confirm that Hunt Collins was derived from Hunter College.) Lombino legally changed his name to Evan Hunter in May 1952, after an editor told him that a novel he wrote would sell more copies if credited to Evan Hunter than to S.A. Lombino. Thereafter, he used the name Evan Hunter both personally and professionally. As Evan Hunter, he gained notice with his novel Blackboard Jungle (1954) dealing with juvenile crime and the New York City public school system. The film adaptation followed in 1955. During this era, Hunter also wrote a great deal of genre fiction. He was advised by his agents that publishing too much fiction under the Hunter byline, or publishing any crime fiction as Evan Hunter, might weaken his literary reputation. Consequently, during the 1950s Hunter used the pseudonyms Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, and Richard Marsten for much of his crime fiction. A prolific author in several genres, Hunter also published approximately two dozen science fiction stories and four science-fiction novels between 1951 and 1956 under the names S.A. Lombino, Evan Hunter, Richard Marsten, D.A. Addams, and Ted Taine. Ed McBain, his best known pseudonym, was first used with Cop Hater (1956), the first novel in the 87th Precinct crime series. Hunter revealed that he was McBain in 1958 but continued to use the pseudonym for decades, notably for the 87th Precinct series, and the Matthew Hope detective series. He retired the pen names Addams, Cannon, Collins, Marsten, and Taine around 1960. From then on crime novels were generally attributed to McBain and other sorts of fiction to Hunter. Reprints of crime-oriented stories and novels written in the 1950s previously attributed to other pseudonyms were re-issued under the McBain byline. Hunter stated that the division of names allowed readers to know what to expect: McBain novels had a consistent writing style, while Hunter novels were more varied. Under the Hunter name, novels steadily appeared throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, including Come Winter (1973) and Lizzie (1984). Hunter was also successful as screenwriter for film and television. He wrote the screenplay for the Hitchcock film The Birds (1963), loosely adapted from Daphne du Maurier's eponymous 1952 novelette. In the process of adapting Winston Graham's novel Marnie (1961) for Hitchcock, Hunter and the director disagreed on the rape scene, and the writer was sacked. Hunter's other screenplays included Strangers When We Meet (1960), based on his own 1958 novel; and Fuzz (1972), based on his eponymous 1968 87th Precinct novel, which he had written as Ed McBain. From 1958 until his death, McBain's 87th Precinct novels appeared at a rate of approximately one or two novels a year. Additionally, NBC ran a police drama called 87th Precinct during the 1961–62 season, based on McBain's work. From 1978 to 1998, McBain published a series about lawyer Matthew Hope; books in this series appeared every year or two, and usually had titles derived from well-known children's stories. For about a decade, from 1984 to 1994, Hunter published no fiction under his own name. In 2000, a novel called Candyland appeared that was credited to both Hunter and McBain. The two-part novel opened in Hunter's psychologically-based narrative voice before switching to McBain's customary police procedural style. Aside from McBain, Hunter used at least two other pseudonyms for his fiction after 1960: Doors (1975), which was originally attributed to Ezra Hannon, before being reissued as a work by McBain, and Scimitar (1992), which was credited to John Abbott. Hunter gave advice to other authors in his article, "Dig in and get it done: no-nonsense advice from a prolific author (aka Ed McBain) on starting and finishing your novel". In it, he advised authors to "find their voice for it is the most important thing in any novel".[citation needed] Dean Hudson controversy[edit] Hunter has long been rumoured to have written an unknown number of pornographic novels, as Dean Hudson, for William Hamling's publishing houses. Hunter himself adamantly and consistently denied writing any books as Hudson right up to his death. However, apparently his agent Scott Meredith sold books to Hamling's company as Hunter's work, and received payments for these books in cash. While notable, this in and of itself is not definitive proof: Meredith almost certainly forwarded novels to Hamling by any number of authors, claiming these novels were by Hunter simply to make a sale. Ninety-three novels were published under the Hudson name between 1961 and 1969, and even the most avid proponents of the Hunter-as-Hudson theory do not believe Hunter is responsible for all 93.[2][3] Private life[edit] He had three sons: Richard Hunter, an author, speaker, advisor to CIOs on business value and risk issues, and harmonica player; Mark Hunter, an academic, educator, investigative reporter, and author; and Ted Hunter, a painter, who died in 2006.[4] Death[edit] A heavy smoker for many decades, Hunter had three heart attacks over a number of years (his first in 1989) and was found to have a precancerous lesion on his larynx in 1992. This was removed, but the problem later returned, and Hunter died from laryngeal cancer in 2005, aged 78, in Weston, Connecticut. ****Wikipédia

Sapper (Herman Cyril McNeile)

Herman Cyril McNeile, MC (28 September 1888 – 14 August 1937), commonly known as Cyril McNeile and publishing under the name H. C. McNeile or the pseudonym Sapper, was a British soldier and author. Drawing on his experiences in the trenches during the First World War, he started writing short stories and getting them published in the Daily Mail. As serving officers in the British Army were not permitted to publish under their own names, he was given the pen name "Sapper" by Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the Daily Mail; the nickname was based on that of his corps, the Royal Engineers. After the war McNeile left the army and continued writing, although he changed from war stories to thrillers. In 1920 he published Bulldog Drummond, whose eponymous hero became his best-known creation. The character was based on McNeile himself, on his friend Gerard Fairlie and on English gentlemen generally. McNeile wrote ten Bulldog Drummond novels, as well as three plays and a screenplay. McNeile interspersed his Drummond work with other novels and story collections that included two characters who appeared as protagonists in their own works, Jim Maitland and Ronald Standish. He was one of the most successful British popular authors of the inter-war period before his death in 1937 from throat cancer, which has been attributed to damage sustained from a gas attack in the war. McNeile's stories are either directly about the war, or contain people whose lives have been shaped by it. His thrillers are a continuation of his war stories, with upper class Englishmen defending England from foreigners plotting against it. Although he was seen at the time as "simply an upstanding Tory who spoke for many of his countrymen", after the Second World War his work was criticised as having fascist overtones, while also displaying the xenophobia and anti-semitism apparent in some other writers of the period. Early life[edit] Cheltenham College, where McNeile enjoyed playing sports, but did not excel at them[2] McNeile was born in Bodmin, Cornwall. He was the son of Malcolm McNeile, a captain in the Royal Navy who at the time was governor of the naval prison at Bodmin,[3][a] and Christiana Mary (née Sloggett).[4] The McNeile family had ancestral roots from both Belfast and Scotland,[5] and counted a general in the British Indian Army among their members.[6] McNeile did not like either of his given names but preferred to be called Cyril, although he was always known by his friends as Mac.[6][7] After attending a prep school in Eastbourne, he was further educated at Cheltenham College.[2] On leaving the college, he joined the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich,[7] from which he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers as a second lieutenant in July 1907.[8] He underwent further training at the Royal School of Military Engineering before a short posting to Aldershot Garrison.[2] He received promotion to lieutenant in June 1910[9] and was posted to Canterbury, serving three years with the 3rd Field Troop, until January 1914, when he was posted to Malta.[2] In 1914 McNeile was promoted to the rank of captain.[5] He was still in Malta when the war broke out and was ordered to France in October 1914;[2] he travelled via England and married Violet Evelyn Baird on 31 October 1914.[4] Baird was the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Baird Douglas of the Cameron Highlanders.[10][b] First World War service[edit] On 2 November 1914 McNeile travelled to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force.[2][11] Few details are known about McNeile's wartime service, as his records were destroyed by incendiary bombs during the Second World War. He spent time with a number of Royal Engineer units on the Western Front, including 1st Field Squadron RE, 15th Field Company RE and RE elements of the 33rd Division.[2] US cover of No Man's Land, published in 1917 McNeile's first known published story, Reminiscences of Sergeant Michael Cassidy, was serialised on page four of the Daily Mail from 13 January 1915.[12][c] As serving officers in the British Army were not permitted to publish under their own names except during their half-pay sabbaticals, many would write under a pseudonym;[7] Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the Daily Mail, gave McNeile the pen name "Sapper", as the Royal Engineers were commonly known as the Sappers.[14][15] McNeile later confided that he had started writing through "sheer boredom".[5] Some of his stories appeared on page four of the Daily Mail over the following months.[16] Northcliffe was impressed by his writing and attempted, but failed, to have him released from the army to work as a war correspondent.[7] By the end of 1915, he had written two collections of short stories, The Lieutenant and Others and Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E., both of which were published by Hodder & Stoughton.[12] Although many of the stories had already appeared in the Daily Mail,[12] between 1916 and 1918 Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E. sold 135,000 copies and The Lieutenant and Others sold 139,000 copies.[17] By the end of the war he had published three more collections, Men, Women, and Guns (1916), No Man's Land (1917) and The Human Touch (1918).[12] In 1916 he wrote a series of articles titled The Making of an Officer, which appeared under the initials C. N., in five issues of The Times between 8 and 14 June 1916.[18][19] The articles were aimed at young and new officers to explain their duties to them; these were collected together and published by Hodder & Stoughton later in 1916.[18] During his time with the Royal Engineers, McNeile saw action at the First and Second Battles of Ypres[7]—he was gassed at the second battle[20]—and the Battle of the Somme.[2] In 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross[21] and was mentioned in dispatches;[22] in November that year he was gazetted to acting major.[23] From 1 April to 5 October 1918, he commanded a battalion of the Middlesex Regiment and was promoted to acting lieutenant-colonel;[24] the scholar Lawrence Treadwell observes that "for an engineer to command an infantry regiment was ... a rarity".[2] 18th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment under McNeile saw action for the remainder of his command, and were involved in fighting during the Hundred Days Offensive in the St. Quentin-Cambrai sector in September 1918;[2] during the year, he was again mentioned in dispatches.[25] On 2 October 1918 he broke his ankle and was briefly hospitalised, which forced him to relinquish his command of the regiment on 4 October. He was on convalescent leave when the war ended in November 1918. During the course of the war, he had spent a total of 32 months in France,[2] and had probably been gassed more than once.[7] His literary output from 1915 to 1918 accounted for more than 80 collected and uncollected stories.[20] His brother—also in the Royal Engineers—had been killed earlier in the war.[2] Post-war years[edit] McNeile had a quiet life after the war; his biographer Jonathon Green notes that "as in the novels of fellow best-selling writers such as P. G. Wodehouse or Agatha Christie, it is the hero who lives the exciting life".[4] Although he was an "unremittingly hearty man",[26] he suffered from delicate health following the war.[27] He had a loud voice and a louder laugh, and "liked to enliven clubs and restaurants with the sight and sound of military good fellowship"; his friend and collaborator Gerard Fairlie described him as "not everybody's cup of tea",[15] and commented that "he was loud in every possible way—in his voice, in his laugh, in his clothes, in the unconscious swagger with which he always motivated himself, in his whole approach to life".[28] McNeile and his wife had two sons.[10] On 13 June 1919 McNeile retired onto the reserve officer list and was confirmed in the rank of major.[29] The same year he also published a short-story collection, Mufti, in which he introduced a type of character as "the Breed", a class of Englishman who was patriotic, loyal and "physically and morally intrepid".[30] Although well received by the critics, the book failed commercially and, by the end of 1922, had only sold 16,700 copies from its first print run of 20,000; the unsold copies were pulped and the novel went out of print later that year.[31] "Demobilised officer, ... finding peace incredibly tedious, would welcome diversion. Legitimate, if possible; but crime, if of a comparatively humorous description, no objection. Excitement essential." Advertisement placed in The Times by Drummond in Bulldog Drummond[32] In 1920 McNeile published Bull-Dog Drummond, whose eponymous hero—a member of "the Breed"—became his most famous creation.[33] He had first written Drummond as a detective for a short story in The Strand Magazine, but the character was not successful and was changed for the novel, which was a thriller.[30] Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond DSO, MC was described in the novel's sub-title as "a demobilised officer who found peace dull" after service during the First World War with the fictional Loamshire Regiment. Drummond went on to appear in ten full-length novels by McNeile[d] and a further seven by his friend Gerard Fairlie.[35] The character was an amalgam of Fairlie, himself, and his idea of an English gentleman.[30][e] Drummond also had roots in the literary characters Sherlock Holmes, Sexton Blake, Richard Hannay and The Scarlet Pimpernel.[37] Drummond was characterised as large, very strong, physically unattractive and an "apparently brainless hunk of a man",[38] who was also a gentleman with a private income;[39] he could also be construed as "a brutalized ex-officer whose thirst for excitement is also an attempt to reenact [sic] the war".[40] The character was later described by Cecil Day-Lewis as an "unspeakable public school bully".[41] Drummond's main adversary across four novels is Carl Peterson,[f] a master criminal with no national allegiance, who is often accompanied by his wife, Irma.[43] Irma is described by Jonathon Green as "the slinky epitome of a twenties 'vamp'",[4] and by Lawrence Treadwell as dark, sexy and from an oriental background, "a true femme fatale".[42] After Carl Peterson's death in The Final Count, Irma swears revenge on Drummond and kidnaps his wife—whom he had met in Bull-Dog Drummond—with the intent of killing him in the ensuing chase.[44] Irma Peterson appears in six of McNeile's books, and in a further five by Fairlie.[42][g] Lobby card for US screenings of the 1922 film, Bulldog Drummond McNeile adapted Bulldog Drummond for the stage. It was shown at Wyndham's Theatre during the 1921–22 season, with Gerald du Maurier playing the title role;[45] it ran for 428 performances.[46][h] The play also ran in New York during the same season, with A. E. Matthews as Drummond.[46][i] Later in 1922 McNeile resigned his reserve commission with the rank of lieutenant-colonel,[49] and moved as a tax exile to Territet, Montreux, Switzerland, with his wife;[50] the Swiss countryside was later described in a number of his stories.[27][51] The following year McNeile introduced the character of Jim Maitland, a "footloose sahib of the period".[52][j] Maitland was the protagonist of the 1923 novel Jim Maitland; he later appeared in a second novel in 1931, The Island of Terror. Around the time McNeile killed off the Carl Peterson character in The Final Count (1926), he also introduced the character Ronald Standish, who first appeared in "The Saving Clause" (1927) and "Tiny Carteret" (1930)[44] before becoming the protagonist in two collections of short stories, Ronald Standish (1933) and Ask for Ronald Standish (1936). The character also appeared in the final three Drummond novels, Knock-Out (1933), Bull-Dog Drummond at Bay (1935) and Challenge (1937).[44] Standish was a sportsman who played cricket for England and was a part-time consultant with the War Office.[53] In 1929 McNeile edited a volume of short stories from O. Henry, The Best of O. Henry; the stories had served as models for him when he had started as a writer.[54] The same year, the film Bulldog Drummond was released, starring Ronald Colman in the title role. Colman was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor at the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony.[55] The film earned $750,000 at the box office,[56] and McNeile received an estimated £5,000 for the rights to his novel.[5] The same year he wrote his second play—The Way Out—which was staged at the Comedy Theatre in January 1930.[57][k] About a year later he and his wife returned to England, and settled near Pulborough, West Sussex.[51] In 1935 McNeile, Fairlie, Sidney Gilliat and J.O.C. Orton collaborated on the screenplay Bulldog Jack, a "comedy thriller" with Jack Hulbert and Fay Wray, which was produced by Gaumont British.[58][59] Death and legacy[edit] In 1937 McNeile was working with Fairlie on the play Bulldog Drummond Hits Out[60][l] when he was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. He came to an agreement with Fairlie for the play to continue after his death and for Fairlie to continue writing the Drummond stories.[27][61] McNeile died on 14 August 1937[62] at his home in West Chiltington, West Sussex.[63] Although most sources identify throat cancer as the cause of death, Treadwell also suggests that it may have been lung cancer.[64] It was "traceable to his war service",[4] and attributed to a gas attack.[7] His funeral, with full military honours, was conducted at Woking crematorium.[65] At his death his estate was valued at over £26,000.[5] Bulldog Drummond Hits Out was finished by Fairlie and had a short tour of Brighton, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh, before opening in London at the Savoy Theatre on 21 December 1937.[64] The story was later turned into a novel by Fairlie, with the title Bulldog Drummond on Dartmoor.[66] Fairlie continued to write Drummond novels, seven in total.[67][m] Drummond, McNeile's chief literary legacy, became a model for other literary heroes created in the 1940s and '50s.[37] W. E. Johns used McNeile's work as a model for his character Biggles,[68] while Ian Fleming admitted that James Bond was "Sapper from the waist up and Mickey Spillane below".[4] Sydney Horler's popular character "Tiger" Standish was also modelled on Drummond.[50] Writing[edit] McNeile's works fall into two distinct phases. Those works published between 1915 and 1918 are his war stories, and relate directly to his experiences during the First World War, while the later works are largely thrillers.[33][69] His war stories were marketed by the Daily Mail and Hodder & Stoughton as a soldier's eyewitness accounts. When he started writing thrillers, Hodder & Stoughton advertised McNeile as a "light and entertaining" writer,[12] and began publishing his works in the "Yellow Jacket" series.[70] Style and technique[edit] O. Henry was a literary model for McNeile McNeile's early works, the war stories published before 1919, are either "plot-driven adventure narrative[s]", such as the short stories "The Song of the Bayonet" and "Private Meyrick, Company Idiot", or "atmospheric vignette[s]", such as "The Land of Topsy Turvy" and "The Human Touch".[71] McNeile would write about 1,000 words every morning in a routine that was rarely disturbed; he took no breaks while writing and would do no re-writes until he completed his work.[63][72] The academic Jessica Meyer has criticised his style as having "little aesthetic merit, being stylised, clichéd and often repetitive";[73] Richard Usborne agreed, adding that the female characters were "cardboard" and that McNeile was "wonderfully forgetful" about characters dead in one book and alive in the next.[74] In the Bulldog Drummond stories, Watson identifies the central character as "a melodramatic creation, workable only within a setting of melodrama".[75] The academic Joan DelFattore points out that while the characters and plots cannot be considered to be unique, credible or well-rounded, his books "make no claim to literary excellence",[45] and are instead, "good, solid thrillers".[45] Usborne agrees, and believes that McNeile wrote good stories that were flawed but well told.[76] Meyer classifies the non-war stories as middlebrow, with "sentimental plotlines and presenting a social message about the condition of England".[77] His early novels, particularly Bull-Dog Drummond and The Black Gang, were structured loosely and in some ways as short stories.[50] The academic Hans Bertens blamed this on McNeile's lack of experience and self-confidence, noting that in his later novels, McNeile "mastered the tricks of his trade".[78] DelFattore outlines the use of double adjectives to reinforce feelings towards enemies in both his war stories and thrillers, such as "filthy, murdering Boche", and "stinking, cowardly Bolshevik".[45] She and the scholar Lise Jaillant also comment on the dehumanisation of the enemy, comparing them to animals and vermin.[31][45] Watson noted the frequency of the use of the word "devil"—and variations—when discussing antagonists.[75] Major themes[edit] First World War[edit] The major theme running throughout McNeile's works is the First World War. Between 1915 and 1918 he had five collections of short stories published about the war,[12] while his post-war fiction can be seen as an extension of those stories, as "both treat the war as a trial with manhood at stake".[79] His war stories were considered by contemporary audiences as anti-sentimental, realistic depictions of the trenches, and as a "celebration of the qualities of the Old Contemptibles".[80] McNeile's view, as expressed through his writing, was that war was a purposeful activity for the nation and for individuals,[81] even if that purpose was later wasted: a "valuable chance at national renewal that had been squandered".[82] The positive effects of war on the individual were outlined by McNeile in The Making of an Officer, his series of articles in The Times, in which he wrote about "the qualities of leadership and selflessness essential to 'inspire' subalterns",[83] a theme he returned to in his war stories—particularly The Lieutenant and Others and Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E[82][83]—and then afterwards in his fictional stories, notably the Bulldog Drummond works.[79] McNeile's fictional work—particularly his Drummond series of books—shows characters who have served in the war and have been affected by it; Jaillant comments that Drummond's war-time experience "has shaped his social identity, his skills, and even his physical appearance".[31] The Drummond character has been "brutalized by war",[39] which accounts for his physical approach when dealing with Peterson and others.[84] England[edit] First edition cover of Bulldog Drummond McNeile provided Drummond with a "flamboyantly aggressive patriotism" towards England,[85] which Drummond defends physically against those who challenge its stability or morality.[30] Hans Bertens argued that the patriotism demonstrated by Drummond was closer to nationalistic pride and a paranoia about threats directed at the upper middle classes, of which Drummond was a member.[86] Drummond's nickname—Bulldog—is symbolic of England, and he and his English gentlemen friends—"the Breed"—fight the conspiracy of foreigners threatening England's stability.[87][88] McNeile's thriller stories do not often pit Englishman against Englishman as the main characters; most of the foreigners in his books are the villains.[89] Sport[edit] Running throughout McNeile's books is the metaphor of warfare as sport. His war stories include descriptions of fights between individuals that carry a sporting motif: in Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E., he writes, "To bag a man with a gun is one thing; there is sport—there is an element of one against one, like when the quality goes big game shooting. But to bag twenty men by a mine has not the same feeling at all, even if they are Germans".[18] The motif was continued into the Drummond novels.[39] McNeile reinforces this theme through his use of the language of public school sports,[85] or of boxing, poker or hunting.[90] The titles of his books also use sporting imagery: The Third Round, The Final Count, Knock-Out and Challenge.[90] Reception[edit] McNeile's war story collections sold well; nearly 50,000 copies of his first book, Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E., were purchased in its first year, and nearly 58,000 copies the following year.[69] His thrillers were also popular, with Bulldog Drummond selling 396,302 copies between 1920 and 1939, exceeding the 100,000-copies benchmark for "best-sellers".[91] At his peak in the 1920s, he was the highest paid short story writer in the world,[92] and it was estimated that in the last five years of his life he was earning around £10,000 a year;[5] the Daily Mirror estimated that during his writing career he had earned £85,000.[93] Poster for the 1922 film Bulldog Drummond, based on McNeile's play of the same name McNeile's war stories were seen by reviewers as honest portrayals of the war, with British and American reviewers in the mainstream press praising his realism and avoidance of sentimentality in dealing with his subject matter. Reviewing Men, Women, and Guns for The Times Literary Supplement, Francis Henry Gribble wrote that "Sapper has been successful in previous volumes of war stories ... When the time comes for picking out the writers whose war fiction has permanent value, his claim to be included in the list will call for serious examination."[94] The reviewer of Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E. for The Atlanta Constitution reminded its readers that McNeile "has been called the foremost literary genius of the British army."[94] Jaillant observes that once McNeile moved from war stories to thrillers, with the concurrent re-positioning of advertising and marketing by Hodder & Stoughton, the reviewers also treated him differently, and presented him as "a writer of thrillers, without any pretension to literary seriousness".[95] When reviewing Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back[n] for The New York Times, the critic observed that "if you like a good knock-down-and-drag-out yarn with excitement and violence on nearly every page, you can't go wrong on Bulldog Drummond";[97] for the novel Bulldog Drummond at Bay, the reviewer considered that "as a piece of fictional melodrama, the book is first rate".[98] In the British market, The Times Literary Supplement also characterised him as a mass-market thriller writer, which contrasted with its consideration of his earlier works.[95] Controversy[edit] From the 1950s on, McNeile's work came to be viewed in the light of events of the Second World War,[40] and journalists such as Richard Usborne highlighted aspects of the stories which he considered were "carrying the Führer-principle".[99] DelFattore agrees, and considers that the second Bulldog Drummond novel—The Black Gang (1922)—is when the fascist element was introduced.[45] Jaillant notes that the accusations of fascism only came about after the Second World War,[31] while the academic Ion Trewin considers that through the Drummond stories, McNeile was seen at the time as "simply an upstanding Tory who spoke for many of his countrymen".[1] Throughout the Drummond stories, much of the language used by McNeile relating to ethnic minorities or Jews is considered by DelFattore to be "intensely conservative by modern standards";[30] Green observes that while the characters of other contemporary writers, such as Agatha Christie, "exhibit the inevitable xenophobia and anti-semitism of the period, McNeile's go far beyond the 'polite' norms".[4] J. D. Bourn considers his language to be "rather distasteful",[100] while the academic Michael Denning observed that "Drummond is a bundle of chauvinisms, hating Jews, Germans, and most other foreigners". ****Wikipédia

Sax Rohmer

Arthur Henry Ward (15 February 1883 – 1 June 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu.Life and work[edit] Born in Birmingham to a working-class family, Arthur Ward initially pursued a career as a civil servant before concentrating on writing full-time. He worked as a poet, songwriter and comedy sketch writer for music hall performers before creating the Sax Rohmer persona and pursuing a career writing weird fiction.[citation needed] Like his contemporaries Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, Rohmer claimed membership to one of the factions of the qabbalistic Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.[2] Rohmer also claimed ties to the Rosicrucians, but the validity of his claims has been questioned. His doctor and family friend, Dr R. Watson Councell may have been his only legitimate connection to such organisations.[citation needed] His first published work came in 1903, when the short story "The Mysterious Mummy" was sold to Pearson's Weekly. Rohmer's main literary influences seem to have been Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle and M. P. Shiel.[1] He gradually transitioned from writing for music hall performers to concentrating on short stories and serials for magazine publication. In 1909 he married Rose Elizabeth Knox. He published his first book Pause! anonymously in 1910. The Fu Manchu series[edit] After penning Little Tich in 1911 (as ghostwriter for the famous music hall entertainer of the same name: Little Tich) he issued the first Fu Manchu novel, The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu, serialised from October 1912 to June 1913. It was an immediate success, with its fast-paced story of Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie facing the worldwide conspiracy of the 'Yellow Peril'. The Fu Manchu stories, together with his more conventional detective series characters—Paul Harley, Gaston Max, Red Kerry, Morris Klaw (an occult detective), and The Crime Magnet—made Rohmer one of the most successful and well-paid authors of the 1920s and 1930s. The first three Fu Manchu books were published in the four years 1913–17; but it was not until 1931 (some fourteen years after the third book in the series) that Rohmer returned to the series with The Daughter of Fu Manchu. The reason for the long interval was that Rohmer wanted to be well and truly done with the series after The Si-Fan Mysteries, much as Arthur Conan Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes. The first three books had been successfully filmed by Stoll in the twenties as a pair of serials.[3] In 1928, Rohmer bowed to pressure and agreed to write a fourth novel as a serial for Collier's. Paramount had the first Warner Oland picture gearing up for production and the daily newspaper strip based on the series was in the offing. There was public demand for the character's return.[citation needed] Rohmer's first effort at reviving the Fu Manchu property was eventually reworked as The Emperor of America. The original intent had been for the head of the organisation to be Fu Manchu's daughter. He kept Head Centre as a female criminal mastermind to combat Drake Roscoe, but was very unhappy with the book both as it started and in its finished form. He would later return to Drake Roscoe and his female supervillain for the Sumuru series. In the meantime, he tried again to focus his energies on what was first titled Fu Manchu's Daughter for Collier's in 1930, but with an older (now knighted) Nayland Smith as the protagonist once more. The results were infinitely better and jump-started the series in the process. In the 28 years from 1931 to 1959, Rohmer added no fewer than 10 new books to the Fu Manchu series, meaning the series totals thirteen books in all (not counting the posthumous collection The Wrath of Fu Manchu). The Fu Manchu series drew much criticism from the Chinese government and Chinese communities in the US for what was seen as negative ethnic stereotyping. Sociologist Virginia Berridge claims Rohmer created a false image of London's Chinese community as crime-ridden, further claiming that the Limehouse Chinese were one of the most law-abiding of London's ethnic minorities.[1] Critic Jack Adrian notes that "Rohmer's own racism was careless and casual, a mere symptom of his times".[1] Other work[edit] Rohmer made friends with escape artist Harry Houdini, who wrote to him in praise of Rohmer's The Romance of Sorcery. Rohmer based his mystery-solving magician character Bazarada on Houdini. The Orchard of Tears is an odd book in the context of Sax Rohmer's other work. There are no oriental villains or exotic locations; rather, there are gentle rabbits and lambs in pastoral settings and a great deal of philosophical musing. As much as he enjoyed Fu Manchu—and the notoriety and income the character provided—Rohmer had other interests and a markedly serious side. The departure from his expected subject matter is plainly signalled by the book's dedication: "To the slaves of the pomegranate, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, who drink at the fountain of life, this chalice is offered as a loving-cup". In The Quest of the Sacred Slipper (1919) terror comes to Britain when a self-centered archaeologist unearths one of Islam's holiest relics—the sacred slipper of the prophet Mohammed. Until it is returned to its rightful people, the implacable Hassan of Aleppo vows his reign of death and destruction shall not cease. Behind these inhuman outrages is a secret group of fanatics. Not even the best men of Scotland Yard seem able to apprehend them.[citation needed] Tales of Chinatown (1922) is a collection of ten stories published in hardcover by Cassell in 1922 and Doubleday, Page and Company in 1922. All the stories first appeared in magazine format. This collection includes a story considered one of his best and also anthologised many times; "Tcheriapin." The story "The Hand of the Mandarin Quong" was rewritten for this; first published as "Hand of the White Sheikh" Rohmer changed the setting to a Chinatown background and published it as "The Mystery of the Shriveled Hand", the title then changed for this collection. Rohmer also wrote several novels of supernatural horror, including Brood of the Witch-Queen, described by Adrian as "Rohmer's masterpiece".[1][4] Rohmer was very poor at managing his wealth, however, and made several disastrous business decisions that hampered him throughout his career. His final success came with a series of novels featuring a female variation on Fu Manchu, Sumuru. The Sumuru series consists of five books. Rohmer also wrote numerous short stories; "The Master of Hollow Grange" (1920), is a homage to M. R. James' story "Lost Hearts", featuring a mad scientist who preys on children.[1] Rohmer's work was banned in Nazi Germany, causing Rohmer to complain that he could not understand such censorship, stating "my stories are not inimical to Nazi ideals".[5] After World War II, Rohmer and his wife moved to New York, only returning to London shortly before his death. He died in 1959, ironically due to an outbreak of influenza ("Asian Flu"). His wife, Rose Elizabeth (Knox) Ward (1886–1979), published her own mystery novel, Bianca in Black, in 1958 under the pen name Elizabeth Sax Rohmer. Some editions of the book mistakenly credit her as Rohmer's daughter. She and Cay Van Ash (1918–1994), her husband's former assistant, wrote a biography of the author, Master of Villainy, published in 1972. ****Wikipédia

Thomas Chastain

Thomas Chastain (January 17, 1921 - September 1, 1994) was an American author of crime fiction. He is best known for his bestseller Who Killed the Robins Family? And Where and When and Why and How Did They Die? as well as the sequel to that work. He was born January 17, 1921 and died in September 1994. He served as the president of Mystery Writers of America in 1989. He was also known as Nick Carter and Thomas Chastain, Jr. Career[edit] Chastain was born in Canada but grew up in the south of the United States. He attended Johns Hopkins University and worked in Baltimore, Maryland and New York City writing copy for newspapers, magazines and advertising.[1] Chastain has worked as an author of crime fiction and mystery since his first work, Judgment Day, was published in 1962. He became a novelist full-time in 1974.[1] Before the success of those novels, Chastain wrote a series of crime novels featuring Max Kauffman the Deputy Chief Inspector for New York City. His most well known work, Who Killed the Robins Family? And Where and When and Why and How Did They Die? (1983),[1] was a mystery novel about the murder of a wealthy cosmetics firm owning family, in which the solution to the mystery was not revealed. Readers were to guess who had committed the crimes and submit their guesses to the publisher. The first reader to guess correctly received a cash prize. Four married couples from Denver answered 39 of the 40 questions in the book correctly and won the $10,000 prize.[1] The book sold over 1 million copies and was top of the New York Times best-seller in January 1984.[1] A sequel entitled The Revenge of the Robins Family (1984) was released; while not as successful it also sold well.[1] He served as the president of Mystery Writers of America in 1989.[1] Chastain authored several other novels including Pandora's Box (1974), Where the Truth Lies (1988) with Helen Hayes and The Prosecutor (1992).[1] Over the course of his career he also worked as a newspaper reporter and editor. He co-wrote (with Sam Simon) the story of The Simpsons episode "Black Widower".[2] Chastain died September 1, 1994 aged 73 from lung cancer at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.[1] He was married to Louise until his death and had a brother and a sister. ****Wikipédia

William Irish

Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich (4 December 1903 – 25 September 1968) was an American novelist and short story writer who sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley. His biographer, Francis Nevins Jr., rated Woolrich the fourth best crime writer of his day, behind only Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner and Raymond Chandler. A check of film titles reveals that more film noir screenplays were adapted from works by Woolrich than any other crime novelist, and many of his stories were adapted during the 1940s for Suspense and other dramatic radio programs.Woolrich was born in New York City; his parents separated when he was young. He lived for a time in Mexico with his father before returning to New York to live with his mother, Claire Attalie Woolrich.[1] He attended Columbia University but left in 1926 without graduating when his first novel, Cover Charge, was published. Cover Charge was one of six Jazz Age novels inspired by the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald. He soon turned to pulp and detective fiction, often published under his pseudonyms. For example, William Irish was the byline in Dime Detective Magazine (February, 1942) on his 1942 story "It Had to Be Murder", (source of the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock movie Rear Window) and based on H. G. Wells' short story "Through a Window". François Truffaut filmed Woolrich's The Bride Wore Black and Waltz Into Darkness in 1968 and 1969, respectively, the latter as Mississippi Mermaid. Ownership of the copyright in Woolrich's original story "It Had to Be Murder" and its use for Rear Window was litigated before the United States Supreme Court in Stewart v. Abend, 495 U.S. 207 (1990). Woolrich was homosexual and sexually active in his youth.[2] In 1930, while working as a screenwriter in Los Angeles, Woolrich married Violet Virginia Blackton (1910–65), daughter of silent film producer J. Stuart Blackton. They separated after three months, and the marriage was annulled in 1933. Woolrich returned to New York where he and his mother moved into the Hotel Marseilles (Broadway and West 103rd Street). He lived there until her death on October 6, 1957, which prompted his move to the Hotel Franconia (20 West 72nd Street).[3] In later years, he socialized on occasion in Manhattan bars with Mystery Writers of America colleagues and younger fans such as writer Ron Goulart,[4] but alcoholism and an amputated leg (caused by an infection from a too-tight shoe which went untreated) left him a recluse. He did not attend the premiere of Truffaut's film of his novel The Bride Wore Black in 1968, even though it was held in New York City. He died weighing 89 pounds. He is interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Woolrich bequeathed his estate of about $850,000 to Columbia University, to endow scholarships in his mother's memory for writing students. Fiction[edit] As Cornell Woolrich[edit] Novels[edit] Woolrich's novels written between 1940 to 1948 are considered his principal legacy. During this time, he definitively became an author of novel-length crime fiction which stand apart from his first six works, written under the influence of F. Scott Fitzgerald. ****Wikipédia

William John Pronzini (Bill Pronzini)

Bill Pronzini (born April 13, 1943) is an American writer of detective fiction. He is also an active anthologist, having compiled more than 100 collections, most of which focus on mystery, western, and science fiction short stories. William John Pronzini was born in Petaluma, California. He has been married three times. The first marriage was to Laura Patricia Adolphson (1965, divorced 1966); the second was to Brunhilde Schier (July 28, 1972, separated December 1985, divorced a couple of years later). He married mystery writer Marcia Muller in 1992. They have collaborated on several novels: Double (1984), a Nameless Detective novel, The Lighthouse (1987), Beyond the Grave (1986), The Bughouse Affair (2013), The Spook Lights Affair (2013), The Body Snatchers Affair (2015), and The Plague of Thieves Affair (2016) as well as on numerous anthologies.[2] Writing career[edit] He published his first novel, The Stalker, in 1971. However, his best known works are the Nameless Detective series, which he began in 1971.[3] As of 2013, there are 42 books in the series, including a number of short stories. While the stories involve the usual range of crimes typical to mysteries, they depict relatively little violence.[citation needed] Short stories[edit] Pronzini has written more than three hundred short stories appearing in publications, including the some of the last issues of both Adventure and Argosy magazines, generally considered the first American pulp magazines. Pronzini's work also appeared in Charlie Chan Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, and Alfred Hitchcock's Anthology.[3] The 1890s Western detective short story collection, Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services (1998) centers on Sabina Carpenter, a Pinkerton detective widow working in her fallen husband's profession. Awards[edit] Pronzini has received a large number of awards and award nominations for achievement in the Mystery genre. His début novel The Stalker was nominated for the 1972 Edgar Award in the "Best First Mystery Novel" category.[4] Pronzini then won the inaugural Shamus Award for "Best Private Eye Novel" in 1982 for his novel Hoodwink.[5] The following year, he was nominated for his second Edgar Award, this time in the "Best Critical or Biographical" listings for Gun in Cheek.[6] The next year, 1984, Pronzini won his first award for a short-story, winning the "Best Private Eye Short Story" Shamus Award for Cat's Paw and Bones was nominated for the "Best Private Eye Novel" Shamus in 1986.[5] In 1987, Pronzini was awarded "The Eye", the Shamus award for "Lifetime Achievement" in the mystery genre, the highest accolade awarded.[5] The same year, Pronzini received his first Macavity Award for his Critical Work 1001 Midnights, along with Marcia Muller; following this with a win in the same category in the following year for Son of Gun in Cheek.[7] 1989 brought a nomination at the 1989 Anthony Award for "Best Novel", Shackles; and another Shamus nomination for short-story Incident in a Neighborhood Tavern.[8] That same year, his novel Snowbound was awarded the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.[9] Another two short-story nominations at the Shamus Awards followed for Here Comes Santa Claus in 1990 and Home is the Place Where in 1996, the year in which his novel Blue Lonesome was nominated for the "Best Novel" 1996 Anthony Award.[5][8] The next year, Sentinels received a "Best Novel" nomination at the 1997 Shamus Awards; the year after A Wasteland of Strangers won Pronzini's only "Best Novel" Edgar Award for Boobytrap, which also won the Shamus Award in the same category in 1999.[5][10] The Big Bite in 2001 and Devil's Brew in 2007 were both Shamus Award "Best Private Eye Short Story" nominees; followed by his latest recognition for "Best Novel" nominee Schemers, in 2010. ****Wikipédia

William Sanborn Ballinger (Bill S. Ballinger)

Bill S. Ballinger (born William Sanborn Ballinger on 13 March 1912 in Oskaloosa, Iowa, died 23 March 1980 Tarzana, California) was a prolific American author and screenwriter. He was educated at the University of Wisconsin[1] and was an associate professor of writing at the California State University Northridge, Los Angeles, California.[2] Working in radio and advertising in the early 1940s, Ballinger wrote 81 radio scripts and produced The Dinah Shore Show, The Breakfast Club, and Lowell Thomas broadcasts. After Ballinger moved from New York to Los Angeles he began writing full-time. The author of 30 books, Ballinger also used the names B.S. Sanborn and Frederic Fryer. The first was The Body in the Bed in 1948. His most famous work was 1950s Portrait in Smoke that received a Les Grands Maîtres du Roman Policier Award and was filmed in 1956 as Wicked as they Come. Ballinger's two main fictional characters in his novels were Chicago private investigator Barr Breed[3] and Native American Central Intelligence Agency Agent Joaquin Hawke.[4] His book, The Longest Second, was nominated in 1958 for an Edgar Award for the Best Mystery novel. Ballinger was a frequent writer for American television with 150 teleplays to his name.[5] These included seven teleplays for Alfred Hitchcock Presents (one of which, "The Day of the Bullet," based on a short story by Stanley Ellin, won him an Edgar for Best Half-Hour Teleplay in 1961), two episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, several police television shows such as Tightrope and Ironside and the episode "The Mice" for The Outer Limits. In addition to his books and teleplays, Ballinger wrote screenplays for Burt Topper's The Strangler (1963) and Operation CIA (1965), a Burt Reynolds spy film set in Vietnam but filmed in Thailand. ****Wikipédia

William Sydney Porter (O.Henry)

O. Henry (1862-1910) era o pseudônimo de William Sydney Porter, um dos maiores contistas americanos do século XIX e um dos autores mais populares do seu tempo. Em seu conto "The Caballero's Way", publicado em 1907 na coletânea Heart of the West, criou o personagem Cisco Kid, descrito como um bandido no livro, tornou-se um herói em adaptações para o cinema. asceu na Carolina do Norte numa família culta e abastada. Aos três anos de idade e após a morte da mãe por tuberculose, o pai, médico, decidiu que se deviam mudar para a casa da avó paterna. William começou por frequentar a escola de uma tia e aos 15 anos foi frequentar o Liceu que concluiu tendo a tia por tutora. Em 1879 empregou-se com aprendiz de farmacêutico/boticário na drogaria do seu tio tendo aos 19 anos obtido a licença de farmacêutico. Em 1882 foi para o Texas, pois alguma sintomatologia de tuberculose e a ideia que uma mudança de clima seria benéfica contribuíram para essa decisão. Casou e empregou-se como caixa num banco, começando também a escrever. Comprou um jornal, The Rolling Stone, que encerrou pouco depois. Porter foi acusado de desfalque no banco e fugiu para as Honduras, de onde regressou passados três anos devido ao estado terminal da sua esposa que continuou a viver no Texas. Julgado e sentenciado, cumpriu pena durante quatro anos numa prisão do Ohio, tendo começado a escrever sob o pseudônimo de O. Henry. Após cumprir a sentença, mudou-se para Nova Iorque onde viveu em estado de reclusão quase absoluta, embora fosse extremamente popular, com o terror de ser reconhecido como William Sydney Porter, devido aos anos passados na prisão. Acabou por morrer alcoólico e na miséria. O. Henry foi um autor original e fecundo, com um ritmo de escrita tal que lhe é atribuído praticamente um novo conto por semana. ****Wikipédia

TÍTULOS E AUTORES DA COLECÇÃO VAMPIRO POR ORDEM NUMÉRICA:

001-Poirot desvenda o passado-Agatha Christie;
002-O mistério dos fósforos queimados-Ellery Queen;
003-O caso das garras de veludo-Erle Stanley Gardner;
004-O barco da morte-Agatha Christie;
005-Knock-out-Sapper;
006-Os crimes do bispo-S.S.Van Dine;
007-O assassinato de Roger Ackroyd-Agatha Christie;
008-Vivenda calamidade-Ellery Queen;
009-O caso da jovem arisca-Erle Stanley Gardner;
010-Um crime em Glenelitten-E.Phillips Oppenheim;
011-O caso Benson-S.S.Van Dine;
012-O mistério da escada de caracol-Mary S. Rinehart;
013-Um crime no expresso do oriente-Agatha Christie;
014-O enigma do sapato holandês-Ellery Queen;
015-O impostor-E.Phillipe Oppenheim;
016-O caso da fotografia misteriosa-Erle Stanley Gardner;
017-Desafio à Polícia-Carter Dickson;
018-Convite npara a morte-Agatha Christie;
019-O santo e os anjos da vingança-Leslie Charteris;
020-A morte da canária-S.S.Van Dine;
021-O diabo que resolva-Ellery Queen;
022-Qual dos cinco?-Dorothy L. Sayers;
023-O caso do cão uivador-Erle Stanley Gardner;
024-Os crimes da viúva vermelha-Carter Dickson;
025-As quatro potências do mal-Agatha Christie;
026-O santo brinca com o fogo-Leslie Charteris;
027-O mistério da cruz egípcia-Ellery Queen;
028-O crime perfeito-Dorothy Sayers;
029-O caso da noiva curiosa-Erle Stanley Gardner;
030-A série sangrenta-S.S.Van Dine;
031-O assassínio da bruxa-Nancy Barr Mavity;
032-O mistério da laranja chinesa-Ellery Queen;
033-O caso do olho de vidro-Erle Stanley Gardner;
034-O falcão de malta-Dashiell Hammett;
035-O mistério do Bellona club-Dorothy L.Sayers;
036-Um drama no atlântico-Mignon G. Eberhart;
037-A diabólica casa isolada-Agatha Christie;
038-A mulher fantasma-William Irish;
039-O mistério do ataúde grego-Ellery Queen;
040-O caso do gato do porteiro-Erle Stanley Gardner;
041-O último caso de Trent-E.C.Bentley;
042-O caranguejo vermelho-Cliford Knight;
043-O adversário secreto-Agatha Christie;
044-A porta do meio-Ellery Queen;
045-O círculo vermelho-Edgar Wallace;
046-O caso da sobrinha do sonâmbulo-Erle Stanley Gardner;
047-A chave de vidro-Dashiell Hammett;
048-O homem da cama 10-mary R. Rinehart;
049-O camelo preto-Earl Derr Biggers;
050-Acidente ou crime?-james Hilton;
051-O enigma do quarto fechado-Frank Gruber;
052-O homem sinistro-Edgar Wallace;
053-A amiga de madame Maigret-Georges Simenon;
054-A tragédia de X-Ellery Queen;
055-A caixa vermelha-Rex Stout;
056-O tio prodigioso-Frederic Brown;
057-Dois crimes no inverno-S.S.Van Dine;
058-A casa sem chaves-Earl Derr Biggers;
059-Investigação perigosa-Frank Gruber;
060-Fumo sem fogo-Jacques Decrest;
061-O crime da raposa-Ellery Queen;
062-Na pista do alfinete novo-Edgar Wallace;
063-O crime exige propaganda-Dorothy L. Sayers;
064-Estranha maldição-Dashiell Hammett;
065-Maigret e o seu morto-Georges Simenon;
066-O insuspeito-Charlotte Armstrong;
067-O barbeiro cego-John Dickson Carr;
068-A morte mora no 14º andar-Pat Mac Gerr;
069-Atrás da cortina-Earl Derr Biggers;
070-O desconhecido do norte-expresso-Patricia Highsmith;
071-A sombra chinesa-Georges Simenon;
072-Mortalha por medida-Kelly Roos;
073-Dez dias de mistério-Ellery Queen;
074-Intriga e veneno-Dorothy L. Sayers;
075-5 caixas = morte-Carter Dickson;
076-Um cigarro misterioso-Mignon G. Eberhart;
077-O príncipe joga e ganha-John Creasey;
078-O caso da milionária perigosa-Erle Stanley Gardner;
079-O enigma da virgem de ferro-John Dickson Carr;
080-O mistério da arca de noé-Ellery Queen;
081-O relógio falante-Frank Gruber;
082-Crime no campo 127-Michael Gilbert;
083-O primeiro inquérito de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
084-O caso do gato envenenado-Erle Stanley Gardner;
085-A mão decepada-Joel Townsley Rogers;
086-O santo no mar alto-Leslie Charteris;
087-Divórcio sangrento-A.A.Fair;
088-A porta das sete chaves-Edgar Wallace;
089-A minha arma não perdoa-Mickey Spillane;
090-O caso do pato afogado-Erle Stanley Gardner;
091-O crime do escaravelho-S.S.Van Dine;
092-Sumuru-Sax Ruhmer;
093-O segredo de Chimneys-Agatha Christie;
094-Sua excelência a morte-S.A.Steeman;
095-Um erro de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
096-Jogo, mulheres e morte-A.A.Fair;
097-O crime do dragão-S.S.Van Dine;
098-O túmulo de prata-Frank Gruber;
099-O caso do sapato da ladra-Erle Stanley Gardner;
100-A aldeia de vidro+O homem do fato castanho-Ellery Queen+Agatha Christie;
101-O imenso adeus-Raymond Chandler;
102-O santo em acção-Leslie Charteris;
103-Os mortos podem voltar-H.P.Lovecraft;
104-O revólver de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
105-Um grito ao longe-Frederic Brown;
106-O bando terrível-Edgar Wallace;
107-Poirot salva o criminoso-Agatha Christie;
108-Encontro em Tânger-Laurence Wilkinson;
109-O caso do terceiro tiro-Erle Stanley Gardner;
110-Este homem é perigoso-Peter Cheyney;
111-Maigret em Nova York-Georges Simenon;
112-O gato de diamantes-Dorothy L. Sayers;
113-O santo enfrenta o Tigre-Leslie Charteris;
114-Os trabalhos de Hércules-Agatha Christie;
115-O caso dos dados viciados-Erle Stanley Gardner;
116-Tudo começou no México-Peter Cheyney;
117-O doido de Bergerac-Georges Simenon;
118-Perdeu-se uma mulher-Raymond Chandler;
119-O apartamento fatídico-Erle Stanley Gardner;
120-A chave e a fechadura-Frank Gruber;
121-O santo e o raio da morte-Leslie Charteris;
122-A morte de Lord Edware-Agatha Christie;
123-O caso da loja de flores-Erle Stanley Gardner;
124-A grande caçada-Mickey Spillane;
125-Irmãos e assassinos-Georges Simenon;
126-Interlúdio negro-Peter Cheyney;
127-Quem mata torna a matar-Kyle Hunt;
128-O caso do mosquito macabro-Erle Stanley Gardner;
129-Luar sangrento-Frederic Brown;
130-O santo e os diamantes roubados-Leslie Charteris;
131-Poirot contra a evidência-Agatha Christie;
132-Maigret e o homem do banco-Georges Simenon;
133-O caso dos peixes dourados-Erle Stanley Gardner;
134-A longa espera-Mickey Spillane;
135-A dama do lago-Raymond Chandler;
136-Frasco de veneno-Peter Cheyney;
137-O prazer e matar-Frederic Brown;
138-O meu amigo Maigret-Georges Simenon;
139-O relógio parado-Joel Townsley Rogers;
140-O caso do candeeiro de petróleo-Erle Stanley Gardner;
141-A desforra do santo-Leslie Charteris;
142-Arrastado na torrente-Agatha Christie;
143-A vingança é minha-Mickey Spillane;
144-Dobre a finados-Frederic Brown;
145-Pietr, o leitão-Georges Simenon;
146-A raposa que ri-Frank Gruber;
147-O bode expiatório-Raymond Chandler;
148-O caso da rapariga do iate-Erle Stanley Gardner;
149-Um homem de talento-Patricia Highsmith;
150-Champanhe para um-Rex Stout;
151-Cabo da víbora-Agatha Christie;
152-O homem sombra-Dashiel Hammett;
153-Desafio ao leitor-Carter Dickson;
154-O santo em Nova York-Leslie Charteris;
155-A janela alta-Raymond Chandler;
156-Desapareceu um inventor-Peter Cheyney;
157-O caso do cadáver fugitivo-Erle Stanley Gardner;
158-O sinal do morto-John Dickson Carr;
159-Ofício de matar-Frank Gruber;
160-O jogo da vida-Patricia Highsmith;
161-Tempo de espionagem-Agatha Christie;
162-A fera tem de morrer-Nicholas Blake;
163-O santo no pic-nic dos ladrões-Leslie Charteris;
164-Ingénua perigosa-Raymond Chandler;
165-O caso do anzol iscado-Erle Stanley Gardner;
166-A cicatriz reveladora-Mary Roberts Rinehart;
167-Os crimes do ABC-Agatha Christie;
168-O assassinato da minha tia-Richard Hull;
169-Erro judiciário-Antony Berkeley;
170-Cuidado com as curvas-A.A.Fair;
171-A última chamada-Hartley Howard;
172- 3 à porta do lobo-Rex Stout;
173-Marcada a fogo-Ben Benson;
174-O caso do marido enfeitiçado-Erle Stanley Gardner;
175-Mobilizado para a morte-Jay Flynn;
176-O homem poderoso-Mickey Spillane;
177-Jogo de espelhos-Agatha Christie;
178-A festa da enforcada-Anthony Berkeley;
179-O riso da morte-A:A:Fair;
180-O beijo fatal-Mickey Spillane;
181-Damas impacientes-Peter Cheyney;
182-O caso do cadáver atropelado-Erle Stanley Gardner;
183-O santo contra a Scotland Yard-Leslie Charteris;
184-Destino desconhecido-Agatha Christie;
185-O mistério dos bombons envenenados-Anthony Berkeley;
186-A cinco horas da morte-Hartley Howard;
187-Bahama negra-Peter Cheyney;
188-Zona de violência-Ben Benson;
189-O estranho caso da velha curiosa-Agatha Christie;
190-Ladrões de raparigas-Mickey Spillane;
191-O caso do relógio enterrado-Erle Stanley Gardner;
192-A morte ronda os rochedos-Leo Bruce;
193-O cadáver de argila-Mary Kelly;
194-Picada mortal-Rex Stout;
195-Só a morte as detém-A.A.Fair;
196-Os crimes das meias de seda-Anthony Berkeley;
197-Espelho quebrado-Agatha Christie;
198-Mundo de paixões-Nicholas Blake;
199-Ritual da morte-Ngaio Marsh;
200-O caso da vela torcida+Estação de trânsito-Erle Stanley Gardner+Clifford D.Simak;
201-Passaporte para o inferno-Hartley Howard;
202-A última bebida-Peter Cheyney;
203-Caçada ao sr.X-Rex Stout;
204-O santo recebe um S.O.S.-Leslie Charteris;
205-Poirot perde uma cliente-Agatha Christie;
206-O caso da rapariga sem rumo-Erle Stanley Gardner;
207-Alegria e morte-Ellis Peters;
208-A nona hora-Ben Benson;
209-Droga fatal-Anthony Berkeley;
210-O roubo no hipódromo-Lionel White;
211-O santo e o milionário invisível-Leslie Charteris;
212-Poirot, o teatro e a morte-Agatha Christie;
213-À beira do abismo-Raymond Chandler;
214-O caso do brinquedo mortífero-Erle Stanley Gardner;
215-Duelo na sombra-Peter Cheyney;
216-O santo em Miami-Leslie Charteris;
217-A beleza é uma armadilha-A.A.Fair;
218-O mistério do comboio azul-Agatha Christie;
219-O cruzeiro fatídico-Anthony Berkeley;
220-O santo em Londres-Leslie Charteris;
221-O mercenário-Mickey Spillane;
222-O caso dos macacos lendários-Erle Stanley Gardner;
223-Encontros sinistros-Peter Cheyney;
224-O santo e o sr.Teal-Leslie Charteris;
225-Centeio que mata-Agatha Christie;
226-Ponte de Areia-Frank Gruber;
227-O caso do bígamo assassinado-Erle Stanley Gardner;
228-O santo continua-Leslie Charteris;
229-Crime em Amsterdão-Nicolas Freeling;
230-A mina dos assassinos-Mickey Spillane;
231-Fim de semana com a morte-A.A.Fair;
232-Encontro com um assassino-Agatha Christie;
233-O santo e a vendetta-Leslie Charteris;
234-O caso da loira provocante-Erle Stanley Gardner;
235-O reverso do espelho-Mickey Spillane;
236-Madrugada sangrenta-Hartley Howard;
237-Morrer não é o fim-Agatha Christie;
238-Lemmy Cautione os agentes duplos-Peter Cheyney;
239-O caso da sombra assassina-Erle Stanley Gardner;
240-O santo e o crime perfeito-Leslie Charteris;
241-defesa sem controle-Mickey Spillane;
242-O natal de Poirot-Agatha Christie;
243-O caso da empregada em apuros-Erle Stanley Gardner;
244-O santo e o detective habilidoso-Leslie Charteris;
245-Viver para matar-Mickey Spillane;
246-50.000 dolares por um tiro-Frank Gruber;
247-As férias e Poirot-Agatha Christie;
248-O caso do revólver trocado-Erle Stanley Gardner;
249-Nylon, mulheres e crime-Myckey Spillane;
250-O santo na América Latina-Leslie Charteris;
251-Armadilha para um detective-A.A.Fair;
252-Poirot e o jogo macabro-Agatha Christie;
253-O caso das apostas no hipódromo-Erle Stanley Gardner;
254-Expiação Perigosa-Mickey Spillane;
255-Noite sem fim-Agatha Christie;
256-Pegar ou largar-A.A.Fair;
257-Perigo entre espiões-Peter Cheyney;
258-O alibi fatal-Rex Stout;
259-O caso do fantasma sedutor-Erle Stanley Gardner;
260-Poirot e a terceira inquilina-Agatha Christie;
261-No reino da perversidade-Hartley Howard;
262-Morte à sexta-feira-A.A:Fair;
263-O cigarro denunciante-Peter Cheyney;
264-Poirot e as jóias do principe-Agatha Christie;
265-O caso da dactilógrafa aterrada-Erle Stanley Gardner;
266-O ouro da evasão-Frank Gruber;
267-Conspiração nas trevas-Hartley Howard;
268-Algumas não esperam-A.A.Fair;
269-Caminho para a morte-Agatha Christie;
270-O caso da viúva assustada-Erle Stanley Gardner;
271-Rumo ao desconhecido-Mary Kelly;
272-Noves fora, morte-A.A.Fair;
273-Poirot e os erros da dactilógrafa-Agatha Christie;
274-Baile sem música-Peter Cheyney;
275-A montanha negra-Rex Stout;
276-Poirot e o encontro juvenil-Agatha Christie;
277-Um rasto de morte-Ellery Queen;
278-Natal macabro-Lionel White;
279-O caso da esposa mal acordada-Erle Stanley Gardner;
280-Os abutres-Agatha Christie;
281-Tentação perigosa-A.A.Fair;
282-Desculpe o incómodo-Peter Cheyney;
283-Caçador de beldades-Ellery Queen;
284-Morte entre as ruínas-Agatha Christie;
285-Armadilhas ao acaso-Peter Cheyney;
286-O caso do rosto substituido-Erle Stanley Gardner;
287-Sobevivência: Zero- Mickey Spillane;
288-Poirot e os 4 relógios-Agatha Christie;
289-Herança de um inferno-Nicolas Freeling;
290-O detective imperfeito-Rex Stout;
291-O caso do cadáver trocado-Erle Stanley Gardner;
292-O passageiro para Francforte-Agatha Christie;
293-Beleza perversa-Peter Cheyney;
294-As viúvas andam de luto-A.A.Fair;
295-Tragédia em 3 actos-Agatha Christie;
296-O caso do anúncio falso-Erle Stanley Gardner;
297-Encontro com o sr. Callaghan-Peter Cheyney;
298-O santo e o mistério de Lisboa-Leslie Charteris;
299-Mistério nas caraíbas-Agatha Christie;
300-Nemesis-Agatha Christie;
301-O caso da concorrente majestosa-Erle Stanley Gardner;
302-O santo e as importações ilegais-L.Charteris;
303-O enigma do casino-S.S.Van Dime;
304-Morte em barras de ouro-A.A.Fair;
305-O enigma do raptor inteligente-S.S.Van Dime;
306-Participa-se um crime-Agatha Christie;
307-Um número à escolha-Anders Bodelsen;
308-O caso do administrador atrapalhado-Erle Stanley Gardner;
309-O enigma do crime no jardim-S-S-Van Dine;
310-Os elefantes não esquecem-Agatha Christie;
311-O medalhão perdido-Nicholas Blake;
312-O caso da boneca maliciosa-Erle Stanley Gardner;
313-Disfarce criminoso-Edgar Wallace;
314-Fortuna indesejável-A.A.Fair;
315-O funeral foi o começo-Hartley Howard;
316-Mistério em hotel de luxo-Agatha Christie;
317-O caso do segredo da enteada-Erle Stanley Gardner;
318-Beleza para matar-Brett Halliday;
319-Procura-se mulher-A.A.Fair;
320-O enigma das cartas anónimas-Agatha Christie;
321-O caso da tia apaixonada-Erle Stanley Gardner;
322-A liga dos homens assustados-Rex Stout;
323-Seis segundos para matar-Brett Halliday;
324-Cartas na mesa-Agatha Christie;
325-O caso da divorciada audaciosa-Erle Stanley Gardner;
326-Auto-estrada para o crime-Hartley Howard;
327-Negócio mortal-Ed Lacy;
328-Perguntem a Evans-Agatha Christie;
329-Truque falhado-A.A.Fair;
330-A quadrilha de Rubber-Rex Stout;
331-Crime...com elas!-Mickey Spillane;
332-O candeeiro vermelho-Mary R. Rinehart;
333-Morte pela porta das traseiras-Agatha Christie;
334-Convite à violência-Lionel White;
335-O caso das garras do gorila-Erle Stanley Gardner;
336-Um quarto para morrer-Ed Lacy;
337-Encontro em Bagdá-Agatha Christie;
338-O culpado que se apresente-Rex Stout;
339-Os morcegos voam ao anoitecer-A.A.Fair;
340-Perfume e morte-S.S.Van Dine;
341-O caso da armadilha diabólica-Erle Stanley Gardner;
342-Contagem até zero-Agatha Christie;
343-Quarto 37-Hartley Howard;
344-O caso da ninfa nocturna-Erle Stanley Gardner;
345-Círios para os mortos-Harry Carmichael;
346-Um caso familiar-Rex Stout;
347-O vício e a treva-Sonja MacGrey;
348-Cai o pano (o último caso de Poirot)-Agatha Christie;
349-O caso do casaco de arminho-Erle Stanley Gardner;
350-Violação-Lionel White;
351-Embriaguez mortal-Hartley Howard;
352-Sobre brasas-A.A.Fair;
353-Quem matou a avozinha?-Frederic Brown;
354-A última razão do crime-Agatha Christie;
355-O caso da lata vazia-Erle Stanley Gardner;
356-A cruz tripla-Hartley Howard;
357-Tudo ou nada-A.A.Fair;
358-Crime adormecido-Agatha Christie;
359-O caso das bebidas drogadas-Erle Stanley Gardner;
360-Falso Testemunho-Harry Carmichael;
361-Os ciúmes de Minerva-A.A.Fair;
362-O cavalo pálido-Agatha Christie;
363-O caso da ruiva irrequieta-Erle Stanley Gardner;
364-Na linha de fogo-Hartley Howard;
365-De noite todos os gatos são pardos-A.A.Fair;
366-Sepultura para dois-Harry Carmichael;
367-O caso do soro da verdade-Erle Stanley Gardner;
368-O salário do diabo-Hartley Howard;
369-Matar é fácil-Agatha Christie;
370-A morte tem muitas portas-Fredric Brown;
371-O caso do bispo gago-Erle Stanley Gardner;
372-Armadilha mortal-Harry Carmichael;
373-Os crimes patrióticos-Agatha Christie;
374-O machado denunciante-A.A.Fair;
375-Viagem sem regresso-Hartley Howard;
376-O caso da morena contratada-erle Stanley Gardner;
377-Um cadáver na biblioteca-Agatha Christie;
378-A minha arma é o ódio-Harry Carmichael;
379-A morte verde-A.A.Fair;
380-Sangue e diamantes-Hartley Howard;
381-A saúde da morte-Agatha Christie;
382-O mistério do barco abandonado-Lionel White;
383-O revólver acusador-Frank Gruber;
384-O cadáver que não se calou-Rex Stout;
385-O caso da testemunha zarolha-Erle Stanley Gardner;
386-Maigret, a esplanada e o crime-Georges Simenon;
387-O último encontro-Hartley Howard;
388-O cadáver sem rosto-Hartley Howard;
389-Jogo e morte-Frank Gruber;
390-Maigret e a morte do sr.Gallett-Georges Simenon;
391-O livro assassino-Rex Stout;
392-O caso do canário coxo-Erle Stanley Gardner;
393-Morte em Roma-Hartley Howard;
394-Maigret e o crime na Holanda-Georges Simenon;
395-Divórcio envenenado-A.A.Fair;
396-A cavalo dado não se olha o...crime-Frank Gruber;
397-Maigret e a bailarina-Georges Simenon;
398-O mistério da estrela da manhã-Agatha Christie;
399-O caso do papagaio perjuro-Erle Stanley Gardner;
400-A carta fechada-Hartley Howard;
401-Maigret e o porto das brumas-Georges Simenon;
402-A morte bateu à porta-Rex Stout;
403-Um cadáver no cofre-Frank Gruber;
404-Maigret e a encruzilhada-Georges Simenon;
405-O caso do cavalo da bailarina-Erle Stanley Gardner;
406-Veneno para um detective-Hartley Howard;
407-Maigret e o crime da providência-Georges Simenon;
408-O poder da serpente-Mickey Spillane;
409-Duplo crime na rádio-Rex Stout;
410-Maigret e o caso Picpus-Georges Simenon;
411-As vidraças da morte-A.A.Fair;
412-Os crimes do galo-Frank Gruber;
413-Álibi sangrento-Harry Carmichael;
414-Maigret e o inspector cadáver-Georges Simenon;
415-O caso da loira de olhos negros-Erle Stanley Gardner;
416-Detective para abater-Hartley Howard;
417-Mulheres e crimes a mais-Rex Stout;
418-Maigret e a morte do perna-de-pau-Georges Simenon;
419-O crime serve-se frio-Frank Gruber;
420-O caso do amante preguiçoso-Erle Stanley Gardner;
421-Terror a prestações-Rex Stout;
422-Maigret e o Crime no Far-West-Georges Simenon;
423-Balas a mais para um cadáver-Ben Benson;
424-O lago da morte-Hartley Howard;
425-O tigre macabro-Rex Stout;
426-Um natal de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
427-O caso do cheque fatídico-Erle Stanley Gardner;
428-Hood o vingador-Mickey Spillane;
429-Morte de cão-Frank Gruber;
430-Maigret e o caso do ministro-Georges Simenon;
431-O jogo fatal-Hartley Howard;
432-O caso da virgem vagabunda-Erle Stanley Gardner;
433-Um cadáver no convento-Catherine Aird;
434-A defesa de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
435-As cartas marcadas-Ben Benson;
436-Meia noite trágica-Rex Stout;
437-Telefonemas sinistros-Lillian O'Donnell;
438-Maigret e o caso Nahour-Georges Simenon;
439-Adultério trágico-Harry Carmichael;
440-O ganso coxo-Frank Gruber;
441-Assassínio em Moscovo-Anthony Olcott;
442-Maigret e o crime na escola-Georges Simenon;
443-O bastardo-Mickey Spillane;
444-A assassínio e vénus-Ben Benson;
445-A longa noite-Hartley Howard;
446-Maigret nas termas-Georges Simenon;
447-Jogo mortífero-Catherine Aird;
448-A derradeira palavra-Rex Stout;
449-A dança da morte-Frank Gruber;
450-A hesitação de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
451-A morte do coveiro-Fréderic Dard;
452-A mulher tranquila-Harry Carmichael;
453-Boleia para a morte-Ben Benson;
454-O condiscípulo de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
455-A aliança trágica-Lillian O'Donnell;
456-Chave para a morgue-Hartley Howard;
457-O baú dos búfalos-Frank Gruber;
458-O sono da morte-Rex Stout;
459-O sobrinho de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
460-Crime na estrada-Catherine Aird;
461-A sombra da forca-Harry Charmichael;
462-Os incendiários da floresta-Hank Searls;
463-Maigret e os cães ferozes-Georges Simenon;
464-O dente e a garra-Bill S. Ballinger;
465-Bomba de relógio-Hartley Howard;
466-Os gatos macabros-Nicolas Freeling;
467-Violação e morte-Lillian O'Donnell;
468-Maigret e o crime na comporta-Georges Simenon;
469-O gato de muitas caudas-Ellery Queen;
470-A teia mortal-Ben Benson;
471-O livro mortífero-Frank Gruber;
472-Maigret e os insuspeitos-Georges Simenon;
473-O enigma do ataúde Índio-Rex Stout;
474-Um cadáver no parque-Fréderic Dard;
475-O fantasma homicida-Catherine Aird;
476-Maigret e o homem solitário-Georges Simenon;
477-A arma fez-se para matar-Nicolas Freeling; O castor assassinado-Ngaio Marsh
478-A maldição de Shakespeare-Michael Innes;
479-A morte também envelhece-Lillian O'Donnell;
480-Maigret e a jovem estrangulada-Georges Simenon;
481-Dorme...para sempre-Hartley Howard;
482-O cavalo trágico-Ben Benson;
483-Enigma na escuridão-Ruth Rendell;
484-Maigret e o taberneiro-Georges Simenon;
485-A derrapagem-Gilles Perrault;
486-A estatueta fatal-Lawrence Sanders;
487-Funeral inadiável-Catherine Aird;
488-Maigret e o punhal assassino-Georges Simenon;
489-O assassino de duas caras-Frank Gruber;
490-A estrada para a morte-Margery Allingham;
491-Pesadelo cor-de-rosa-John MacDonald;
492-Maigret e o denunciante-Georges Simenon;
493-O clube dos negócios estranhos-G.K.Chesterton;
494-O dia das armas-Mickey Spillane;
495-Orquídeas negras-Rex Stout;
496-Maigret e a louca-Georges Simenon;
497-Os crimes de Panda e Bambu-L.Sanders;
498-A vingança de Hamlet-Michael Innes;
499-Profissão perigosa-Lillian O'Donnell;
500-Quem matou o almirante?-Agatha Christie;Dorothy L. Sayers;G.K.Chesterton e outros;
501-Maigret e a alcoólica-Georges Simenon;
502-Momentos finais-Emma Page;
503-A morte de um janota-Rex Stout;
504-As férias do carrasco-Dorothy L. Sayers;
505-O mistério de cloomber-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle;
506-Perfídia que mata-Nicolas Freeling;
507-O crime serve-se ao jantar-Catherine Aird;
508-Maigret e o cadáver no armário-Georges Simenon;
509-Crime na alta roda-Margery Allingham;
510-Um enigma para loucos-Patrick Quentin;
511-O mistério do fiacre-Fergus Hume;
512-Perry Mason e o caso dos crimes a mais-Thomas Chastain;
513-Maigret e a casa do juiz-Georges Simenon;
514-Flores para o juiz-Margery Allingham;
515-Um caso para três detectives-Leo Bruce;
516-O enigma do coleccionador de antiguidades-S.S.Van Dine;
517-Maigret et le fantome-Georges Simenon;
518-Crime no clube de xadrez-Rex Stout;
519-Morte na mansão branca-Margery Allingham;
520-O mistério do iate desaparecido-John D. Macdonald;
521-Maigret e o corpo sem cabeça-Georges Simenon;
522-O grande mistério de Bow-Israel Zangwill;
523-A morte de uma dama-Carter Dickson;
524-Vingança brutal-Ed MacBain;
525-Maigret e a jovem assassinada-Georges Simenon;
526-Gente em perigo-Nicolas Freeling;
527-Enigma para actores-Patrick Quentim;
528-Caso sem solução-Leo Bruce;
529-Maigret e o cão amarela-Georges Simenon;
530-A milionária perseguida-Rex Stout;
531-Crime no jardim zoológico-Carter Dickson;
532-A prova dos nove-Ellery Queen;
533-Maigret e os pescadores da Terra Nova-Georges Simenon;
534-A testemunha silenciosa-Catherine Aird;
535-Malícia premeditada-Francis Iles;
536-Na pista do crime-Nicolas Freeling;
537-Maigret e o condenado à morte-Georges Simenon;
538-A última carta-Frank Gruber;
539-Perry Mason e o caso da herança maldita-Thomas Chastain;
540-Um crime no paraíso-Ellery Queen;
541-Maigret e a mulher desaparecida-Georges Simenon;
542-Crime no último andar-Anthony Berkeley;
543-Mistério no mundo da moda-Margery Allingham;
544-A casa dos encontros suspeitos-Ed MacBain;
545-Maigret e o homem das duas mulheres-Georges Simenon;
546-Destino macabro-Catherine Aird;
547-O sobretudo amarelo-Frank Gruber;
548-Arséne Lupin contra Herlock Sholmes-Maurice Leblanc;
549-Maigret diverte-se-Georges Simenon;
550-Poirot e companhia-Agatha Christie;
551-O mistério da moeda grega-Frank Gruber;
552-Corrupção e morte-Nicolas Freeling;
553-As férias de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
554-A culpa foi do veneno-Anthony Berkeley;
555-A casa do gelo-Minette Walters;
556-Repouso mortal-Carter Dickson;
557-Maigret e o enforcado-Georges Simenon;
558-A morte do jogador-R.A.Freeman;
559-Clientes a mais-Rex Stout;
560-A mina fantasma-Frank Gruber;
561-Maigret e o cliente do sábado-Georges Simenon;
562-O caso da 5ª avenida-Anna K.Green;
563-Morto duas vezes-Margery Allingham;
564-Crimes em série-Rex Stout;
565-Maigret e o crime na igreja-Georges Simenon;
566-O papagaio chinês-Earl Derr Biggers;
567-A figura de cera-Peter Lovesey;
568-Quem sabe a verdade?-Nicolas Freeling;
569-Uma confidência de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
570-Terror no museu-Ethel Lina White;
571-A flecha assassina-Carter Dickson;
572-Crime no Parque-R.Austin Freeman;
573-Maigret e a velha senhora-Georges Simenon;
574-O prisioneiro espanhol-Frank Gruber;
575-Morte na Coutada-Michael Innes;
576-Abracadáver-Peter Lovesey;
577-Maigret na casa de hóspedes-Georges Simenon;
578-Amor em Amsterdão-Nicolas Freeling;
579-A bolsa do traidor-Margery Allingham;
580-As três beldades-Frank Gruber;
581-Maigret e a condessa-Georges Simenon;
582-Crime e frustração-Carter Dickson;
583-Miss Pym resolve o caso-Josephine Tey;
584-A casa aberta-Michael Innes;
585-Maigret e o cadáver desaparecido-Georges Simenon;
586-A última campainha-Frank Gruber;
587-Um crime passional-Peter Lovesey;
588-Negócio perigoso-Catherine Aird;
589-Maigret e os gangsters-Georges Simenon;
590-O oito de espadas-John Dickinson Carr;
591-A outra história-Michael Innes;
592-A criança desaparecida-Nicolas Freeling;
593-Maigret tem medo-Georges Simenon;
594-A primeira investigação de Poirot-Agatha Christie;
595-O caso da modelo erótica-Erle Stanley Gardner;
596-A arma secreta-Frank Gruber;
597-A cilada de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
598-O beco negro-Mickey Spillane;
599-O direito de morrer-Rex Stout;
600-Os crimes da rua da morgue+Poirot, o golfe e crime+O cachimbo de Maigret+A porta de bronze-Edgar Alan Poe+Agatha Christie+Georges Simenon+Raymond Chandler;
601-O ladrão de diamantes-Earl Derr Biggers;
602-Nove e a morte, são dez-Carter Dickson;
603-Sherlock Holmes contra Jack o estripador-Ellery Queen;
604-O quarto 13-Edgar Wallace;
605-Morte dupla-Dorothy Sayers e outros;
606-Um fracasso de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
607-O detective rico-H.R.F.Keating;
608-Vinte mais dois-Frank Gruber;
609-Remédio fatal-Catherine Aird;
610-Até vir a dor-Dick Francis;
611-Em busca das bandejas de oiro-Jacques Futrelle;
612-E também Poirot!-Agatha Christie;
613-A esfinge adormecida-John Dickson Carr;
614-O enigmático criado chinês-Earl Derr Biggers;
615-As aranhas douradas-Rex Stout;
616-O suicídio do jóquei-Peter Lovesey;
617-Maigret e o ladrão preguiçoso;
618-O bom detective-H.R.F.Keating;
619-Dilema em Biarritz-Nicolas Freeling;
620-Disfarces e mais disfarces;
621-Maigret no tribunal-Georges Simenon;
622-Era uma vez três homens-Rex Stout;
623-Morte no jardim de inverno-Francis Lyall;
624-A máquina pensante em acção-Jacques Futrelle;
625-Os escrúpulos de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
626-Um homem de confiança-Dick Francis;
627-O lince desaparecido-Lydia Adamson;
628-Uma vida perfeita-Nicolas Freeling;
629-Maigret e os velhos-Georges Simenon;
630-A pista da vela torcida-Edgar Wallace;
631-Rapto de uma condessa-Magdalen Nabb;
632-O touro assassino-Rex Stout;
633-Maigret viaja-Georges Simenon;
634-Fuga de uma feiticeira-Ellis Peters;
635-O mistério do livreiro assassinado-Liliane Korb;
636-Marketing do crime.Frank Gruber;
637-Três casos de assassinio-Rex Stout;
638-Morrerei esta noite-fernando Marias;
639-A paciência de Maigret-Georges Simenon;
640-O mistério da solteirona curiosa-Dorothy Simpson;
641-Trindade homicida-Rex Stout;
642-O suave detective-H.R.F.Keating;
643-O mistério da morta desconhecida-Laura Lippman;
644-O labirinto e castang-Nicolas Freeling;
645-Intuitos perversos-Lillian O'Donnell;
646-Os crimes do estrangulador enluvado-Rex Stout;
647-O cavalo mortífero-John Franklin Bardin;
648-A fábrica-K.J.A.Wishnia;
649-O fantasma do crepúsculo-Magdalen Nabb;
650-O crocitar do corvo-Francis Lyall;
651-Os crimes da gata montesa-Rex Stout;
652-A mulher que não deixou saudades-Dorothy Simpson;
653-A imaculada fraude-Iain Pears;
654-Cidade solitária-Nicolas Freeling;
655-O detective morreu-Bill James;
656-A piscina silenciosa-Patricia Wentworth;
657-O mau detective-H.R.F.Heating;
658-As vitórias da lógica-Gustaf Adolf Bergström;
659-Balada da solidão-Bill Pronzini;
660-As novas mil e uma noites-Robert Louis Stevenson;
661-O máscara cinzenta-Patricia Wentworth;
662-Polícias e Ladrôes-O.Henry;
663-O mirante-Patricia Wentworth;
664-Cozinheiros a mais-Rex Stout;
665-O camaroteiro-Edgar Wallace;
666-O assassino de mulheres-Lillian O'Donnell;
667-O mistério do chapéu romano-Ellery Queen;
668-Um imitador de Sherlock Holmes-Maria O'Neill;
669-Dueto de morte-Rex Stout;
670-Casos furtuitos-Lillian O'Donnell;
671-Um gosto amargo-Magdalen Nabb;
672-Nocturno-Ed McBain;
673-Terceto para instrumentos letais-Rex Stout;
674-Adeus muchachos-Daniel Chavarria;
675-A serpente de plumas-Edgar Wallace;
676-Caso encerrado-Patricia Wentworth;
677-A astúcia de Mr. Reeder-Edgar Wallace;
678-O vaso quebrado-Rex Stout;
679-O julgamento Bellamy-Frances Noyes Hart;
680-Eu o juri-Mickey Spillane;
681-Os quatro homens justos-Edgar Wallace;
682-O Crime de Mattos Lobo-Leite Bastos;
683-Salteador e cavalheiro-Edgar Wallace;
684-Um drama na caça-Anton Tchekhov;
685-O Conselho de justiça-Edgar Wallace;
686-Uma noite solitária-Mickey Spillane;
687-Os homens justos de Córdova-Edgar Wallace;
688-O lobo solitário-Louis Joseph Vance;
689-A lei dos homens justos-Edgar Wallace;
690-O meu ofício é matar-Mickey Spillane;
691-Os três homens justos-Edgar Wallace;
692-Problemas a triplicar-Rex Stout;
693-O regresso dos homens justos-Edgar Wallace;
694-Onde está o pai-Rex Stout;
695-Protecção-Bill James;
696-O governador-Edgar Wallace;
697-Os triunfos de Eugene Valmont-Robert Barr;
698-A seita dos sapos-Edgar Wallace;
699-As experiências de Loveday Brooke mulher-detective-Catherine Louisa Pirkis;
700-Memórias de um chauffeur de taxi-Reinaldo Ferreira;
701-À procura da fortuna-Guy Boothby;
702-Aventuras extraordinárias de Kia o rei dos repórteres-Reinaldo Ferreira;
703-Do álbum de um detective-Headon Hill

AUTORES E SEUS TÍTULOS DA COLECÇÃO VAMPIRO POR ORDEM ALFABÉTICA:

A.A.Fair

Divórcio sangrento - nº 87

Jogo, mulheres e morte - nº 96

Cuidado com as curvas - nº 170

O riso da morte - nº 179

Só a morte as detém - nº 195

A beleza é uma armadilha - nº 217

Armadilha para um detective - nº 251

Pegar ou largar - nº 256

Algumas não esperam - nº268

Noves fora, morte - nº 272

Tentação perigosa - nº 281

As viúvas andam de luto - nº 294

Morte em barras de ouro - nº 304

Fortuna indesejável - nº 314

Procura-se mulher - nº 319

Truque falhado - nº 329

Fim de semana com a morte - nº 231

Morte à sexta-feira - nº 262

Os morcegos voam ao anoitecer - nº 339

Sobre asas - nº 352

Tudo ou nada - nº 357

Os ciúmes de Minerva - nº 361

de noite todos os gatos são pardos - nº 365

O machado denunciante - nº 374

A morte verde - nº 379

Divórcio envenenado - nº 395

As vidraças da morte - nº 411

Agatha Christie

Poirot desvenda o passado - nº 1

O barco da morte - nº 4

O assassinato de Roger Ackroyd - nº 7

Um crime no expresso do oriente - nº 13

Convite para a morte - nº 18

As quatro potências do mal - nº 25

A diabólica casa isolada - nº 37

O adversário secreto - nº 43

O segredo de Chimneys - nº 93

O homem do fato castanho - nº 100

Poirot salva o criminoso - nº 107

Os trabalhos de Hércules - nº 114

A morte de Lord Edware - nº 122

Poirot contra a evidência - nº 131

Arrastado na torrente - nº 142

Cabo da víbora - nº 151

Tempo de espionagem - nº 161

Os crimes do ABC - nº 167

Jogo de espelhos - nº 177

Destino desconhecido - nº 184

O estranho caso da velha curiosa - nº 189

Espelho quebrado - nº 197

Poirot perde uma cliente - nº 205

Poirot, o teatro e a morte - nº 212

O mistério do comboio azul - nº 218

Centeio que mata - nº 225

Encontro com um assassino - nº 232

Morrer não é o fim - nº 237

O natal de Poirot - nº 242

As férias de Poirot - nº 247

Poirot e o jogo macabro - nº 252

Noite sem fim - nº 255

Poirot e a terceira inquilina - nº 260

Poirot e as jóias do príncipe - nº 264

Caminho para a morte - nº 269

Poirot e os erros da dactilógrafa - nº 273

Poirot e o encontro juvenil - nº 276

Os abutres - nº 280

Morte entre as ruínas - nº 284

Poirot e os 4 relógios - nº 288

O passageiro para Francforte - nº 292

Tragédia em 3 actos - nº 295

Mistério nas Caraíbas - nº 299

Nemesis - nº 300

Participa-se um crime - nº 306

Os elefantes não esquecem - nº310

Mistério em hotel de luxo - nº 316

O enigma das cartas anónimas - nº 320

Cartas na mesa - nº 324

Perguntem a Evans - nº 328

Morte pela porta das traseiras - nº 333

Encontro em Bagdá - nº 337

Contagem até zero - nº 342

Cai o pano (o último caso de Poirot) - nº 348

A última razão do crime - nº 354

Crime adormecido - nº 358

O cavalo pálido - nº 362

Matar é fácil - nº 369

Os crimes patrióticos - nº 373

Um cadáver na biblioteca - nº 377

A saúde da morte - nº 381

O mistério da estrela da manhã - nº 398

Quem matou o almirante - nº 500

Poirot e companhia - nº 550

A primeira investigação de Poirot - nº394

Poirot, o golfe e o crime - nº 600

E também Poirot? - nº612

Anders Bodelsen

Um número à escolha - nº 307

Anna K. Green

O caso de 5ª avenida - nº 562

Anthony Berkeley

Erro judiciário - nº 169

A festa da enforcada - nº 178

Os crimes das meias de seda - nº 196

Droga fatal - nº 209

O cruzeiro fatídico - nº 219

Crime no último andar - nº 542

A culpa foi do veneno - nº554

Anthony Olcott

Assassínio em Moscovo - nº 441

Anton Tchekhov

Um drama na caça - nº684

Ben Benson

Marcada a fogo - nº 173

Zona de violência - nº 188

A nona hora - nº 208

Balas a mais para um cadáver - n~º 423

As cartas marcadas - nº 435

O assassinio de Vénus - nº 444

Boleia para a morte - nº 453

A teia mortal - nº 470

O cavalo trágico - nº 482

Bill James

O detective morreu - nº 655

Protecção - nº 695

Bill Pronzini

Balada da solidão - 659

Bill S. Ballinger

O dente e a garra - nº 464

Bret Halliday

Beleza para matar - nº 318

Seis segundos para matar - nº 323

Catherine Aird

Um cadáver no convento - nº 433

Jogo mortífero - nº 447

Crime na estrada - nº 460

O fantasma homicída - nº 475

Funeral inadiável - nº 487

O crime serve-se ao jantar - nº 507

A testemunha silenciosa - nº 534

Destino macabro - nº 546

Negócio perigoso - nº 588

Remédio fatal - nº 609

Catherine Louisa Pirkis

As experiências de Loveday Brooke mulher-detective - nº 699

Carter Dickson

Desafio à polícia - nº 17

Os crimes da viúva vermelha - nº 24

5 caixas = morte - nº 75

Desafio ao leitor - nª 153

A morte de uma dama - nº 523

Crime no jardim zoológico - nº 531

Repouso mortal - nº 556

A flecha assassina - nº 571

Crime e frustração - nº 582

Nove e a morte, são dez - nº 602

Charlotte Armstrong

O insuspeito - nº 66

Cliford Knight

O caranguejo vermelho - nº42

Clifford D. Simak

Estação de trânsito - nº 200

Daniel Chavarria

Adeus muchachos - nº 674

Dashiell Hammett

O falcão de Malta - nº 34

A chave de vidro - nº 47

Estranha maldição - nº 64

O homem sombra - nº152

Dick Francis

Até vir a dor - nº 610

Um homem de confiança - nº 626

Dorothy L Sayers

Qual dos cinco? - nº 22

O crime perfeito - nº 28

O mistério de Bellona club - nº 35

O crime exige propaganda - nº 63

Intriga e veneno - nº 74

O gato de diamantes - nº 112

Quem matou o almirante - nº 500

As férias do carrasco - nº 504

Morte dupla - nº 605

Dorothy Simpson

O mistério da solteirona curiosa - nº 640

A mulher que não deixou saudades - nº 652

E.C.Bentley

O último caso de trent - nº 41

E. Phillips Oppenheim

Um crime em Glenelitten - nº 10

O impostor - nº 15

Earl Derr Biggers

O camelo preto - nº 49

A casa sem chaves - nº58

Atrás da cortina - nº 69

O papagaio chinês - nº 566

O ladrão de diamantes - nº 601

O enigmático criado chinês - nº 614

Ed Lacy

Negócio mortal - nº 327

Um quarto para morrer - nº 336

Ed MacBain

Vingança Brutal - nº 524

A casa dos encontros suspeitos - nº 544

Nocturno - nº 672

Edgar Alan Poe

Os crimes da rua morgue - nº 600

Edgar Wallace

O círculo vermelho - nº 45

O homem sinistro - nº 52

Na pista do alfinete novo - nº 62

A porta das sete chaves - nº 88

O bando terrível - nº 106

Disfarce criminoso - nº 313

O quarto 13 - nº 604

Disfarces e mais disfarces - nº 620

A pista da vela torcida - nº 630

O camaroteiro - nº 665

A serpente de plumas - nº 675

A astúcia de Mr. Reeder - nº 677

Os quartos homens justos - nº 681

Salteador e cavalheiro - nº 683

O conselho de justiça - nº 685

Os homens justos de Cordova - nº 687

A lei dos homens justos - nº 689

Os três homens justos - nº 691

O regresso dos homens justos - nº 693

O governador - nº 696

A seita dos sapos - nº 698

Ellery Queen

O mistério dos fósforos queimados - nº 2

Vivenda calamidade - nº 8

O enigma do sapato holandês - nº 14

O diabo que resolva - nº 21

O mistério da cruz egípcia - nº 27

O mistério da laranja chinesa - nº 32

O mistério do ataúde grego - nº 39

A porta do meio - nº 44

A tragédia de X - nº 54

O crime da raposa - nº 61

Dez dias de mistério - nº 73

O mistério da arca de noé - nº 80

A aldeia de vidro - nº 100

Um rasto de morte - nº 277

Caçador de beldades - nº 283

O gato de muitas caudas - nº 469

A prova dos nove - nº 532

Um crime no paraíso - nº 540

Sherlock Holmes contra Jack o estripador - nº 603

O mistério do chapéu romano - nº 667

Ellis Peters

Alegria e morte - nº 207

Fuga de uma feiticeira - nº 634

Emma Page

Momentos finais - nº 502

Erle Stanley Gardner

O caso das garras de veludo - nº 3

O caso da jovem arisca - nº9

O caso da fotografia misteriosa - nº 16

O caso do cão uivador - nº 23

O caso da noiva curiosa - nº29

O caso do olho de vidro - nº 33

O caso do gato do porteiro - nº 40

O caso da sobrinha do sonâmbulo - nº 46

O caso da milionária perigosa - nº 78

O caso do gato envenenado - nº 84

O caso do pato afogado - nº 90

O caso do sapato da ladra - nº 99

O caso do terceiro tiro - nº 109

O caso dos dados viciados - nº 115

O apartamento fatídico - nº 119

O caso da loja de flores - nº 123

O caso do mosquito macabro - nº 128

O caso dos peixes dourados - nº 133

O caso do candeeiro de petróleo - nº 140

O caso da rapariga do iate - nº 148

O caso do cadáver fugitivo - nº 157

O caso do anzol iscado - nº 165

O caso do marido enfeitiçado - nº 174

O caso do cadáver atropelado - nº 182

O caso do relógio enterrado - nº 191

O caso da vela torcida - nº 200

O caso da rapariga sem rumo - nº 206

O caso do brinquedo mortífero - nº 214

O caso dos macacos lendários - nº 222

O caso do bígamo assassinado - nº 227

O caso da loira provocante - nº 234

O caso da sombra assassina - nº 239

O caso da empregada em apuros - nº 243

O caso do revólver trocado - nº 248

O caso das apostas no hipódromo - nº 253

O caso do fantasma sedutor - nº 259

O caso da dactilógrafa aterrada - nº 265

O caso da viúva assustada - nº 270

O caso da esposa mal acordada - nº 279

O caso do rosto substituído - nº 286

O caso do cadáver trocado - nº 291

O caso do anúncio falso - nº 296

O caso da concorrente majestosa - nº 301

O caso do administrador atrapalhado - nº 308

O caso da boneca maliciosa - nº 312

O caso do segredo da entrega - nº 317

O caso da tia apaixonada - nº 321

O caso da divorciada audaciosa - nº 325

O caso das garras do gorila - nº 335

O caso da armadilha diabólica - nº 341

O caso da ninfa nocturna - nº 344

O caso do casaco de arminho - nº 349

O caso da lata vazia - nº 355

O caso das bebidas drogadas - nº 359

O caso da ruiva irrequieta - nº 363

O caso do soro da verdade - nº 367

O caso do bispo gago - nº 371

O caso da morena contratada - nº 376

O caso da testemunha zarolha - nº 385

O caso do canário coxo - nº 392

O caso do papagaio perjuro - nº 399

O caso do cavalo da bailarina - nº 405

O caso da loira dos olhos negros - nº 415

O caso do amante preguiçoso - nº 420

O caso do cheque fatídico - nº 427

O caso da virgem vagabunda - nº 432

O caso da modelo erótica - nº595

Ethel Lina White

Terror no museu - nº570

Fernando Marias

Morrerei esta noite - nº 638

Fergus Hume

O mistério do fiacre - nº 511

Frances Noyes Hart

O julgamento Bellamy - nº 679

Francis Iles

Malícia premeditada - nº 535

Francis Lyall

Morte no jardim de inverno - nº 623

O crocitar do corvo - nº 650

Frank Gruber

Investigação perigosa - nº 59

O relógio falante - nº 81

O túmulo de prata - nº 98

O enigma do quarto fechado - nº 51

O baú dos búfalos - nº 457

O livro mortífero - nº 471

O assassino de duas caras - nº 489

A última carta - nº 538

O sobretudo amarelo - nº 547

O mistério da moeda grega - nº 551

A mina fantasma - nº 560

O prisioneiro espanhol - nº 574

As três beldades - nº 580

A última campainha - nº 586

A arma secreta - nº 596

Vinte mais dois - nº 608

Marketing do crime - nº 636

A chave e a fechadura - nº 120

A raposa que ri - nº 146

Ofício de matar - nº 159

Ponte de areia - nº 226

50.000 dolares por um tiro - nº 246

O ouro da evasão - nº 266

O revólver acusador - nº 383

Jogo e morte - nº 389

A cavalo dado não se olha o...crime - nº 396

Um cadáver no cofre - nº 403

Os crimes do galo - nº 412

O crime serve-se frio - nº 419

Morte de cão - nº 429

O ganso coxo - nº 440

A dança da morte - nº 449

Frederic Dard

Um cadáver no parque - nº 474

A morte do coveiro - nº 451

Fredric Brown

O tio prodigioso - nº 56

Um grito ao longe - nº 105

Luar sangrento - nº 129

O prazer de matar - nº 137

Dobre a finados - nº 144

Quem matou a avozinha? - nº 353

A morte tem muitas portas - nº 370

G.K. Chesterton

O clube dos negócios estranhos - nº493

Quem matou o almirante? - nº 500

Georges Simenon

A amiga de madame Maigret - nº 53

Maigret e o seu morto - nº 65

A sombra chinesa - nº 71

O primeiro inquérito de Maigret - nº 83

Um erro de Maigret - nº 95

O revólver de Maigret - nº 104

Maigret em Nova York - nº 111

O doido de Bergerac - nº 117

Irmãos e assassinos - nº 125

Maigret e o homem do banco - nº 132

O meu amigo Maigret - nº 138

Pietr, o leitão - nº 145

Maigret, a esplanada e o crime - nº 386

Maigret e a morte do sr. Gallett - nº 390

Maigret e o crime na Holanda - nº 394

Maigret e a bailarina - nº 397

Maigret e o porto das brumas - nº 401

Maigret e a encruzilhada - nº 404

Maigret e o crime da providência - nº407

Maigret e o caso Picpus - nº 410

Maigret e o inspector cadáver - nº 414

Maigret e a morte do perna-de-apu - nº 418

Maigret e o crime do far-west - nº 422

Um natal de Maigret - nº 426

Maigret e o caso do ministro - nº 430

A defesa de Maigret - nº 434

Maigret e o caso Nahour - nº 438

Maigret e o crime na escola - nº 442

Maigret nas termas - nº 446

A hesitação de Maigret - nº 450

O condiscípulo de Maigret - nº 454

O sobrinho de Maigret - nº 459

Maigret e os cães ferozes - nº463

Maigret e o crime na comporta - nº 468

Maigret e os insuspeitos - nº 472

Maigret e o homem solitário - nº 476

Maigret e a jovem estrangulada - nº 480

Maigret e o taberneiro - nº 484

Maigret e o punhal assassino - nº 488

Maigret e o denunciante - nº 492

Maigret e a louca - nº 496

Maigret e a alcoólica - nº 501

Maigret e o cadáver no armário - nº 508

Maigret e a casa do juiz - nº 513

Maigret e o fantasma - nº 517

Maigret e o corpo sem cabeça - nº 521

Maigret e a jovem assassinada - nº 525

Maigret e o cão amarelo - nº 529

Maigret e os pescadores da Terra Nova - nº 533

Maigret e o condenado à morte -nº 537

Maigret e a mulher desaparecida - nº 541

Maigret e o homem das duas mulheres - nº545

Maigret diverte-se - nº 549

As férias de Maigret - nº 553

Maigret e o enforcado - nº 557

Maigret e o cliente do sábado - nº 561

Maigret e o crime na igreja - nº 565

Uma confidência de Maigret - nº 569

Maigret e a velha senhora - º 573

Maigret na casa de hóspedes - nº 577

Maigret e a condessa - nº 581

Maigret e o cadáver desaparecido - nº 585

Maigret e os gangsters - nº 589

Maigret tem medo - nº 593

A cilada de Maigret - nº 597

O cachimbo de Maigret - nº 600

Um fracasso de Maigret - nº 606

Maigret e o ladrão preguiçoso - nº 617

Maigret no tribunal - nº 621

Os escrúpulos de Maigret - nº 625

Maigret e os velhos - nº 629

Maigret viaja - nº 633

A paciência de Maigret - nº 639

Gilles Perrault

A derrapagem - nº 485

Guy Boothby

À procura da fortuna - nº 701

Gustaf Adolf Bergström

As vitórias da lógica - nº 658

H.P.Lovecraft

Os mortos podem voltar - nº 103

H.R.F.Keating

O detective rico - nº 607

O bom detective - nº 618

O suave detective - nº 642

O mau detective - nº 657

Hank Searls

Os incendiários da floresta - nº 462

Harry Carmichael

Círios para os mortos - nº 345

Falso testemunho - nº 360

Sepultura para dois - nº 366

Armadilha mortal - nº 372

A minha arma é o ódio - nº 378

Alibi sangrento - nº 413

Adultério trágico - nº 439

A mulher tranquila - nº 452

A sombra da forca - nº 461

Hartley Howard

A última chamada - nº 171

A cinco horas da morte - nº 186

Passaporte para o inferno - nº 201

Madrugada sangrenta - nº 236

No reino da perversidade - nº 261

Conspiração nas trevas - nº 267

O funeral foi o começo - nº 315

Autoestrada para o crime - nº 326

Quarto 37 - nº 343

Embriaguez mortal - nº 351

A cruz tripla - nº 356

Na linha de fogo - nº 364

O salário do diabo - nº 368

Viagem sem regresso - nº 375

Sangue e diamantes - nº 380

O último encontro - nº 387

O cadáver sem rosto - nº 388

Morte em Roma - nº 393

A carta fechada - nº 400

Veneno para um detective - nº 406

Detective para abater - nº 416

O lago da morte - nº 424

O jogo fatal - nº 431

A longa noite - nº 445

Chave para a morgue - nº 456

Bomba de relógio - nº 465

Dorme...para sempre - nº 481

Headon Hill

Do álbum de um detective - nº 703

Iain Pears

A imaculada fraude - nº 653

Israel Zangwill

O grande mistério de bow - nº 522

Jacques Decrest

Fumo sem fogo - nº 60

Jacques Futrelle

Em busca das bandejas de oiro - nº 611

James Hilton

Acidente ou crime? - nº 50

A máquina pensante em acção - nº 624

Jay Flynn

Mobilizado para a morte - nº 175

Joel Townsley Rogers

A mão decepada - nº 85

O relógio parado - nº 139

John Creasy

O príncipe joga e ganha - nº 77

John Dickson Carr

O barbeiro cego - nº 67

O enigma da virgem de ferro - nº 79

O sinal do morto - nº 158

O oito de espadas - nº 590

A esfinge adormecida - nº 613

John Franklin Bardin

O cavalo mortífero - nº 647

John Macdonald

Pesadelo cor-de-rosa - nº 491

O mistério do iate desaparecido - nº 520

Josephine Tey

Miss Pym resolve o caso - nº 583

K.J.A.Wishnia

A Fábrica - nº 648

Kelly Roos

Mortalha por medida - nº 72

Kyle Hunt

Quem mata torna a matar - nº 127

Laura Lippman

O mistério da morta desconhecida - nº 643

Lawrence Sanders

A estatueta fatal - nº 486

Os crimes de Panda e Bambu - nº 497

Laurence Wilkinson

Encontro em Tânger - nº 108

Leite Bastos

O crime de Mattos Lobo - nº 682

Leo Bruce

A morte ronda os rochedos - nº 192

Um caso para três detectives - nº 515

Caso sem solução - nº 528

Leslie Charteris

O santo e os anjos da vingança - nº 19

O santo brinca com o fogo - nº 26

O santo no mar alto - nº 86

O santo em acção - nº 102

O santo enfrenta o tigre - nº 113

O santo e o raio da morte - nº 121

O santo e os diamantes roubados - nº 130

A desforra do santo - nº 141

O santo em Nova York - nº 154

O santo no pic-nic dos ladrões - nº 163

O santo contra a Scotland Yard - nº 183

O santo recebe um S.O.S. - nº 204

O santo e o milionário invisível - nº 211

O santo em Miami - nº 216

O santo em Londres - nº 220

O santo e o Sr. Teal - nº 224

O santo continua - nº 228

O santo e a vendetta - nº 233

O santo e o crime perfeito - nº 240

O santo e o detective habilidoso - nº 244

O santo na América Latina - nº 250

O santo e o mistério de Lisboa - nº 298

O santo e as importações ilegais - nº 302

Liliane Korb

O mistério do livreiro assassinado - nº 635

Lilian O'Donnell

Telefonemas sinistros - nº437

A aliança técnica - nº 455

Violação e morte - nº 467

A morte também envelhece - nº 479

Profissão perigosa - nº 499

Intuitos perversos - nº 645

O assassino de mulheres - nº 666

Casos furtuitos - nº 670

Lionel White

O roubo no hipódromo - nº 210

Natal macabro - nº 278

Convite à violência - nº 334

Violação - nº 350

O mistério do barco abandonado - nº 382

Louis Joseph Vance

O lobo solitário - nº 688

Lydia Adamson

O lince desaparecido - nº 627

Magdalen Nabb

Rapto de uma condessa - nº 631

O fantasma do crepúsculo - nº 649

Um gosto amargo - nº 671

Margery Allingham

A estrada para a morte - nº 490

Crime na alta roda - nº 509

Flores para o juiz - nº 514

Morte na mansão branca - nº 519

Mistério no mundo da moda - nº 543

Morto duas vezes - nº 563

A bolsa do traidor - nº 579

Maria O'Neil

Um imitador de Sherlock Holmes - nº 668

Mary Kelly

O cadáver de argila - nº 193

Rumo ao desconhecido - nº271

Mary Roberts Rinehart

O mistério da escada de caracol - nº 12

O homem da cama 10 - nº 48

A cicatriz reveladora - nº 166

O candeeiro vermelho - nº 332

Maurice Leblanc

Arséne Lupin contra Herlock Sholmes - nº 548

Michael Gilbert

Crime no campo 127 - nº82

Michael Innes

A maldição de Shakespeare - nº 478

A vingança de Hamlet - nº 498

Morte na coutada - nº 575

A casa aberta - nº 584

A outra história - nº 591

Mickey Spillane

A minha arma não perdoa - nº 89

A grande caçada - nº 124

A longa espera - nº 134

A vingança é minha - nº 143

O homem poderoso - nº 176

O beijo fatal - nº 180

Ladrões de raparigas - nº 190

O mercenário - nº 221

A mina dos assassinos - nº 230

O reverso do espelho - nº235

Defesa sem controle - nº 241

Viver para matar - nº 245

Nylon, mulheres e crime - nº 249

Expiação perigosa - nº 254

Sobrevivência - nº 287

Crime...com elas! - nº 331

O poder da serpente - nº 408

Hood o vingador - nº 428

O bastardo - nº 443

O dia das armas - nº 494

O beco negro - nº 598

Eu o juri - nº 680

Uma noite solitária - nº 686

O meu ofício é matar - nº 690

Mignon G. Eberhart

Um drama no atlântico - nº 36

Um cigarro misterioso - nº 76

Minette Walters

A casa do gelo - nº 555

Nancy Barr Mavity

O assassino da bruxa - nº 31

Ngaio Marsh

Ritual da morte - nº 199

O castor assassinado - nº 477

Nicholas Blake

A fera tem de morrer - nº 162

Mundo de paixões - nº 198

O medalhão perdido - nº 311

Nicholas Freeling

Crime em Amsterdão - nº 229

Herança de um inferno - nº 289

Os gatos macabros - nº 466

A arma fez-se para matar - nº 477

Perfídia que mata - nº 506

Gente em perigo - nº 526

Na pista do crime - nº 536

Corrupção e morte - nº 552

Quem sabe a verdade? - nº 568

Amor em Amsterdão - nº 578

A criança desaparecida - nº 592

Dilema em Biarritz - nº 619

Uma vida perfeita - nº 628

O labirinto de Castang - nº 644

Cidade solitária - nº 654

O. Henry

Polícias e ladrões - nº 662

Pat Macgerr

A morte mora no 14º andar - nº 68

Patricia Highsmith

O desconhecido do norte expresso - nº 70

Um homem de talento - nº 149

O jogo da vida - nº 160

Patricia Wentworth

A piscina silenciosa - nº 656

O máscara cinzenta - n 661

O mirante - 663

Caso encerrado - 676

Patrick Quentim

Um enigma para loucos - nº 510

Enigma para actores - nº 527

Peter Cheyney

Este homem é perigoso - nº 110

Tudo começou no México - nº 116

Interlúdio negro - nº 126

Desapareceu um inventor - nº 156

Frasco de veneno - nº 136

Damas impacientes - nº 181

Bahama negra - nº 187

A última bebida - nº 202

Duelo na sombra - nº 215

Encontros sinistros - nº 223

Lemmy Cautione e os agentes duplos - nº 238

Perigo entre espiões - nº 257

O cigarro denunciante - nº 263

Baile sem música - nº 274

Desculpe o incómodo - nº 282

Armadilhas ao acaso - nº 285

Beleza perversa - nº 293

Encontro com o Sr. Callaghan - nº 297

Peter Lovesey

A figura de cera - nº 567

Abracadáver - nº 576

Um crime passional - nº 587

O suicídio do jóquei - nº 616

R.Austin.Freeman

A morte do jogador - nº 558

Crime no parque - nº 572

Raymond Chandler

O imenso adeus - nº 101

Perdeu-se uma mulher - nº 118

A dama do lago - nº 135

O bode espiatório - nº 147

A janela alta - nº 155

Ingénua perigosa - nº 164

À beira do abismo - nº 213

A porta de bronze - nº 600

Reinaldo Ferreira

Memórias de um chauffer de taxi - nº 700

Aventuras extraordinárias de Kia o rei dos reporteres - nº 702

Rex Stout

A caixa vermelha - nº 55

Champanhe para um - nº 150

3 à porta do lobo - nº 172

Picada mortal - nº 194

Caçada ao Sr. X - nº 203

O alibi fatal - nº 258

A montanha negra - nº 275

O detective imperfeito - nº 290

A liga dos homens assustados - nº 322

A quadrilha de Rubber - nº 330

O culpado que se apresente - nº 338

Um caso familiar - nº 346

O cadáver que não se calou - nº 384

O livro assassino - nº 391

A morte bateu à porta - nº 402

Duplo crime na rádio - nº 409

Mulheres e crimes a mais - nº 417

Terror a prestações - nº 421

O tigre macabro - nº 425

Meia-noite - nº 436

A derradeira palavra - nº 448

O sono da morte - nº 458

O enigma do ataúde indio - nº 473

Orquídeas negras - nº 495

A morte de um janota - nº 503

Crime no clube de xadrez - nº 518

A milionária perseguida - nº 530

Clientes a mais - nº 559

Crimes em série - nº 564

O direito de morrer - nº 599

As aranhas douradas - nº 615

Era uma vez três homens - nº 622

O touro assassino - nº 632

Três casos de assassínio - nº 637

Trindade homicida - nº 641

Os crimes do estrangulador enluvado - nº 646

Os crimes da gata montesa - nº 651

Cozinheiros a mais - nº 664

Dueto de morte - nº 669

Terceto para instrumentos letais - nº 673

O vaso quebrado - nº 678

Problemas a triplicar - nº 692

Onde está o pai? - nº 694

Richard Hull

O assassinato da minha tia - nº 168

Robert Barr

Os triunfos de Eugene Valmont - nº 697

Robert Louis Stevenson

As novas mil e uma noites - nº 660

Ruth Rendell

Enigma na escuridão - nº 483

S.A. Steeman

Sua excelência a morte - nº 94

S.S.Van Dine

Os crimes do bispo - nº 6

O caso Benson - nº 11

A morte da canária - nº 20

A série sangrenta - nº 30

Dois crimes no inverno - nº 57

O crime do escaravelho - nº 91

O crime do dragão - nº 97

O enigma do casino - nº 303

O enigma do raptor inteligente - nº 305

O enigma do crime no jardim - nº 309

Perfume e morte - nº 340

O enigma do coleccionador de antiguidades - nº 516

Sapper

Knock-out - nº 5

Sax Ruhmer

Sumuru - nº 92

Sonja Macgrey

O vício e a treva - nº 347

Thomas Chastain

Perry Mason e o caso dos crimes a mais - nº 512

Perry mason e o caso da herança maldita - nº 539

William Irish

A mulher fantasma - nº 38

+++++++MAIS INFORMAÇÕES++++

Cândido da Costa Pinto
Nascimento	1911 Figueira da Foz
Morte	1976 (65 anos)
Nacionalidade	Portuguesa
Ocupação	ilustrador, caricaturista


JOÃO LIMA DE FREITAS
Nascimento	22 de junho de 1927 Setúbal
Morte	5 de outubro de 1998 (71 anos) Lisboa
Nacionalidade	portuguesa
Área	Desenho; pintura

Livros do Brasil

Fundação	1944
Fundador	António Augusto de Souza-Pinto
Sede	Carnaxide, Oeiras, Portugal
Produtos	livros
Sítio oficial	livrosdobrasil.com

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A2ndido_Costa_Pinto

http://www.museuartecontemporanea.pt/pt/artistas/ver/37/artists

https://www.escritoriodearte.com/artista/candido-costa-pinto/