Scandalize My Name by Fiona Sinclair

This Sunday, 3 August is the 105th anniversary of the birth of mystery writer, P.D. James. Her writing is known for being in the style of Golden Age mysteries, but with a darker tone, which I think is fitting to the 1960s when the early Adam Dalgliesh books were published. I love her books for exactly this reason. It’s like reading a novel from the first half of the 20th century with the gloss of nostalgia removed. So when I noticed the back cover of Scandalize My Name called the “high-quality mysteries” of Fiona Sinclair “similar in style and tone to those of P.D. James”, I was skeptical. “Fiona,” I thought, “is going to have a lot to live up to.”

Well! I cannot tell you how relieved I am to report that, in my option, Martin Edwards and British Library Publishing are spot on the money with their comparison. In defence of my skepticism, I find a lot of author comparisons on the back of books to be a bit of a disappointment. Many a time I felt that if I had not been expecting to be reading something akin to one of my favourite authors, I would have enjoyed the book more. But I digress… Let’s talk about Fiona Sinclair’s fabulous 1960 novel, Scandalize My Name.

In an almost 300-year-old house on a hill in north London, the Southey’s are holding a grand 21st birthday party for Elaine Southey. Little do the guests know that while they are enjoying the festivities, a corpse lies in the basement below. Although, the Southey’s are not close with him, their basement tenant, Ivan Sweet, has been invited to the party as well. When he fails to arrive, his brother, also in attendance at the party, goes looking for him. 

Known to be a charmer, a manipulator, a blackmailer, and worse, it’s no wonder Superintendent Paul Grainger finds himself wishing he was hunting Ivan Sweet, instead of the man’s murderer.

Grainger, who has bad posture and spectacles, looks more like a don than a police officer. The 39-year-old was widowed during the Second World War not long after he was married. We get to see him in his home, at his work, and at times we are privy to his inner thoughts. When Sergeant McGregor was first paired up with Grainger, he didn’t think much of Grainger, but in their ten years working together he has come to trust that Grainger’s seeming intuitions are based on careful thought and observation. The two make an interesting pair, and like the best partners they both contrast and complement each other. 

At the outset of the case, Grainger and McGregor travel to the scene of the crime, Magnolia House. Driving through London, Grainger vocalises his opinion about the start of the case being “‘the best part, just a nice clean sheet, no personalities mixed up in it yet, just an interesting puzzle that’s got to be solved’” (44). Meanwhile, McGregor is thinking about his partner.

[Sergeant McGregor] was remembering in a ruminative, amused sort of way, what a highfalutin’ fool he had considered the superior officer to whom he had been allotted ten years ago. Been up at Oxford, someone told him, taking a lot of exams in philosophy, of all unsuitable subjects for a member of the ‘Force’. He’d done his time as a ‘gentstable’ of course. McGregor suddenly smiled to himself, Sakes, but I’d like to ha’ seen him, he thought now, squinting sideways at the superintendent’s lean aristocratic figure with its scholar’s stoop and clever-looking eyes. Course he wouldna’ have had the gig-lamps then, he thought, but still! Man, though, he was a fine fellow to work for. Got right into the middle of a case while the rest were still sniffing round the edges. And methodical! Somehow he hadn't expected that; the case built up piece by piece like a jigsaw puzzle. Gave you a kick to listen to him doing it even if his lingo did take a bit of getting used to. Gave you plenty to do, too, and let you have your head. Sergeant McGregor had been won over a long time ago. (44-45)

There is a lot about the way Grainger is described, that calls to mind James’s detective Adam Dalgleish, not so much physically, but in personality. At the outset, I mentioned that James’ books harken back to Golden Age detective fiction, but are a bit darker, a bit grittier. There is no better example of this in Sinclair’s work as the scene in chapter three where an autopsy is described. Sinclair’s description is not gory, but methodical, and is unlike anything I have come across before. It comes as no surprise that Sinclair’s husband, Michael Peters, was a pathologist. I’m sure I’ve read books with autopsy’s being preformed previous to this, but the sheer matter of factness of it with specific details I have not read before made me pause to appreciate the scene. Clearly, I’m not particularly squeamish, but if you are, you may want to skip from the third paragraph on page 39 to the last paragraph on page 42. As I said, it’s not gory and Sinclair in no way glorifies what would naturally be a gruesome scene, but the writing is shocking in its plainness and may be a bit much for some. 

I think it bears mentioning that quite a few characters are introduced in the first chapter. All of the party-goers do come up again in the book, so it is worth paying attention. However! I did something I almost never do, and that is to start this reading book outside in a park. If I, who has the attention span of a new puppy out on its first walk, can manage to get through that first chapter and glean enough information to carry me through the rest of the book without confusion, and without turning back to refresh my memory, I feel sure you can too. With many characters, you had better believe there are a number with secrets they would rather keep hidden. A well-stocked larder of goodies for a blackmailer to root around in, for sure. And some of those secrets are real doozies, I can tell you!

This book struck a good balance of tension and atmosphere, which Sinclair captures by showing us how the events and the setting affects the characters. Set in August, this book has all the heat and intrigue of the summer season captured amid its last gasp before the autumn. Will the end of summer be the precursor to a literal death, as well? You’ll just have to read this one to find out! Let me warn you, the conclusion is tense. I recommend reading it without distractions, if possible.

In the introduction, Martin Edwards mentions that Fiona Sinclair published five novels in total, between 1960 and 1965, Scandalize My Name being the first among these to be published. I am very much hoping that the British Library plans to bring out the remaining four, because Scandalize My Name has been added to my top five favourite British Library Crime Classics. If her other books are anything like this first one, they are much deserving of being brought back to life. 

Thank you to British Library Publishing for republishing this truly wonderful title and for kindly sending me a copy of Scandalize My Name for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own. 

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The Woman in the Hall by G.B. Stern

It happens every year at about this time. I get on such a roll of reading books and enjoying my summer that I fall so far behind with writing reviews that I consider not doing it at all. There was a stack of books waiting to be reviewed on my desk, but it got so out of control that it was blocking the on/off switch for my desk lamp, and making me feel more than a little overwhelmed, if I’m being honest.  I have since put the stack away and started a new one, and now this one is growing out of control. “How much do I want to share these books with other people?” and “Can’t they just be mine for a little while longer?” are things I ask myself. In many cases I give in, and put the book away, telling myself I can always review it at a latter date. But some books must be shared, immediately, and Gladys Bronwyn Stern’s 1939 novel, The Woman in the Hall is one of them.

When this chunky book arrived at my door I was a little put off. The books published in the British Library Women Writers series tend to be slimmer volumes, somewhere between 200 and 250 pages. Of course there are outliers, Chatterton Square by E.H. Young is one that sits on my shelf unread, which if it were not so chunky I am certain I would have done so by now. After all, it comes highly recommended from my dear friend, Gina (@babsbelovedbooks), who as it happens gave me the lovely card that appears in some of this post’s photos. Goodness! I have yet to find a book in this series that isn’t a favourite. Rose Macaulay’s Dangerous Ages is the only one I’ve felt lukewarm about, but I’m sure I was in a mood when I was reading it and have decided to give it another go before writing a review. Which, by the way, is a classic Caro avoidance tactic in action. For the record, The Love Child by Edith Olivier is one I adored, but read while on holiday and didn’t get around to reviewing when I returned home. That one happens to be very slim, indeed, at under 140 pages. The remainder of British Library edition is taken up by supplementary material and extracts from other writing by Olivier. Coming in at 336 pages, The Woman in the Hall stands out as being more of a time investment. But I am thrilled to report that it is worth every bit of it. Not one page would I want to be denied of this compelling novel. I read this book off and on over the course of a couple of weeks—unusual behaviour for me, but I was keen not to rush through it. Despite its length it didn’t feel overly long, and I was satisfied to sit back as the story was slowly spun.

The title, The Woman in the Hall, refers to Lorna Blake, a professional beggar, who solicits money from the select rich by calling on them at home and spinning a story that all but ensures she has money in hand by the time she walks out the door. Lorna’s life of crime begins innocently enough when her daughter, Jay, winds up in hospital and Lorna is unable to afford the treatment. She tells a tale with some embellishments to a receptive woman of means, and ends up with enough cash to keep them afloat, and then some. But instead of vowing never to be in the position to ask for charity from a stranger again, Lorna develops a taste for it. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that she gets a thrill out of spinning a story and relying on her wits to anticipate the next move of the person she is supplicating. The rush of swindling promises excitement that is lacking in the rest of Lorna’s life. Like a gambler who cannot kick the habit, Lorna goes out again, and again, dragging one or the other of her daughters with her. Molly soon dreads hearing that they are going out “Visiting”, but Jay develops her own fascination with the task while also seeming to abhor aspects of it. 

G.B. Stern addresses the problems that would arise for two distinctly different children who have been brought up by a mother who swindles money out of the wealthy. Going “Visiting with Mummy” is how the girls refer to these begging calls, where they would knock on a stranger’s door, handpicked by their mother, and wait while the servant announces that there is “a woman in the hall”. Apparently, begging at the door was a common enough occurrence at the time that the man or woman of the house would immediately understand this euphemistic phrase. We see Molly and Jay as young girls accompanying their mother, through to young women when their mother is still pulling the same stunts.

On a rare holiday to the seaside, we see the difference between the two girls’ attitudes after a few days in peaceful surroundings, as seen from Molly’s perspective.

“I can’t have you mooching about, Jay, it gets on my nerves.”

“I’m sorry, Mummy darling.” Jay hugged her impulsively. “It’s only that I wish something would happen.” She did not even remember to stipulate for something nice.

Dull. They could actually find it dull. But Molly worshipped dullness. If only it could be dull for ever and ever; if only nothing need happen, for ever and ever.

Lorna talked perpetually about being short of cash: “I don’t know where to turn.” And: “We simply can’t go on like this.”

They went back to London, to Huntingdon Terrace. (44)

The girls’ reactions to returning to London, and thus to Visiting, are complicated. When faced with it, Jay is “genuinely frightened”, while Molly, with the aim of protecting her sister, who she takes to be weaker than herself and less able to withstand these visits, conceals her displeasure in having to go out. What I found interesting about this dynamic is that Molly is not wrong about Jay. While Jay arrives home in a sort of feverish excitement after a first successful outing with their mother, she is also fearful of these visits. It is as though Jay is unconsciously aware that she is not strong enough to withstand her mother’s influence. This dichotomy of excitement and fear, aligns with the complex feelings she has towards her mother in adulthood. Meanwhile, Molly carves out a successful career acting on the stage. Even for someone who craves a dull, predicable, and normal life, this is perhaps not such a surprising vocation for Molly as she has been developing her acting skills throughout her childhood as a means of survival in her mother’s house. 

This next passage provides a glimpse at the inner workings of Jay’s mind as a child. It is both dear and heartbreaking, extremely self-aware, and just a piece of really well imagined writing, especially when considered after you have finished the book.

[S]he let her mind escape into an imaginary place which she called "the house of jeopardy." Jeopardy meant danger, but it was more dangerous even than danger. This reverie was not all pleasure, though she could not always stop herself from doing it:

. . . She and Mummy and Molly had to live in the house of jeopardy. It had doors and windows, and when they were open, the view was lovely, but if they were all closed, it would be prison. Sometimes while they were Visiting, Mummy made an awful mistake and they were nearly found out. But she, Jay, thought of something just in time to save them. Or, ultimate thrill, she did not succeed in saving them, and the doors and windows slowly swung and clanged, and they were shut up where there was no more light. Jay never told Molly that she enjoyed frightening herself, for she suspected, when put into words, that Molly knew about real plain fear, and played no tricks with it. (90-91)

Farther along, Jay addresses the issue of moral ambiguity, though she does not refer as such, instead she quotes her mother, “it was what you did things for, which made them right or wrong” (91). Jay recognises a connection with her mother that does not require words.

Yet now Jay knew without telling that her mother felt just as she did herself, that icy tingle of expectation waiting outside a strange front door, yet already committed by bell and knocker: What is it going to be like, this time? Can we manage it? Shall we get out safely? She believed that Mummy didn’t mind the thanking part, but that was the only difference between them. (91)

Recognising this similarity with her mother might be sweet, even heartwarming, if Jay was talking about something else, instead, it fills the reader with foreboding for the future ahead of this young girl.

Besides Jay’s take on her mother’s proclivity for it, we do not get a real sense of Lorna’s perspective on why she swindles money from people. Lorna has a woman who keeps house for her, Susan, who has been with her for years, and one assumes Lorna could leave her children with Susan if she were to go about some more honest work, which for a woman at the time would likely mean domestic service. Again and again, Lorna claims she does it “for the sake of her children”, and that there is nothing she wouldn’t do for them. But near the end, in a moment of honestly to Susan, we do get a glimpse of how getting money out of people makes Lorna feel. I do not think this falls into spoiler territory, as it seems pretty clear from the start that Lorna’s means of getting money is not all about her girls, despite her claims. However, in her defence, this book is set before the National Health Service came into being in 1948—as Simon Thomas discusses in his insightful afterward—so when Jay winds up in hospital and the bills start mounting up, it puts the family in a truly dire situation. What it does not account for is why Lorna keeps on conning people, instead of finding more traditional employment.

The back cover copy of this stunning British Library Women Writers edition hints at Lorna’s victims closing in on her, and throughout this book we watch as the net pulls tighter around Lorna. Will she ultimately slip through, or will Lorna finally find she has taken one risk too many?

I thought I had a good idea of where this one was going. It turns out, I didn’t have a clue. There was no doubt in my mind when I sat down to write this review that I enjoyed this book immensely. But now I realise that I absolutely loved it. There is so much going on in this book, so much to unpick. The relationship between mothers and daughters, and between sisters, and again, with sisters and their mother is already a rich topic. When you add to it a mother who is a professional beggar, swindler, con-artist—whatever you want to call it, they are all correct—it adds another layer that is rich with complexity. I applaud both British Library Publishing and the series consultant, Simon Thomas, for bringing another important text, and a damn good read, back into print. 

Thank you to British Library Publishing for kindly sending me a copy of The Woman in the Hall for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.

***If you got something out of this post, please consider subscribing to my blog. You can find the email sign up on the right hand side at the top of this page (on desktop version only), or click on the link here. You will receive a confirmation email in your inbox (or possibly your junk folder). Once you click to confirm your email address you will receive an email notification whenever a new blog post goes up. And, of course, you can unsubscribe at any time. Whether you subscribe or not, I’m thankful you are here.***

This blog post contains affiliate links for Blackwell’s. As a Blackwell’s Affiliate, I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase through one of the links on my website. I recommend Blackwell’s because I use them myself. This helps support me in sharing—what I hope is—valuable content. Thank you for your support!

The Gutenberg Murders by Gwen Bristow & Bruce Manning

I’ve been having a great time reading the Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning books that Dean Street Press republished in 2021. I had planned to read them in chronological order, but decided against it when I realised that their second book, The Gutenberg Murders (1931), and their fourth book, The Mardi Gras Murders (1932) share some of the same characters. Both The Invisible Host (1930) and Two and Two Make Twenty-Two (1932) are ones that I can recommend. The Invisible Host has such an original premise and one that is remarkably similar to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (1939). It was great fun reading those two books back-to-back and comparing them. Although, I must admit that it is Two and Two Make Twenty-Two that has become the favourite. What can I say? I love when a book is set on a remote island and if it’s a mystery—harkening back to the opinions I shared about And Then There Were None in my review—so much the better.

Hot on the heels of finishing Two and Two Make Twenty-Two, it was with high hopes that I picked up The Gutenberg Murders. And let me tell you, this book was everything I hoped it would be, and more. This is another book from this wife and husband writing team that I think would make a great film. It is no surprise to me that Bruce Manning went on to have a career in Hollywood as a screenwriter. Like the other two books of theirs I have read, The Gutenberg Murders feels like Old Hollywood to me. What starts as a mystery surrounding the theft of a nine leaves from a Gutenberg Bible, escalates to a series of murders with the victims dying by fire, quite literally.

Nine leaves of a Gutenberg Bible have been stolen from a safe at the Sheldon Memorial Library, and all fingers point to assistant librarian, Quentin Ulman, whose “racket is wine, women and books” (1). This latest theft comes on the heels of a number of others, going back six months. 

What I love about this book is how the theft of a few scraps from a rare book juxtaposes with the bigness of the crimes. There is nothing subtle about these murders, and this contrast is not unlike the city itself, as Bristow and Manning describe it.

New Orleans is a Janus-town, and any story of New Orleans must be a tale of two cities. Wade drove along the narrow white canyon of Carondelet Street, walled on either side by the unromantic modernity of skyscrapers; he crossed Canal Street, brilliantly lit and brisk with the evening crowds; then suddenly, before he had gone a hundred yards on the other side of Canal Street he entered into the old city, built two hundred years ago, and was driving slowly through the serene decadence of the Quarter. (58) 

Where Ulman’s body is found is another place, again.

Algiers is a disgruntled suburb of New Orleans that sprawls along the west bank of the Mississippi River and is reached from the city by the Canal Street ferry. Farther up the river, opposite the ferry station at Napoleon Avenue, is Harvey, another sulky little suburb, and between Algiers and Harvey is a dirt road that winds lonesomely through the shadowy chaos of live oaks and moss and red lilies that grow in the marsh on either side.

The little road is bright with traffic at night, when the people of Algiers and Harvey finish their day’s work and go to ride, but in the daytime passing autos are few, and for this reason Dr. Prentiss and the Sheldon Library had selected a spot on this road as the site of the bindery where repairs might be made on those of his literary treasures that had been mishandled in the course of years. The bindery was a compact little building isolated among the moss-hung oaks. (6)

Of course, the prime suspect in the thefts is found murdered. Anyone who has read enough mysteries will not find this a surprise, but what did take me aback is the state in which his body is found. Ulman is diminished to a “charred and smoking skeleton that was found on a dirt road” with only a “blackened cigarette case bearing Quentin Ulman’s name” and the location, a quiet road near the library’s bindery, to identify him. I don’t know about you, but there is something about a burnt body that feels particularly horrendous. We are certainly not in cosy murder mystery country with this one! 

Someone is held at gunpoint. There is not one, but two women who have femme fatale potential. More than one person gets burnt alive. But I think the most memorable scene for me will be when an intruder in the form of a journalist hides behind the screen of a large fireplace, while listening in on an argument, and taking a surreptitious snap or two, while he’s at it. And it is all set with the backdrop of this city of two faces, and it is not always clear which face is which. This is in some ways an even more dramatic book than Two and Two Make Twenty-Two, and that one was plenty heavy on the drama. I believe I said this in that review, but I’m going to say it here too. These books feel of their time, in the best way. They scream the 1930s to me, and apparently, the thirties is the decade I read the most from. (I actually had no idea of this fact until I started making note of it recently.) 

Without discussing any spoilers—but, oh, how I am tempted!—I really enjoyed the build to the conclusion, as the tension is slowly ratcheted up. Bristow and Manning make fantastic use of setting throughout this book, and in the build to the conclusion this is especially true. Just thinking about this book and how much I did not see that ending coming, makes me want to read it all over again. Alas, my copy must go back to the library. But this is one for the wishlist, for sure. I have already read the first few chapters of the last book penned by Bristow and Manning, The Mardi Gras Murders, and I have to say, that one is already chalking up to be a doozy. I can’t wait to get back to it.  

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This blog post contains affiliate links for Blackwell’s. As a Blackwell’s Affiliate, I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase through one of the links on my website. I recommend Blackwell’s because I use them myself. This helps support me in sharing—what I hope is—valuable content. Thank you for your support!

Happy Birthday Millie!

Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson was born 120 years ago today, on 10 July 1905. You might not recognise her name, but I’m willing to bet the name Carolyn Keene rings a bell. Carolyn Keene is the pseudonym Wirt Benson shared with a number of other writers who have penned the Nancy Drew books over the years. Wirt Benson was the ghostwriter of 23 of the first 30 books in the original Nancy Drew series, the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. The character of Nancy Drew was created by Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Stratemeyer started the company when he found that the demand from publishers for the children’s books he was writing exceeded his output. To keep up with the demand for more books in series he had created, he hired freelance writers. Stratemeyer wrote the outlines, the freelancer would write the manuscript under the pen name for that series, making a flat rate for their efforts, and Stratemeyer would keep the copyright.

Before Stratemeyer died in 1930, he had provided the outlines for the first four Nancy Drew books to Wirt Benson, The Secret of the Old Clock (1930), The Hidden Staircase (1930), The Bungalow Mystery (1930), and The Mystery at Lilac Inn (1930). After his death Harriet Otis Smith, Stratemeyer’s personal secretary, wrote the outline of the fifth book, The Secret at Shadow Ranch (1931), as well as editing that book and the fourth book, The Mystery at Lilac Inn (1930), she is also credited with creating the characters Bess Marvin and George Fayne, cousins and good friends of Nancy Drew. From the sixth book on, the daughters of Stratemeyer, Edna Stratemeyer Squier and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, carried on with the creation of the outlines and editing of the books, until Edna left the Syndicate, and Harriet shouldered the work Edna had done, as well as her own. 

Wirt Benson made $125 per book for the first seven Nancy Drews, but Harriet wanted to cut the rate the ghostwriters were getting paid down to $100 per book. At this point Wirt Benson was an experienced writer, having graduated with a degree in English in 1925 from the University of Iowa, and she went on to be the first person to graduate with a Masters in Journalism there in 1927. When Wirt Benson respectfully declined a pay cut, the Syndicate hired Walter Karig to take up the reins. Karig wrote books eight, nine, and 10, and then the Syndicate had Wirt Benson back for books 11 to 25. After another gap in which the books were written by a number of writers, she was asked to write book thirty, and though she was not formally fired as a ghostwriter, she was not asked to write another Nancy Drew after that point.

It is easy to get caught up in the lore of Nancy Drew and the history of her creators, and if the number of times I have info dumped on my husband about this, my special interest, is any indicator, I could go on for days, or at least until my caffeine buzz wears off. But this is a post about Wirt Benson and she also wrote many successful children’s books, 135 in all. She got her start with the Syndicate with the 1927 book Ruth Fielding and Her Great Scenario. Stratemeyer tried Wirt Benson out, as it were, with the well established Ruth Fielding series, and he had her in mind when he pitched the Nancy Drew series to Grosset and Dunlap. At the same time as she was writing the Nancy Drew books, she was also writing Ruth Fielding, Dana Girls, and Honey Bunch books. In the late 1940s, her husband, Asa Wirt*, had a stroke and became ill, suffering a number of debilitating strokes. Meanwhile, Wirt Benson was also caring for their young daughter, Peggy, and working as a reporter. On top of that she had pseudonyms of her own, which is where, in my opinion, she did some of her best writing. 

Wirt Benson’s favourite series was the Penny Parker Mystery Stories, and I can see why. Penny is everything I believe Nancy Drew could have been if Wirt Benson had been in complete control of the writing of these books. Penny, the daughter of a newspaper man, often writes articles for her father’s paper. She is an enthusiastic and casual girl who doesn’t take anything too seriously, even when her investigating pitches her into the most dire of circumstances. The more I learn about Wirt Benson, the more I see her in the strong women she wrote. The first book Penny Parker book, Tale of the Witch Doll (1939), begins with Penny doing an expert high-dive. Like the character she created, Wirt Benson was a lauded diver in her youth. As well as being on the competitive swim team at her university, where she took part in relays and diving, she also played on the basketball team, the soccer team, wrote for the school paper, the Daily Iowan. In high school she played baseball, basketball, volleyball, acted in the senior class play, played the xylophone, and outside of school she played the slide trombone in the Ladora Band.

After being enthralled by flying in her youth, in 1964, when she was 59 years old, she got her pilot’s licence. It’s no wonder she wrote young women like Nancy Drew and Ruth Darrow who also flew planes. Suddenly all of her extremely talented heroines don’t seem so far fetched. I have often thought while reading a Nancy Drew, “is there nothing this woman can’t do?” and now I am much more inclined to believe a real live person can be as adventurous, talented, and well rounded as Nancy.  

Wirt Benson was talented and clearly had many interests, but writing was her number one objective from an early age. “I always wanted to be a writer from the time I could walk. I had no other thought except that I wanted to write.” She learned to read very early and was soon reading everything she could get her hands on. Her own town of Ladora was too small to have a library, but when possible her father would drop her off at the public library in a nearby town, and there she would spend eight hours at a time reading. 

“Writing is a way of life for me,” she said. “It’s like getting up and having breakfast.” She wrote for the Daily Iowan during university, and after graduating she wrote for the Clinton Iowa Herald, in 1944 she started working at the Toledo Blade, when it was the Toledo Times, working there for the next 58 years. On the afternoon of 28 May 2002, she filed what would be her last story. Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson, Millie, as she liked to be called, died around 8 p.m. that evening in hospital. She was 96 years old.

Through writing this I have realised that when I picture Wirt Benson, she is impossibly high above the water, mid-dive, or donning her flying cap, about to take flight. As a little girl, I wanted to be like Nancy Drew when grew up. Now, I aspire to be like Millie. 

Happy Birthday Millie.

I want to thank my dear friend Gina (@babsbelovedbooks), without whom my Mildred A. Wirt Benson collection would be almost non-existent. Thanks also to my husband for buying me my first proper vintage Nancy Drew book, and spending way too much money on the Dana Girls edition of my dreams one wedding anniversary.

Many thanks to the literary historians, librarians, journalists, and collectors who have made so much information about dear Millie available. It turns out fans of Nancy Drew make pretty great detectives.

List of references:

“Blade columnist, Nancy Drew author Millie Benson dies at age 96”: Mark Zaborney and George J. Tanber, Toledo Blade, May 29, 2002. 

Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her (2005) by Melanie Rehak 

“It’s no mystery why Nancy Drew author still writes: ‘It’s a way of life’”: John Seewer, The Associated Press, January 1, 2002.

Nancy Drew Sleuth website run by Jennifer Fisher

Series Books for Girls website run by Jennifer White

University of Iowa archives, Mildred Wirt Benson Collection

There is a lot of misinformation around Nancy Drew and Mildred A. Wirt Benson out there, I sincerely hope none has crept in here. If there are any inaccuracies they are my own and not the fault of the listed sources.

*Asa Wirt died in 1947. In 1959 she married, George Benson.

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