February 7, 1955. Chances are you never heard of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, who died on this day, but she was a well-regarded mystery writer in the middle of the twentieth century. With that three-chapter name it sounds like she should have been writing cozies, but she was one of the preeminent female authors of hardboiled.
How preeminent? Raymond Chandler, not an easy man to please, called her "the top suspense writer of them all." Critic Anthony Boucher said she was "in a class by herself."
Her best known book
The Blank Wall was filmed twice, as
Reckless Moment (1947) and
The Deep End (2001). Thanks to
Persephone Books it is back in print.
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