Photo: Louis Monier/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images (1999)
Sample of authors
Crumley, James
The American author and teacher James Arthur Crumley never reached bestseller status. However, he was instrumental in the development of hardboiled crime fiction from the 1970s onwards.
Crumley was born at Three Rivers, southern Texas. His father was an oil field foreman and his mother a waitress. The family was poor; his mother forced her son to attend church, but she never went herself since...
Literary figures
Francis Pettigrew
Gender: Male
As a young lawyer he was seen as a rising star, but bad luck and unexpected problems led to Francis Pettigrew never becoming more than a bitter, mediocre barrister. After solving several murder cases, sometimes together with Detective Inspector Mallett, and marrying Eleanor Brown (who was half his age), his fortune changes and he can grow old in satisfaction, reports Cyril Hare (pseudonym for...