Monday, April 16, 2012

Boucher: Best debut mysteries of 1962.


In his NYT column of 2 Dec 1962, Anthony Boucher selected what he considered to be the best debut mysteries of the year:

• Daniel Broun, Counterweight (Edgar nominee)
Kenneth Cook, Wake in Fright (film 1971)
• Robert L. Fish, The Fugitive (Edgar winner)
• S. B. Hough, The Bronze Perseus (aka The Tender Killer; appears on Barzun & Taylor's list of classic crime novels)
• Mark McShane, Seance (filmed as Seance on a Wet Afternoon, 1964; adapted as an opera, 2008)
• Estelle Thompson, A Twig Is Bent

Other authors mentioned, without book titles: Dick Francis (probably referring to Dead Cert, which is on the Barzun-Taylor list), Colin Watson (probably referring to Coffin, Scarcely Used), and Alan Williams (probably referring to Long Run South).

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