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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z


Categories:

Classic Whodunit,

Police Procedural


CHRISTIANNA BRAND

(pseudonym of Mary Christianna Lewis,
a.k.a. China Thomson, Mary Ann Ashe)
1907-1985

Born in Malaya, Mary Christianna Lewis (a.k.a. Christianna Brand, China Thomson, Mary Ann Ashe) is considered to be one of the last writers of the golden age of fiction. Her work showed a love of the language, excellent plotting and a great sense of humor. Raised in her birth place as well as India, she arrived to be educated in a Franciscan convent only to leave it in her teens due to family financial problems. She worked in a variety of jobs, from governess to professional ballroom dancer. While working as a salesgirl, she wrote her first book, Death in High Heels, as means to fantasize killing a co-worker she was not particularly keen on. The book was finished after her marriage to Ronald S. Lewis. The first Inspector Cockrill case - a character inspired by her father-in-law - was Heads You Lose (1941), her next novel, and it is with this series character that she wrote her masterpiece Green is for Danger. She dropped the series in the late 1950s and concentrated on various genres as well as short stories. She died in 1985.

Vote for your favorite book by Christianna Brand:
INSPECTOR COCKRILL SERIES
HEADS YOU LOSE

 

GREEN IS FOR DANGER (Classic Mystery Fiction)

Set in a military hospital during the blitz, this novel is one of Brand's most intricately plotted detection puzzles, executed with her characteristic cleverness and gusto. When a patient dies under the anesthetic and later the homesiding nurse is murdered, Inspector Cockrill finds himself with six suspects - three doctors and three nurses - and not a discernible motive among them.

 

THE CROOKED WREATH (British Title: Suddenly at his Residence)

 

DEATH OF A JEZEBEL  

 

LONDON PARTICULAR (US Title FOG OF DOUBT)

Rosie, the naughty little nymphet around whom Christianna Brand weaves her witty and mysterious web, recounts to her family a series of fibs that results in their supposing the unfortunate suitor, Raoul Vernet, to be her base seducer. On a night of dense London fog, with everyone alibied, Raoul is discovered having been hit over the head with a blunt instrument.

 

TOUR DE FORCE

The vacationing Inspector Cockrill is on the job again when a fellow tourist is stabbed to death on a small Mediterranean island. The local police, in Cockrill's opinion, are ill homepared for interrogating the tourload of suspects, she he takes it upon himself to confront these not-so-innocents abroad. The results, in high Brand-style, are both suspenseful and hilarious.

OTHER

DEATH IN HIGH HEELS

When Scotland Yard's young Mr. Charlesworth calls at Christophe et Cie about a murder, he finds five charming young women - all hometty, all suspects, all ready to obstruct his investigations. He would be hard homessed to say which causes more problems - when there is a second murder, or when he falls in love with the main suspect.

 

WHAT DREAD HANDS  

 

COURT OF FOXES  

 

BRAND X  

 

THE HONEY HARLOT  

 

THE ROSE IN DARKNESS  

 

THE BRIDES OF ABERDAR  

 

BUFFET FOR UNWELCOME GUESTS  

AS MARY ANNE ASHE

ALAS, FOR HER THAT MET ME!  

 

A RING OF ROSES