| Jean Catherine Potts (1910-1999) was born in St. Paul to Lola and Will Potts. Potts graduated from St. Paul High School, attended Denver Women's College and graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln. She worked for The Phonograph newspaper in St. Paul for a brief period and was also a schoolteacher. While on a visit to New York City to see her older sister Edith, an accomplished pianist who was studying at Julliard School of Music, Potts became entranced by the city and lived there until her death. |
Potts would go on to write over 37 short stories for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Woman's Day, amongst others. But it was her mystery novels that caught the attention of the critics. Her first mystery novel, Go, Lovely Rose, brought Potts national attention by winning an Edgar. Critics and friends believe she used St. Paul and St. Paul characters as the backdrop for this award-winning novel.
In 1963 she received the runner-up Edgar Award for Mystery Novel of the Year for The Evil Wish. Potts' novels have also been published internationally in over seven foreign languages. Potts died on Nov. 10, 1999, in New York City. Her ashes were returned and placed in the Elmwood Cemetery in St. Paul.
Bibliography
Go, Lovely Rose (1954)
Death of a Stray Cat (1955)
The Diehard (1956)
The Man With the Cane (1957)
Lightning Strikes Twice (1958) Aka Blood Will Tell
Home Is the Prisoner (1960)
The Evil Wish (1962)
The Only Good Secretary (1965)
The Footsteps on the Stairs (1966)
The Trash Stealer (1968)
The Little Lie (1968)
An Affair of the Heart (1970)
The Troublemaker (1972)
My Brother's Killer (1975)
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