Nevermore is a historical mystery novel by William Hjortsberg.
Harry Houdini joins forces with Arthur Conan Doyle to solve a series of murders, which eerily re-enact the stories of Edgar Allan Poe.
Publishers Weekly considered it "droll and captivating", with "stellar characters and (an) outlandish plot". [1] The Los Angeles Times noted Hjortsberg's "obvious delight in historical detail,; [2] similarly, the New York Times observed that Hjorstberg "was obviously out to have a good time" in writing the novel, concluding that as a result, readers would similarly enjoy it. [3]
The historical mystery or historical whodunit is a subgenre of two literary genres, historical fiction and mystery fiction. These works are set in a time period considered historical from the author's perspective, and the central plot involves the solving of a mystery or crime. Though works combining these genres have existed since at least the early 20th century, many credit Ellis Peters's Cadfael Chronicles (1977–1994) for popularizing what would become known as the historical mystery. The increasing popularity and prevalence of this type of fiction in subsequent decades has spawned a distinct subgenre recognized by the publishing industry and libraries. Publishers Weekly noted in 2010 of the genre, "The past decade has seen an explosion in both quantity and quality. Never before have so many historical mysteries been published, by so many gifted writers, and covering such a wide range of times and places." Editor Keith Kahla concurs, "From a small group of writers with a very specialized audience, the historical mystery has become a critically acclaimed, award-winning genre with a toehold on the New York Times bestseller list."
Harold Schechter is an American true crime writer who specializes in serial killers. He is a Professor Emeritus at Queens College, City University of New York where he taught classes in American literature and myth criticism for forty-two years. Schechter's essays have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and the International Herald Tribune. He is the editor of the Library of America volume, True Crime: An American Anthology. His newest book, published in September 2023, is Murderabilia: A History of Crime in 100 Objects.
Anne Perry was a British writer best known as the author of the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt and William Monk series of historical detective fiction.
S. S. Van Dine is the pseudonym used by American art critic Willard Huntington Wright when he wrote detective novels. Wright was active in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-World War I New York, and under the pseudonym he created the fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in films and on the radio.
Judith Rossner was an American novelist, best known for her acclaimed best sellers Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1975) and August (1983).
Thomas Mallon is an American novelist, essayist, and critic. His novels are renowned for their attention to historical detail and context and for the author's crisp wit and interest in the "bystanders" to larger historical events. He is the author of ten books of fiction, including Henry and Clara, Two Moons, Dewey Defeats Truman, Aurora 7, Bandbox, Fellow Travelers, Watergate, Finale, Landfall, and most recently Up With the Sun. He has also published nonfiction on plagiarism, diaries, letters and the Kennedy assassination, as well as two volumes of essays.
Michael Mallory is a writer on the subjects of animation and post-war pop culture, and the author of the books X-Men: The Characters and Their Universe, Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of HorrorThe Science Fiction Universe and Beyond, and Essential Horror Movies. As an animation and film historian he has written over 600 articles, frequently for Variety, the Los Angeles Times and Animation Magazine, and has been featured in documentaries and DVD extras about animation. He co-authored the memoirs of animation legend Iwao Takamoto, which were published in 2009 as Iwao Takamoto: My Life with a Thousand Characters. He has also written the script for the annual Annie Awards ceremony, the Oscars of the animation industry, since the mid-1990s.
William Theodore Link was an American film and television screenwriter and producer who often worked in collaboration with Richard Levinson.
Paul J. Levine is an American author of crime fiction, particularly legal thrillers. Levine has written 22 mystery novels which include two series of books known by the names of the protagonists. The Jake Lassiter series follows the former football player turned Miami lawyer in a series of fourteen books published over a thirty-year span beginning in 1990. The four-book Solomon vs. Lord series published in the mid-2000s features Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord, a pair of bickering Miami attorneys who were rivals before they became law partners and lovers. Levine has also written four stand-alone novels and 20 episodes of the television drama series JAG. With JAG executive producer Don Bellisario, he also created and produced First Monday, a 2002 CBS series inspired by one of Levine's novels.
Lee Goldberg is an American author, screenwriter, publisher and producer known for his bestselling novels Lost Hills and True Fiction and his work on a wide variety of TV crime series, including Diagnosis: Murder, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Hunter, Spenser: For Hire, Martial Law, She-Wolf of London, SeaQuest, 1-800-Missing, The Glades and Monk.
William J. Mann is an American novelist, biographer, and Hollywood historian best known for his studies of Hollywood and the American film industry, especially his 2006 biography of Katharine Hepburn, Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn. Kate was named one of the 100 Notable Books of 2006 by The New York Times. William J.Mann also used the pseudonym Geoffrey Huntington under which he wrote the Ravenscliff Series.
William Reinhold "Gatz" Hjortsberg was an American novelist and screenwriter, who wrote the screenplay of the film Legend.
Jennifer Donnelly is an American writer best known for the young adult historical novel A Northern Light.
Edgar Allan Poe has appeared in popular culture as a character in books, comics, film, and other media. Besides his works, the legend of Poe himself has fascinated people for generations. His appearances in popular culture often envision him as a sort of "mad genius" or "tormented artist", exploiting his personal struggles. Many depictions of Poe interweave elements of his life with his works, in part due to Poe's frequent use of first-person narrators, suggesting an erroneous assumption that Poe and his characters are identical.
Sherlock Holmes: The Unauthorized Biography is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel by Nick Rennison, originally published in 2005.
Amy Myers is a British mystery writer. She is best known for her Marsh and Daughter mystery series, featuring a writing team consisting of a wheel-chair bound ex-policeman and his daughter, and for another series, featuring a Victorian era chef, Auguste Didier. Myers' books have been favourably reviewed in Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus Reviews. Myers has also been published many times in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Janet Hutchings, the magazine's longtime editor, called Myers "one of our best and most frequent contributors of historicals".
Howard Owen is an American author. He is a writer of literary fiction, mystery, and thrillers. He was the winner of the 2012 Hammett Prize awarded annually by the International Association of Crime Writers.
A Borrowed Man is a 2015 science fiction hardboiled noir novel by Gene Wolfe.
The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols: Adapted from the Journals of John H. Watson, M.D. is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel by Nicholas Meyer, published in 2019. It takes place after Meyer's other Holmes pastiches, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, The West End Horror, and The Canary Trainer. It is Meyer's first Holmes pastiche in 26 years.
A Beautiful Crime is a 2020 crime fiction novel by the American writer and editor Christopher Bollen. It is Bollen's fourth novel and was written in 2018 during a residency in Paris. The novel was first published in the United States by Harper on January 28, 2020.