New releases: Christianna Brand, R.D. Rosen, Jane Haddam, William DeAndrea
We've got a lot of new eBooks this week, from Christianna Brand, R.D. Rosen, Jane Haddam, and William DeAndrea!
Christianna Brand was one of the most popular authors of the Golden Age of British mystery writing. She used her experience as a salesgirl as inspiration for her first novel, Death in High Heels (1941), which she based on a fantasy of murdering an irritating coworker. The same year, she debuted her most famous character, Inspector Cockrill, whose adventures she followed until 1957.
R. D. Rosen’s career as a writer has spanned mystery novels, narrative nonfiction, humor books, and television. Strike Three You’re Dead, the first in Rosen’s series featuring major league baseball player Harvey Blissberg, won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel in 1985. Blissberg’s adventures continued in four sequels, including Fadeaway and Saturday Night Dead, which drew on Rosen’s stint as a writer for “Saturday Night Live.”
Jane Haddam was born Orania Papazoglou, and worked as a college professor and magazine editor before publishing her Edgar Award–nominated first novel, Sweet, Savage Death, in 1984. This mystery introduced Patience McKenna, a sleuthing scribe who would go on to appear in four more books, including Wicked, Loving Murder (1985) and Rich, Radiant Slaughter (1988). Not a Creature Was Stirring (1990) introduced Haddam’s best-known character, former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian.
William L. DeAndrea met his wife, Jane Haddam, while working at the Murder Ink bookstore in New York City. His first book, Killed in the Ratings (1978), won an Edgar Award in the best first mystery novel category. That debut launched a series centered on Matt Cobb, an executive problem-solver for a TV network who unravels murders alongside corporate foul play. DeAndrea’s other series included the Nero Wolfe–inspired Niccolo Benedetti novels, the Clifford Driscoll espionage series, and the Lobo Blacke/Quinn Booker Old West mysteries.
