Breadwinning Detective Novelist
By Z.J. Czupor
ZJ Czupor‘s On Tour with Dead Writers brings us clues to a mystery author each second Tuesday of the month. Dust off your investigative skills and send guesses to mysteryminutecontest@gmail.com by the 20th of the month.
This author’s debut non-series detective novel was published in 1930 and she became the family breadwinner because her husband, a prominent cartoonist, had trouble finding work at the onset of the Great Depression. She said, “I made the living, but he made the living worthwhile.” They had four daughters, two of whom would also publish crime novels. Her 1933 novel features a NYPD inspector who works out of police headquarters at 240 Centre Street. He uncovers a crime in a complicated plot of murder, blackmail, and stolen emeralds. The author deftly describes the city’s police department including its latest technology of the radio room and fingerprinting office, which at the time were on the leading edge of the era’s ability to fight crime.
Who was this famous trailblazing author of mysteries?
Once you discover the author’s identity, email us at mysteryminutecontest@gmail.com by
May 20 so you can win a signed copy of The Long March Home by Tosca Lee (U.S. addresses only.)
Did you guess Anna Katharine Green last month? Carla in Colorado won Borrowed Time by Tracy Clark!
Subscribe to our Newsletter to receive an extra clue at the beginning of each month as well as automatic entry to several more monthly Giveaways and first looks at weekly blogs!
Z.J. Czupor’s new murder mystery, When The Fog Rises, is published at zjames.substack.com. He’s also the author of the thriller Cut Right Through Me (also at Substack) and a book of poetry THE BIG WEIRD: Haikus in Times of Pandemic and Chaos. Z.J. is immediate past president of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and is an active member of Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. He is represented by Terrie Wolf, founder and owner of AKA Literary Management.
I can never figure out who these clever mystery writers are but it is always fun to learn about them when one of our readers figures it out.