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).

US steals march on British with Colin Watson.

Faber Finds has reprinted several of ex-journalist Colin Watson's rollicking mysteries—Coffin, Scarcely Used (1958); Bump in the Night (1960); the Silver Dagger-winning Hopjoy Was Here (1962) and Lonelyheart 4122 (1967); Charity Ends at Home (1968); The Flaxborough Crab (1969); and Broomsticks over Flaxborough (1972)—as well as his critical work on British mysteries, Snobbery with Violence (1971).

But last year Colorado-based Rue Morgue Press beat FF to the Watsonfest with its more inexpensive editions of Coffin, Scarcely Used and Bump in the Night.

About the images: British publisher Faber and US publisher Rue Morgue Press go mano a mano with dueling editions of Colin Watson.