| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Gayle, Newton

Page history last edited by Jon 11 years, 4 months ago

Muna LeeNewton Gayle was a pseudonym used by the writing team of Muna Lee and Maurice Guinness for five books written in the 1930s.

 

Muna Lee (1895-1965) was a poet, historian, translator, activist and essayist. She was the oldest of nine children. She grew up in Mississippi and Oklahoma and attended Blue Mountain College and the University of Mississippi. She became a teacher in Oklahoma and then moved to New York to work as a translator for the Secret Service during World War I. She learnt Spanish and wrote and translated poetry in Spanish, Portuguese and English, marrying Luis Muñoz Marín, a poet, journalist, and future governor of Puerto Rico, in 1919. They moved to Puerto Rico and had two children.

 

Her five murder mystery novels were co-authored with Maurice Guiness. "Gayle" is a Lee family surname. The novels, featuring British detective James Greer who solves crimes in Britain, the United States, and Puerto Rico, are notable for their bilingual dialogue.

 

Lee took up an administrative post at the University of Puerto Rico and became a prominent figure in the National Women's Party. In 1941 she left her husband and moved to Washington D.C., to work for the State Department. She wrote several non-fiction books about Spain and Latin America, and was a friend of William Faulkner. She retired to Puerto Rico shortly before her death in 1965.

 

Maurice Guiness (1897- ) was a Shell Oil executive stationed in Puerto Rico. He wrote three mystery novels by himself under the pseudonym Mike Brewer, featuring series character Brendan Wallace. Nothing more is known about him other than that he received a letter from Raymond Chandler in 1958.

 

Bibliography

Death Follows a Formula (1935)

The Sentry Box Murder (1935) aka Murder in the Haunted Sentry-Box

Murder at 28:10 (1936)

Death in the Glass (1937)

Sinister Crag (1938)

 

By Maurice Guiness, under the pseudonym Mike Brewer:

Man in Danger (1961)

Man on the Run (1962)

Man Against Fear (1966)

 

Comments (2)

Jon said

at 7:44 am on Jul 19, 2010

Has anybody read any Newton Gayle? I've borrowed three of his books on inter-library loan (and also Browne's Looking Glass Murders): Death Follows a Formula, The Sentry Box Murder, Death at 28:10. I started to read Formula last night, and found it ponderous and talky. In spite of two murders, absolutely nothing happened in the first hundred pages - no detection or facts. Instead, lectures on oil and economics (as though Gayle had modelled his book on Obelists en Route), and detection as applied algebra - that was the point where I put the book down. Is it worth continuing, or is Gayle's neglect justified?

Nick Fuller.

Jon said

at 7:45 am on Jul 19, 2010

I met Muna Lee (Newton Gayle) once or twice, while a kid. And it had nothing to do with mysteries.

Muna Lee was the first wife of Luis Muñoz Marín, Puerto Rico’s first elected governor. Alas, the had been divorce many years before this. Luis Muñoz Marín was president of the Senate from 1941-48, and gobernor 1949-64. He also served 1 term as senator from 1933-36 and 1.5 more from 1965-70. He is arguably P.R.’s greatest political figure and the architect of our so-called “peaceful revolution” in the 40-50s.

One of their sons, whom I also met as a kid, Luis Muñoz Lee, died in the early 2000’s. A daughter, Muna Muñoz Lee (Munita) was a friend of our family, but died over 40 years ago.

A few years ago, my Jesuit uncle Padre Fernando Picó, who has written over 20 books of history, told me about his discovery of Muna Lee being Newton Gayle. He ordered a couple of her books but I have not asked him about them. We did look at the Hubin’s entry on her but could not find anything linking the author to the person.

Enrique F. Bird Picó

You don't have permission to comment on this page.