Four authors, three pen names and a great book

I just finished reading Mysteries Unlocked: Essays in Honor of Douglas G. Greene. This was a project organized by Curt Evans in honor of Doug’s 70^th birthday. While not technically a history of the genre, it might as well be. The essays stretch from JS Fletcher (when I was younger, I did believe that the J was for “Jessica” as in Murder She Wrote) to PD James. While so many of the books I read travel a well-known path of authors and their works, I was very pleased by the amount of original research done for this book. There were essays on Carolyn Wells, the aforementioned Mr. Fletcher, and Patrick Quentin.

 

The Quentin essay was one of my favorites in the book. Quentin has long been a favorite author, but the exact provenance of each book was somewhat in question. Four authors wrote as Patrick Quentin/Q Patrick/Jonathan Stagge. Richard Webb collaborated with all three of the other authors, making him the sole common factor in their creation. None of the others working in collaboration with each other.

 

Each of the pen names has wonderful books. Q Patrick released The Grindle Nightmare, which is roundly praised. (For my xx^th birthday, I received a signed first of this book, so I’ll be blogging on it soon.)

 

As Patrick Quentin, Webb and Hugh Wheeler wrote the Peter Duluth series of mysteries. The series later would swap detectives for Lt. Timothy Trant, but the first few books in the series are a delight. In A Puzzle for Fools, the first in the series, Peter meets Iris while they are both in a mental institution.

My favorite in the series is A Puzzle for Wantons, with a wonderful puzzle and a wicked solution. I’ll be posting another blog entry on that book alone soon.

*** Note: in the spirit of self-disclosure, I do have an essay in Mysteries Unlocked, but I do not receive any remuneration from it.