11/11/1821 Dostoevsky is born

November 11, 1821.  Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow on this date.  He's considered a great mainstream writer, but he has certain claims on the mystery genre.  For example, Crime and Punishment, one of the first reverse mysteries, in which we follow the criminal rather than the detective.  Second, that very detective, Porfiry, the polite police officer who served as a model for television's Columbo.  And don't forget The Brothers Karamazov, a novel featuring a murder in which (spoiler alert) the butler did it.

9/27/1906 Jim Thompson's first night in jail

September 27, 1906.  Jim Thompson, the great noir writer, used to brag that he was born in jail.  To be precise, he was born in a jailhouse.  His father, James Thompson, was the sheriff of Caddo County, Oklahoma, and like many lawmen of the time, his family got free living quarters over the jail, in return for merely providing 24/7 service to the prisoners.

It's worth noting that Thompson's books are full of violent, amoral, and downright crazy sheriffs.

8/1/1925 Carter Brown is born

August 1, 1925.  Alan Geoffrey Yates was born in England on this date.  As a young man he moved to Australia and started writing books under many names, but the best-known is Carter Brown.  He was a huge part of the paperback market, pouring out more than 300 novels, although he claimed to have writer's block before every deadline.  More than 100 million copies of his books have sold.  According to Wikipedia he won a French award for "the most whiskies drunk in a single novel."

By the way, I went to some trouble to find a book cover where the woman had some clothes on, which tells you something about Brown's plots (and/or his publisher).  And I got the birthdate from William Malloy's excellent Mystery Book of Days.

7/29/1909 Chester Himes is born

July 29, 1909.  Chester Himes, arguably the first great African-American mystery writer, was born this day in Jefferson City, Missouri.  He started writing while in prison for armed robbery.  He is best remembered for the Harlem Detectives novels he wrote, featuring Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones, two Harlem police detectives.  Three of them were made into movies, starting with Cotton Comes To Harlem in 1970.

Ishmael Reed wrote that Himes "taught me the difference between a black detective and Sherlock Holmes."

4/11/1920 Peter O'Donnell blazes in

April 11, 1920.  Peter O'Donnell was born on this day in London.  He wrote more than twenty novels but his most famous creation began as a comic strip.  Modesty Blaise is a WWII refugee who ends up running a criminal network and then, having grown rich and bored, decides to help good guys, spies, and people in need of her special talents.  The strip/novels were turned into several movies. 

Novelist Kingsley Amis said Modesty and her sidekick Willie Garvin were one of the best pairs of characters in fiction.

By the way, O'Donnell was also an award-winning romance writer under the name Madeleine Brent.

4/7/1932 Bruce Cook is born

April 7, 1932.  Bruce Cook was born on this date in Chicago.  He wrote four private eye novels about L.A. detective Chico Cervantes.  I can't find a picture of the cover of the one with my favorite title: Death As A Career Move.

Under the name Bruce Alexander he wrote a series of mysteries starring Sir John Fielding, the blind man who in real life created London's first police force.

4/3/1936 Reginald Hill is born

April 3, 1936.  British mystery novelist Reginald Hill was born this day in West Hartlepool.  He is best known for his novels about police officers Andrew Dalziel and Peter Pascoe, set in Yorkshire.  Among the best of his other books were five novels about a black private eye named Joe Sixsmith.

In 1995 the Crime Writers Association gave him the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement.

3/14/1914 Lee Hays is born

March 14, 1915.  Lee Hays was born on this date in Little Rock Arkansas.   He was best known as a member of the Weavers with Pete Seeger, who were among the first people to make folk music commercially successful.  Hays co-wrote "If I Had A Hammer," "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," and "Wasn't That A Time," among other hits.  He was also, with Alan Arkin, a member of the Baby Sitters, who made classic children's albums in the 1950s.

So what is he doing on this page?  He wrote four short mystery stories, the first of which, "A Banquet and A Half," appeared in Ellery Queen in October 1954, won a prize, and has been reprinted on both sides of the Atlantic.  You can read another of his stories here.

3/2/1831 Seeley Regester registers

March 2, 1831.  Metta Victoria Fuller was born on this day.  She married publisher Orville James Victor and, under the same Seeley Regester she wrote more than 100 novels.  Her book The Dead Letter (1866) is considered the first American crime novel.

2/28/1830 A major Payn appears

February 28, 1830.  English author James Payn was born on this date in Maidenhead.  He wrote many novels, and books of essays and short stories.  But he owes his place on this page to one accomplishment: as editor of Cornhill Magazine he turned down Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study In Scarlet.  Yup.  He is the man who rejected Sherlock Holmes.

And you thought you were having a bad day.

2/25/1930 Patricia Guiver is born

February 25, 1930.  Patricia Guiver was born on this date in Surrey, England.  She wrote first for British newspapers and, after moving to California, as an American correspondent for British magazines.  But it was her interest in the protection of animals that led her to create Delilah Doolittle, pet detective.  Statrting in 1997 she wrote a series of novels about the fiftyish English widow, living in California, and solving crimes about beasties.  When she passed away at age 76, the seventh novel was left unfinished. 

2/20/1928 Bill Knox is born

February 20, 1928.  Scottish writer Bill Knox got off to an early start, working for a Glasgow newspaper at age 16.  He published more than 50 crime novels, most famously the Thane and Moss books.  He was famous for his descriptions for Scottish policework.

2/17/1920 Adam Hall is born

February 17, 1920.  Like any good spy writer, Adam Hall was born under an alias.  All right, he was born  with the name Trevor Dudley-Smith, and changed it to Elleston Trevor.  It was under that name he wrote The Flight of the Phoenix, which has been filmed twice. 

But in our field he is best known for the books he wrote as Adam Hall, about a spy named Quiller.  The first one The Quiller Memorandum, won the Edgar for best mystery  novel.  It was filmed in 1966.    Among his other pseudonyms was Simon Rattray, whose books featured an amateur detective named Hugh Bishop.

2/13/1903 Simenon born

February 13, 1903.  Georges Simenon was born in Liège, Belgium on this day.  He wrote almost 200 novels, including more than seventy about French policeman Jules Maigret, one of the most popular detectives in literature.

2/11/1912 Roy Fuller is born

February 11, 1912.  Roy Fuller was born this day in England.  He was successful as a corporate lawyer, a poet, and a writer of mysteries.  He died in London at age 79.

2/9/2002 Isabelle Holland passes away

February 9, 2002. Isabelle Holland died on this day in New York City.  She was 81.   Holland was the author of more than fifty books, many of them for children.

She wrote five novels about the Reverend Claire Aldington, an Episcopal priest.  Was A Death at St. Anselms (1984)  the first mystery about a female member of the clergy?  Certainly there were nun-sleuths first...

2/7/1955 Elisabeth Sanxay Holding dies

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.

2/3/1927 Joan Lowery Nixon is born

February 3, 1927.  Joan Lowery Nixon was born on this date in Los Angeles.  Her 100+ books, mostly for children and young adults, brought her an unprecedented 4 Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, scoring five other nominations.

I know one young reader, the veteran of countless R.L. Stine Goosebumps books, who thought her The Name of the Game was Murder was too suspenseful...

2/1/1920 Colin Watson is born

February 1, 1920.  Colin Watson was born today in England.  He was known for light detective novels featuring  Inspector Walter Purbright and con woman Miss Lucilla Teatime.  Two of his books (Hopjoy Was Here and Lonely Heart 4122) were nominated for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger. 

1/19/1809 Edgar Allan Poe is born

January 19, 1809.  Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston, Massachusetts.  In forty mostly miserable years he managed to invent the mystery story (including such now-cliches as the master detective, the narrating assistant, the least-likely suspect, the roman a clef, the obvious clue, the inverted mystery, and on and on).  He also earned some credit for the formation of horror and science fiction, and wrote a pretty good poem about a birdie.