Photo: Hulton Deutsch / Corbis Historical via Getty Images (1952)
Sample of authors
Crofts, Freeman Wills
Freeman Wills Crofts was born in Dublin, Ireland, as the son of a British army surgeon who died when Croft was still young. Because his mother then married an archdeacon, Croft was brought up in a deeply religious home. He studied engineering, and at the age of seventeen he became an apprentice at the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway where he stayed until 1929 when he left for health...
Literary figures
Hildegarde Withers
Gender: Female
A tall, angular and determined elderly school mistress – in later books retired school mistress – in New York who solves cases in a suite of cosy detective stories by Stuart Palmer. She often cooperates with Inspector Oscar Piper and lawyer John J. Malone, created by Craig Rice. Hildegarde Withers always wears original hats and has an umbrella with her, collects tropical fish and is a strong opp...