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Hitchens, Dolores

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 11 months ago
Julia Clara Catherine Dolores Birk Olsen Hitchens (1907-1973) was born in Texas, USA. She worked as a nurse and as a teacher before she started her writing career. She also wrote under the pseudonyms Dolan Birkley, Noel Burke, and DB Olsen. She also wrote together with her husband Hubert Allen ('Bert') Hitchens. Having wisely decided to pare down her real name when she began writing books, she was able to make up several pseudonyms from it. She wrote a large number of lightweight mysteries, mostly in the cozy tradition, a few featuring the venerable sleuthing combination of a little old lady (Rachel Murdock) and her cat (Samantha).

 

But she also wrote a pair of hardboiled mysteries featuring a private eye named Jim Sader, books squarely in the Chandlerite tradition and comparable to other such books by Howard Browne and Leigh Brackett. Sleep With Slander in particular is revered from critics ranging from Bill Pronzini to Kevin Burton Smith. Sader is an iconic Chandlerite hero: idealistic but sadly disillusioned, romantically hoping for the best from people but prepared for the worst.

 

"The upswing was quick and venomous, the leather sap seemed to explode with menace under the glow of the overhead light, and Sader knew that the next moment this combination of muscle and nerve and shot-weighted sap was going to crush him to a pulp. But in that moment his gun splintered the quiet."

 

Her series characters were: as Dolores Hitchens, Jim Sader; as DB Olsen, Lieutenant Stephen Mayhew, Rachel and Jennifer Murdock, Professor A Pennyfeather; as Bert and Dolores Hitchens, Collins and McKechnie, John Farrel.

 

Bibliography

 

Stairway to an Empty Room (1951)

Nets to Catch the Wind {aka Widows Won’t Wait} (1952)

Terror Lurks in Darkness (1953)

Beat Back the Tide {aka The Fatal Flirt} (1954)

Sleep with Strangers (1955)

Fools’ Gold (1958)

The Watcher (1959)

Sleep with Slander (1960)

Footsteps in the Night (1961)

The Abductor (1962)

The Bank with the Bamboo Door (1965)

The Man Who Cried All the Way Home (1966)

Postscripts to Nightmare {aka Cabin of Fear} (1967)

A Collection of Strangers (1969)

The Baxter Letters (1971)

In a House Unknown (1973)

 

As Dolan Birkley

 

The Blue Geranium (1941)

The Unloved (1965)

 

as Noel Burke

 

The Shivering Bough (1942)

 

As DB Olsen

 

The Clue in the Clay (1938)

The Cat Saw Murder (1939)

Death Cuts a Silhouette (1939)

The Ticking Heart (1940)

The Alarm of the Black Cat (1942)

Cat’s Claw (1943)

Catspaw for Murder (1943)

The Cat Wears a Noose (1944)

Bring the Bride a Shroud aka A Shroud for the Bride (1945)

Cats Don’t Smile (1945)

Cats Don’t Need Coffins (1946)

Gallows for the Groom (1947)

Widows Ought to Weep (1947)

Cats Have Tall Shadows (1948)

Devious Design (1948)

The Cat Wears a Mask (1949)

Death Wears Cat’s Eyes (1950)

Something About Midnight (1950)

The Cat and Capricorn (1951)

Love Me in Death (1951)

Enrollment Cancelled {aka Dead Babes in the Wood} (1952)

The Cat Walk (1953)

Death Walks on Cat Feet (1956)

The Night of the Bowstring (1963)

 

By Bert Hitchens and Dolores Hitchens

 

FOB Murder (1955)

One-Way Ticket (1956)

End of the Line (1957)

The Man Who Followed Women (1959)

The Grudge (1963)

The Grudge (1963)

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