August 3 in Mystery and Crime Lore

1920 - P.D. James (pseudonym of Phyllis White) is born in Oxford. Her detective is Inspector Dagliesh. Her books include: Cover Her Face (1962) and Devices and Desires (1989). Coordelia GRay was introduced in An Unsuitable Job for a Woman in 1972, "the first modern British private detective."

August 2 in Mystery and Crime Lore

1905 - Actress Myrna Loy is born in Helena, Montana. She played the Daughter of Fu Manchu opposite Boris Karloff, and was Nora Charles opposite William Powell's Nick Charles in the Thin Man series of moviers.

1918 - Joseph Hayes is born in Indianapolis. His best seller The Desperate Hours will be turned into both a play and a movie. For the movie starring Humphry Bogart, Hayes will be awared an edgar for best screenplay.

Source: The Mystery BOok of Days. Mysterious Press, 1990

August 1 in Mystery and Crime Lore

1925 - Alan Geoffrey Yates, who writes hundreds of potboilers as Carter Brown, is born in London. He wrote such books as Shamus, Your Slip is Showing (1955), Blonde, Beautiful and Blam! (1956) and Who Killed Dr. Sex (1964)

1966 - Student Charles Whitman climbs a tower at the University of Texas at Austin, armed with several weapons. At 11:48am he opens fire. He is killed an hour and a half later by 3 policemen. In between times, he kills 21 people and wounds 28 others. (Wikipedia says killed 14 people and wounded 32 others). [Whitman suffered from a brain tumor that may have contributed to his psychotic outburst on this day.]


Source: The Mystery Book of Days, Mysterious Press, 1990