James Powell (born 1932) is a Canadian author of mystery and humorous short stories. Many of his 130 stories have been published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine . He has been nominated twice for the Crime Writers of Canada Award for the Best Short Story and, in 1989, won the Ellery Queen Readers' Award for the story "A Dirge for Clowntown" featuring Inspector Bozo of the Clowntown Police. Powell's occasionally dark sense of humor and developed irony has led to him being noted by Marvin Lachman as "The S.J. Perelman of the mystery story...outrageous, hilarious satires, international crime and surprise endings." [1]
Powell's most loved characters include Acting Sergeant Maynard Bullock of the RCMP and the four generation family of San Sebastiano detectives, The Ganelons. The author was born in Toronto, attended the University of Toronto and taught and studied in France for three years. He has worked on publications in New York City as well as in Rock Island, Illinois. A collection of his stories has recently been published in Japan. He has resided in Marietta, Pennsylvania for many years with his wife, Mary Lou and their poodles Daphne and Daffodil.
Powell has published two short story collections:
Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1929 by American crime fiction writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee and the name of their main fictional character, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve baffling murders. Dannay and Lee wrote most of the more than thirty novels and several short story collections in which Ellery Queen appeared as a character, and their books were among the most popular of American mysteries published between 1929 and 1971. In addition to the fiction featuring their eponymous brilliant amateur detective, the two men acted as editors: as Ellery Queen they edited more than thirty anthologies of crime fiction and true crime, and Dannay founded and for many decades edited Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which has been published continuously from 1941 to the present. From 1961, Dannay and Lee also commissioned other authors to write crime thrillers using the Ellery Queen nom de plume, but not featuring Ellery Queen as a character; several juvenile novels were credited to Ellery Queen, Jr. Finally, the prolific duo wrote four mysteries under the pseudonym Barnaby Ross.
Avram Davidson was an American writer of fantasy fiction, science fiction, and crime fiction, as well as the author of many stories that do not fit into a genre niche. He won a Hugo Award and three World Fantasy Awards in the science fiction and fantasy genre, a World Fantasy Life Achievement award, and an Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine short story award and an Edgar Award in the mystery genre. Davidson edited The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1962 to 1964. His last novel The Boss in the Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil was completed by Grania Davis and was a Nebula Award finalist in 1998. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says "he is perhaps sf's most explicitly literary author".
William Anthony Parker White, better known by his pen name Anthony Boucher, was an American author, critic, and editor who wrote several classic mystery novels, short stories, science fiction, and radio dramas. Between 1942 and 1947, he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle. In addition to "Anthony Boucher", White also employed the pseudonym "H. H. Holmes", which was the pseudonym of a late-19th-century American serial killer; Boucher would also write light verse and sign it "Herman W. Mudgett".
Charles Ardai is an American entrepreneur, businessperson, and writer of award winning crime fiction and mysteries. He is founder and editor of Hard Case Crime, a line of pulp-style paperback crime novels. He is also an early employee of D. E. Shaw & Co. and remains a managing director of the firm. He was the former chairman of Schrödinger, Inc.
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine is a bi-monthly American digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction, and mystery fiction. Launched in fall 1941 by Mercury Press, EQMM is named after the fictitious author Ellery Queen, who wrote novels and short stories about a fictional detective named Ellery Queen. From 1993, EQMM changed its cover title to be Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, but the table of contents still retains the full name.
Edward Dentinger Hoch was an American writer of detective fiction. Although he wrote several novels, he was primarily known for his vast output of over 950 short stories.
Anthony Gilbert was the pen name of Lucy Beatrice Malleson, an English crime writer and a cousin of actor-screenwriter Miles Malleson. She also wrote fiction and a 1940 autobiography, Three-a-Penny, as Anne Meredith.
Seichō Matsumoto was a Japanese writer, credited with popularizing detective fiction in Japan.
Otto Penzler is a German-born American editor of mystery fiction, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.
Jan Burke is an American author of novels and short stories. She is a winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel, the Agatha for Best Short Story, the Macavity, and Ellery Queen Readers Award.
Bill Pronzini is an American writer of detective fiction. He is also an active anthologist, having compiled more than 100 collections, most of which focus on mystery, western, and science fiction short stories. Pronzini is known as the creator of the San Francisco-based Nameless Detective, who starred in over 40 books from the early 1970s into the 2000s.
Lynne Barrett is an American writer and editor, best known for her short stories.
Edward Joseph Gorman Jr. was an American writer and short fiction anthologist. He published in almost every genre, but is best known for his work in the crime, mystery, western, and horror fields. His non-fiction work has been published in such publications as The New York Times and Redbook.
Dana Cameron is an American archaeologist, and author of award-winning crime fiction and urban fantasy.
Melville Davisson Post was an American writer, born in Harrison County, West Virginia. Although his name is not immediately familiar to those outside of specialist circles, many of his collections are still in print, and many collections of detective fiction include works by him. Post's best-known character is the mystery solving, justice dispensing West Virginian backwoodsman, Uncle Abner. The 22 Uncle Abner tales, written between 1911 and 1928, have been called some of "the finest mysteries ever written".
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (EQMM) honors authors each year as voted upon by readers, hence the name, Readers Choice Award. Recipients include many of the most popular authors of thrillers and mysteries.
Mary Jane Maffini is a Canadian mystery writer. She has created three mystery series and written 12 novels.
Mystery Scene is an American magazine, first published in 1985, that covers the crime and mystery genre with a mix of articles, profiles, criticism, and extensive reviews of books, films, TV, short stories, audiobooks, and reference works.
Audrey Roos (1912–1982) was an American writer who, with her husband William Roos, co-authored many mystery novels, short stories, and plays. The wife-husband team, under the pseudonym Kelley Roos, often wrote romantic suspense novels featuring a married pair of sleuths, Jeff and Haila Troy, who lived in New York City. Some of their work appeared under their own names, Audrey and William Roos, rather than under the pseudonym. In 1956 they wrote Speaking of Murder, a play produced at the Royale Theatre in New York. Their television adaptation of The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1961.
Richie Narvaez is an American author and professor. In 2020, he won an Agatha Award and an Anthony Award for his novel Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco. His work focuses on the Puerto Rican and Nuyorican experience.