RIP Clare Curzon (1922-2010)

Clare Curzon a prolific author and member of the CWA died peacefully on Thursday 20 May 2010. A stalwart of the St Albans Chapter of the CWA she will be sorely missed by them and throughout the country. Her funeral took place on Tuesday 8 June 2010.

Clare Curzon wrote over forty novels under a number of names but was best known for her Mike Yeadings series that was set in Thames Valley. The first book in the series published in 1983 was I Give You Five Days. She subsequently went on to write twenty-three other books in the series. The most recent one to be published is Devil in the Detail which was published by Severn House Publishers earlier this year. Much of her work concerned the dynamics within close knit communities.

Under the name Clare Curzon she also wrote two books Trail of Fire (1987) and Shot Bolt (1988) which featured the character Sian Vassilakis. She also wrote three books in the Stakerly Series which were set in 1900s London, England and featured the character Lucy Sedgewick. The first book in the series Guilty Knowledge (1999) was short-listed for the Ellis Peters Historical dagger in 2000. In 2000 Guilty Knowledge won the 2000 Herodotus Award for Best First International Historical Mystery.

She also wrote a number of non series novels. In 1995 along with Gillian Linscott, Peter Lovesey, Dorothy Simpson and Margaret Yorke she contributed to a collection entitled A Dead Give Away.

Using the name Rhona Petrie she wrote five police procedurals featuring Marcus Maclurg a Police Inspector in England. The first book in the series was Death in Deakins Wood (1963). The last book in the series was Maclurg goes West (1968). Also under the name of Rhona Petrie she wrote two books featuring Dr Nassim Pride an Anglo-Sudanese forensic Scientist set in Geneva Switzerland. The books were Foreign Bodies (1967) and Despatch of a Dove (1969). Alongside these she also wrote two non-series books Come Hell and High Water (1970) which is a collection of short-stories and Thorne in the Flesh.

As Marie Buchanan she also wrote five books – Greenshards (1972), An Unofficial Breath (1973), The Dark Backward (1975), Morgana (1977) and Countess of Sedgwick (1980).

She will be sorely missed.

RIP Peter O’Donnell (April 11th 1920 – May 3rd 2010)

Peter O’Donnell the author of the iconic Modesty Blaise series has died at the age of 90. He was apparently suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. He died over the Bank Holiday Weekend and is survived by his wife and two daughters.

The Modesty Blaise series was first published in 1963 in comic strip form and was published in that form until 2001. In 1965 O’Donnell wrote the first of the Modesty Blaise books as a result of the novelisation of his screenplay. Sadly when the film was released in 1966 very little of what O’Donnell had written was used. It is not considered to be the best portrayal of Modesty Blaise along with her side-kick and faithful lieutenant Willie Garvin. The book however was extremely well received and O’Donnell went on to write 13 books featuring Modesty Blaise in total (including two collections of short stories). O’Donnell stopped writing the Modesty Blaise comic strip in 2001 but in 2003 he wrote the introductions for Titan Books who reprinted volumes of the Modesty Blaise series. Quentin Tarantino also interviewed
O’Donnell for a special feature that was included on the DVD release of his 2002 film My Name is Modesty Blaise. Tarantino has been a longstanding fan of the series and in the movie Pulp Fiction John Travolta's character can be seen reading a copy of one of the Doubleday editions of the books. The Modesty Blaise series was syndicated in over forty-two countries.

As well as the Modesty Blaise comic strip O’Donnell wrote the Daily Express adaptation of the James Bond novel Dr No, Garth and Romeo Brown. O’Donnell also wrote for television and screen and early in his career for a number of women's magazines and children's papers as well. His play Mr Fothergill’s Murder was widely performed in the 1980’s.

The official Modesty Blaise website can be found here. Due to the huge popularity of the series a number of websites can be found celebrating the work of Modesty Blaise. These include the complete Modesty Blaise Dossier, The Modesty Blaise Book site and a three part appreciation of Modesty Blaise series by Kirsty Valenti can be found in Comixology. Part one, part two and part three. The Crimetime article with Peter O’Donnell can be found here whilst a short article by myself on Modesty Blaise can be found in Crimetime 53. The Modesty Blaise News Blogspot can also be found here.

Whilst O’Donnell was best known for the Modesty Blaise series he also wrote historical romance novels under the pseudonym Madeleine Brent. Unlike the Modesty Blaise books the books he wrote under the pseudonym Madeleine Brent were not a series but still featured (like Modesty Blaise) strong female characters. O’Donnell wrote nine books as Brent the first being Tregaron's Daughter in 1971 and the final one being Golden Urchin in 1986.

O’Donnell is said to have stated that he does not wish for anyone else to write any more Modesty Blaise stories.

The Times obituary can be found here.

RIP Ira Levin & Norman Mailer

Over on Sara Weinman's blog she carries a report on the death of IRA Levin


Also it's sad to report that legendary author Norman Mailer died of renal failure at the weekend. He was 84. Controversial to the end, Mailer's last work, published this summer by Little, Brown, was a fictional exploration of the life of Adolf Hitler, The Castle in the Forest (available in paperback from December). Other Mailer fiction includes the equally controversial The Gospel According to the Son, while highlights of his non-fiction includes the biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, Oswald's Tale. Described in his BBC obituary as 'the bad boy of post-war American literature', Mailer also had the curious distinction of having head-butted a fellow author, Gore Vidal.