@aubreynhamilton.bsky.social
Former librarian, perpetual reader. Reviewer at Happiness Is a Book and Kevin's Corner. Occasional columnist at Mystery Readers Journal. "For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream." Vincent van Gogh
Jon Cleary wrote more than 50 books, 20 about Scobie Malone as he climbed the ladder of the Sydney police force. His second case was Helga's Web, which involved blackmail, drugs, a high-class prostitute, a politician, a film producer, and a financier. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/helgas-web-b...
Helga’s Web by Jon Cleary
Jon Cleary (1917-2010) was an Australian writer, publishing about 50 novels in a range of genres. A number of them were adapted for film and television. His most famous book is The Sundowners (Wern…
happinessisabook.com
November 25, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Jon Cleary wrote more than 50 books, 20 about Scobie Malone as he climbed the ladder of the Sydney police force. His second case was Helga's Web, which involved blackmail, drugs, a high-class prostitute, a politician, a film producer, and a financier. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/helgas-web-b...
Doug Selby is one of Erle Stanley Gardner's lesser known series characters. Here he helps work through the issues of a contested will and a mysterious stranger killed over breakfast. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The D. A. Breaks a Seal by Erle Stanley Gardner
Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970)was a California attorney who started writing pulp fiction in the 1920s so that he could leave his law career. The general public knows him best as the creator of Pe…
happinessisabook.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:07 AM
Doug Selby is one of Erle Stanley Gardner's lesser known series characters. Here he helps work through the issues of a contested will and a mysterious stranger killed over breakfast. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Sheriff Dan Rhodes made his debut in Too Late to Die by Bill Crider. It won an Anthony Award. The set of 25 books was consistently good, something that can't always be said of a long-running series. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/too-late-to-...
Too Late to Die by Bill Crider
Bill Crider (1941-2018) lived in Texas all of his life. He taught college English to earn a living but mostly he read and wrote crime fiction. His most well-known work featured Sheriff Dan Rhodes w…
happinessisabook.com
November 18, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Sheriff Dan Rhodes made his debut in Too Late to Die by Bill Crider. It won an Anthony Award. The set of 25 books was consistently good, something that can't always be said of a long-running series. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/too-late-to-...
This week's forgotten book is atypical in many ways for the Golden Age: it focuses on a poverty-stricken population who survived through petty crime while describing realistic police procedure. I found it compulsive reading. #ffb 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Death by Two Hands by Peter Drax
Eric Elrington Addis (1899-1941) served in the Royal Navy until 1928. He studied law, practicing as a barrister to the Admiralty bar until he was recalled to the Navy at the start of World War II. …
happinessisabook.com
November 14, 2025 at 12:50 PM
This week's forgotten book is atypical in many ways for the Golden Age: it focuses on a poverty-stricken population who survived through petty crime while describing realistic police procedure. I found it compulsive reading. #ffb 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Dean Street Press has reprinted the entire series of books by Anne Morice about actress Teresa Crichton, giving them fab new cover art. Pleasant traditional mysteries with strong characters and witty dialog. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/death-of-a-g...
Death of a Gay Dog by Anne Morice
Felicity Worthington Shaw (1916-1989) published some two dozen mysteries under the pseudonym Anne Morice between 1970 and 1988. Felicity came from the show business world and used the “write what y…
happinessisabook.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Dean Street Press has reprinted the entire series of books by Anne Morice about actress Teresa Crichton, giving them fab new cover art. Pleasant traditional mysteries with strong characters and witty dialog. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/death-of-a-g...
Whit Whitney dodges bullets, looks for his partner's killer and searches for an error worth a bundle in a tax return in David Dodge's first mystery. Dodge is mostly known as the author of To Catch a Thief, the basis for the famous Hitchcock film. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Death and Taxes by David Dodge
David Francis Dodge (1910-1974) was a versatile U.S. author of crime fiction and amusing travel books. He published multiple travel articles on assignment for magazines and then incorporated the se…
happinessisabook.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Whit Whitney dodges bullets, looks for his partner's killer and searches for an error worth a bundle in a tax return in David Dodge's first mystery. Dodge is mostly known as the author of To Catch a Thief, the basis for the famous Hitchcock film. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
The first case of Dr. Patrick Grant, Oxford dean and incurable gossip, from CWA Diamond Dagger winner Margaret Yorke. An elderly lady with more money than she needs and relatives that need that money but it's the family cook that's murdered. Hmmm. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/dead-in-the-...
Dead in the Morning by Margaret Yorke
Margaret Yorke (1924-2012) was born Margaret Beda Larminie Nicholson in Surrey, lived in Dublin for many years and moved back to England. She was a ferocious champion of libraries, for which she wo…
happinessisabook.com
November 4, 2025 at 6:47 PM
The first case of Dr. Patrick Grant, Oxford dean and incurable gossip, from CWA Diamond Dagger winner Margaret Yorke. An elderly lady with more money than she needs and relatives that need that money but it's the family cook that's murdered. Hmmm. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/dead-in-the-...
Another fine mystery in Anthony Gilbert's The Black Stage (1945) with clues hidden in plain sight which I of course missed but Arthur Crook did not. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Black Stage by Anthony Gilbert
The Black Stage by Anthony Gilbert (Collins, 1945) is the 16th book about the redoubtable solicitor turned detective Arthur Crook. Published as Murder Cheats the Bride in the U.S., it is set immedi…
happinessisabook.com
October 31, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Another fine mystery in Anthony Gilbert's The Black Stage (1945) with clues hidden in plain sight which I of course missed but Arthur Crook did not. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Cat lovers might find a new mystery series on this list I compiled for Mystery Readers Journal more than two years ago. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/a-clowder-of...
A Clowder of Cat Mysteries
Originally published in Mystery Readers Journal, Volume 39, Number 4, Animals in Mysteries II, Winter 2023. That cats and mysteries go together like peanut butter and jelly or shoes and socks is ev…
happinessisabook.com
October 28, 2025 at 10:14 AM
Cat lovers might find a new mystery series on this list I compiled for Mystery Readers Journal more than two years ago. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/a-clowder-of...
Nancy Barr Mavity was a well-known journalist who created a crime reporter named Peter Piper for her series of mysteries. In this one an hypnotic and conniving evangelist comes to a bad end. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Case of the Missing Sandals by Nancy Barr Mavity
Nancy Barr Mavity (1890-1959) was a U.S. journalist, author, and critic. Born Nann Clark Barr in Illinois, she was a reporter, feature writer, and book reviewer for the Oakland Tribune for more tha…
happinessisabook.com
October 24, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Nancy Barr Mavity was a well-known journalist who created a crime reporter named Peter Piper for her series of mysteries. In this one an hypnotic and conniving evangelist comes to a bad end. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Margaret Hinxman was a famous film critic who turned to crime fiction later. Her fourth book is about a journalist who had a lot in common with Hinxman, commuting from the south to London every day, except Hinxman didn't encounter murder on the train. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/the-corpse-n...
The Corpse Now Arriving by Margaret Hinxman
Margaret Hinxman (1924-2018) was a preeminent UK film critic who turned to writing crime fiction after a wildly successful journalistic career. Her obituary in The Guardian describes her cinematic …
happinessisabook.com
October 21, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Margaret Hinxman was a famous film critic who turned to crime fiction later. Her fourth book is about a journalist who had a lot in common with Hinxman, commuting from the south to London every day, except Hinxman didn't encounter murder on the train. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/the-corpse-n...
Ronald Knox was a founding member of the Detection Club and he wrote generally accepted rules for mystery authors. The Footsteps at the Lock is his second book about insurance investigator Miles Bredon. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Footsteps at the Lock by Ronald Knox
Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (1888-1957) was a British cleric and author. He was the son of the Bishop of Manchester. His brother Evoe was editor of Punch magazine and his sister Winifred Francis Knox Pe…
happinessisabook.com
October 17, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Ronald Knox was a founding member of the Detection Club and he wrote generally accepted rules for mystery authors. The Footsteps at the Lock is his second book about insurance investigator Miles Bredon. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Robert Barnard seems to have slipped off the crime fiction reading radar, which is really unfortunate. I am looking at some of his lesser known books this week. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/death-of-a-p...
Death of a Perfect Mother by Robert Barnard
Since I began looking at overlooked or forgotten authors, I have found one writer after another whose work was popular during his or her lifetime and then at death it promptly vanished from discuss…
happinessisabook.com
October 14, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Robert Barnard seems to have slipped off the crime fiction reading radar, which is really unfortunate. I am looking at some of his lesser known books this week. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/death-of-a-p...
The work of prolific author James Ronald is being reprinted by Moonstone Press. Volume 5 contains a novel, a novella, and a short story. The Dark Angel offers bigamy, extortion, blackmail, and murder, all in a briskly told story. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Dark Angel by James Ronald
James Jack Ronald (1905-1972) was a prolific writer of pulp fiction, mystery stories, and dramatic novels. Raised in Glasgow, Ronald moved to Chicago at seventeen where he worked in a variety of jo…
happinessisabook.com
October 11, 2025 at 1:25 AM
The work of prolific author James Ronald is being reprinted by Moonstone Press. Volume 5 contains a novel, a novella, and a short story. The Dark Angel offers bigamy, extortion, blackmail, and murder, all in a briskly told story. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Annette Meyers wrote about a pair of Wall Street recruiters who encounter murder. Leslie Wetzon and Xenia Smith make their first appearance in The Big Killing. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/the-big-kill...
The Big Killing by Annette Meyers
Annette Meyers was assistant to Broadway producer-director Harold Prince for sixteen years, and then she was an executive search and management consultant on Wall Street for as long. With her husba…
happinessisabook.com
October 7, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Annette Meyers wrote about a pair of Wall Street recruiters who encounter murder. Leslie Wetzon and Xenia Smith make their first appearance in The Big Killing. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/the-big-kill...
Jan Gordon was half of a colorful duo of artists and writers who traveled extensively between the wars. He wrote 3 mysteries on a dare. The first is There's Death in the Churchyard, which incorporates stock characters into a lively story. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: There’s Death in the Churchyard by William Gore
Godfrey Jervis “Jan” (1882-1944) and Cora Josephine Turner (1879-1950) Gordon were artists and authors, painting in Paris before World War I and then traveling to Serbia to work with aid organizati…
happinessisabook.com
October 3, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Jan Gordon was half of a colorful duo of artists and writers who traveled extensively between the wars. He wrote 3 mysteries on a dare. The first is There's Death in the Churchyard, which incorporates stock characters into a lively story. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
The first appearance of Inspector Pollard and Sergeant Toye is at a girls' boarding school, where one of the former students is killed during the annual reunion. The promising start of a good series. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/death-of-an-...
Death of an Old Girl by Elizabeth Lemarchand
Elizabeth Lemarchand (1906-2000) was a teacher in girls’ schools, becoming headmistress before her early retirement due to illness. She took up writing short stories and then detective novels, basi…
happinessisabook.com
September 30, 2025 at 4:00 PM
The first appearance of Inspector Pollard and Sergeant Toye is at a girls' boarding school, where one of the former students is killed during the annual reunion. The promising start of a good series. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/death-of-an-...
This week's forgotten book is a period piece from 1943. Rationing is in full swing and all of the characters drink from morning till night. Lt. Bill Grady solves the murder of a doctor while he is waiting for military orders. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Pattern for Murder by Ione Sandberg Shriber
Elaine Mathilda Sandberg was born in Emeigh Run, Pennsylvania, on November 28, 1911, and relocated with her family to Akron, Ohio, in 1919. She died in Deerfield Beach, Florida, on 7 January 1987. …
happinessisabook.com
September 26, 2025 at 12:01 PM
This week's forgotten book is a period piece from 1943. Rationing is in full swing and all of the characters drink from morning till night. Lt. Bill Grady solves the murder of a doctor while he is waiting for military orders. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Laurence Gough set his Willows and Parker detective series in Vancouver, his hometown. The first book won an Arthur Ellis award for Best First Novel from Crime Writers of Canada. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/the-goldfish...
The Goldfish Bowl by Laurence Gough
In my search for Canadian crime fiction writers, I discovered Laurence Gough. Gough wrote 13 books in his series about Vancouver police detectives Jack Willows and Claire Parker. The first title is…
happinessisabook.com
September 23, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Laurence Gough set his Willows and Parker detective series in Vancouver, his hometown. The first book won an Arthur Ellis award for Best First Novel from Crime Writers of Canada. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/the-goldfish...
Shakespearean scholar Gerald William Phillips composed a Holmes pastiche in the late 1920s, his only mystery. Horton Forbes is his investigator, schoolteacher Jack Kent is his Dr. Watson, and they both search for the killer of harmless Dr. Cheney. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Seven Black Chessmen by John Huntingdon
Gerald William Phillips (1884-1956) graduated from Oxford and took orders, then became a teacher and a Shakespearean scholar. The following biography is taken from the archives of Westminster Schoo…
happinessisabook.com
September 19, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Shakespearean scholar Gerald William Phillips composed a Holmes pastiche in the late 1920s, his only mystery. Horton Forbes is his investigator, schoolteacher Jack Kent is his Dr. Watson, and they both search for the killer of harmless Dr. Cheney. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Anne Wingate AKA Lee Martin wrote 13 books about Fort Worth detective Deb Ralston, a frazzled mother of 3 with a full-time job and an unexpected pregnancy just to keep her life interesting. She is one of my all-time favorite sleuths. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/murder-at-th...
Murder at the Blue Owl by Lee Martin
Anne Wingate (Martha Anne Guice Wingate) (September 4, 1943 – September 2, 2021) wrote multiple mystery series, including one of my all-time favorites. Under the name Lee Martin, she created the me…
happinessisabook.com
September 17, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Anne Wingate AKA Lee Martin wrote 13 books about Fort Worth detective Deb Ralston, a frazzled mother of 3 with a full-time job and an unexpected pregnancy just to keep her life interesting. She is one of my all-time favorite sleuths. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/murder-at-th...
Anthony Gilbert wrote a long series about solicitor Arthur Crook. Before that though there was a series about MP Scott Egerton, who wasn't quite as interesting. This week's forgotten book is the third. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Death at Four Corners by Anthony Gilbert
Lucy Beatrice Malleson (1899-1973) was a British author most well known for her creation of Arthur G. Crook, an entertaining lawyer whose ethics do not bear scrutiny. Crook had some 50 adventures p…
happinessisabook.com
September 12, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Anthony Gilbert wrote a long series about solicitor Arthur Crook. Before that though there was a series about MP Scott Egerton, who wasn't quite as interesting. This week's forgotten book is the third. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Margaret Reid Duncan Gilloran was a lawyer & crime fiction reader. After she retired, she began writing her own mysteries, 15 books about lawyer & private investigator Lennox Kemp. With Flowers that Fell is a convoluted case that seemed simple at first. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/with-flowers...
With Flowers that Fell by M. R. D. Meek
Margaret Reid Duncan Gilloran (1918–2009) was born in Scotland. She worked in an office for a few years before attending law school and practicing as a solicitor. After her retirement she combined …
happinessisabook.com
September 9, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Margaret Reid Duncan Gilloran was a lawyer & crime fiction reader. After she retired, she began writing her own mysteries, 15 books about lawyer & private investigator Lennox Kemp. With Flowers that Fell is a convoluted case that seemed simple at first. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/with-flowers...
Medora Field is best remembered for her history of antebellum mansions but she wrote two mysteries. The first is set in one of those old homes with creaking stairs and a hidden room and a surprisingly good mystery. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Who Killed Aunt Maggie? by Medora Field
Medora Field (1892-1960) was born in Georgia and began her career at The Atlanta Journal Constitution where she wrote a weekly advice column. She was a close friend of Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)…
happinessisabook.com
September 5, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Medora Field is best remembered for her history of antebellum mansions but she wrote two mysteries. The first is set in one of those old homes with creaking stairs and a hidden room and a surprisingly good mystery. #FFB 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/fridays-forg...
Contemporary crime fiction set during the early days of Hollywood was harder to find than I expected. These 14 mysteries are good whodunits and unintentional social histories. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/vintage-holl...
Vintage Hollywood Crime
Originally published in Mystery Readers Journal, Volume 40, Number 1, Spring 2024 Crime will occur in any field that generates large amounts of money, as Peter King had his Gourmet Detective explai…
happinessisabook.com
September 2, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Contemporary crime fiction set during the early days of Hollywood was harder to find than I expected. These 14 mysteries are good whodunits and unintentional social histories. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/vintage-holl...