Jeffrey Marks

Who Was That Lady? Craig Rice: The Queen of Screwball Mystery

Jeffrey Marks

• 2002 Anthony-Critical nominee
• 2002 Edgar-Critical/Biography nominee
• 2002 Macavity-Nonfiction nominee
• 2001 Agatha–Nonfiction nominee
• Score: 24.52

Craig Rice, the author of fourteen novels, countless short stories, and a number of true crime pieces, once rivaled Agatha Christie in sales. She was on the cover of Time Magazine in 1946. However, the past fifty years have seen her fall into relative obscurity. Rice made for an interesting subject for a biography because nearly every identification point about the author was in dispute: her birth, her real name, her number of marriages, number of children, her canon of fiction, and the cause of her early death. Marks had to wade through years of research to come up with the answers to those questions. Following a trail that went from Venice, Italy to Venice Beach, CA, he talked to a number of her contemporaries, her family, and friends to come up with an engaging book that reminds readers why Rice remains the undisputed queen of the comedic mystery.

Anthony Boucher: A Biobibliography

Jeffrey Marks

• 2009 Anthony-Critical winner
• 2008 Agatha–Nonfiction nominee
• Score: 16.59

American author, editor, and critic William Parker White, better known to most as Anthony Boucher, made countless contributions to the fields of mystery and science fiction. After beginning his career as a mystery writer at 16, Boucher went on to become a New York Times mystery critic, a host for several radio programs, and the founding editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

This comprehensive biobibliography places particular emphasis on the writings and edited publications that established his reputation among readers of science fiction. Several appendices include complete bibliographic citations for Boucher’s novels, articles, short stories, unpublished works, reviews, radio plays, anthologies, translations, and other written works.

Intent to Sell: Marketing the Genre Novel

Jeffrey Marks

• 2003 Anthony-Critical nominee
• 2003 Macavity-Nonfiction nominee
• Score: 12.53

The first book to specifically address the marketing of genre fiction, Intent to Sell, is written by Jeffrey Marks, the award-winning author of mystery novels and short story collections. Marks takes a novice writer from the early stages of publicity at the time that the contracts are signed and leads the author through the maze of booksignings, interviews, awards and how to promote an entire series. Peppered with quotes from Todays top mystery writers, Marks uses his background in marketing to develop a PR campaign that is no mystery.

Atomic Renaissance: Women Mystery Writers of the 1940s and 1950s

Jeffrey Marks

• 2003 Agatha–Nonfiction nominee
• Score: 6.53

America in the 1950s was a place of Eisenhower, the Korean Conflict, McCarthy, and Sputnik. Women found themselves trapped into a mold of Donna Reed and June Cleaver, marginalized by the hyper-masculinity of the age. Mystery fiction had become a male bastion as well, promoting hardboiled private eye novels and spy fiction. It would be another three decades before groups to promote equality between the sexes in mystery fiction appeared.

Yet during that post-World War II era, seven women carved out a place in the genre. These women became the bestsellers of their time by innovation and experimentation. Margaret Millar, Patricia Highsmith, Leslie Ford, Charlotte Armstrong, Dorothy B. Hughes, Mignon Eberhart, and Phoebe Atwood Taylor are in no way similar to each other in style, theme, or subject matter. However, their writings created an Atomic Renaissance that continues to impact the mystery field today.