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Wright, June

Page history last edited by J F Norris 8 years, 12 months ago

June Wright (1919-2012) was an Australian mystery writer who lived in Melbourne with her husband and children for most of her life.  She created two series characters, both female detectives. The first is Maggie Byrnes who appears in three books. The other an "unassuming but strong-willed" Catholic nun turned detective Mother Mary St. Paul of the Cross, or Mother Paul for short, who appears in Wright's last three books.

 

The following is excerpted from Derham Groves' excellent essay on the life and work of June Wright found at his website derhamgroves.com:

 

"The crime novels by the Australian author, June Wright (née Healy), are not known as well as they should be in my view. She was born in 1919 in Malvern, Victoria, and educated locally at Kildara College, Loreto College and Manderville Hall. After leaving school and briefly studying commercial art, June got a job as a telephonist at the Central Telephone Exchange in Melbourne (she is pictured operating a switchboard, above).  In 1941 she married Stewart Wright, a cost accountant.  They had six children: Patrick; Rosemary; Nicholas; Anthony; Brenda; and Stephen. June wrote eight crime novels, six of which were published between 1948 and 1966. Her ability to successfully juggle crime fiction writing and motherhood was the subject of several colourfully named articles in magazines and newspapers, such as “Wrote Thriller with Her Baby on Her Knee” (1948) and “Books Between Babies” (1948).

 

"When June’s first child, Patrick, was one year old, she began writing her first crime novel, Murder in the Telephone Exchange (1948), which was set in her former workplace. Sarah Compton, a supervisor at the Central Telephone Exchange, is bashed to death with a “buttinski,” a gadget used by telephone operators to interrupt telephone conversations. Maggie Byrnes, a spirited young telephonist, who June emphatically denies was modelled on herself (but I don’t believe her!), narrates the Dorothy L. Sayers-style whodunit. (At the time, Sayers’ Gaudy Night (1935) was her favourite detective novel.)

 

"While wrapping up vegetable scraps in an old newspaper, June happened to see an advertisement for an international literary competition run by the London publisher, Hutchinson.  She entered Murder in the Telephone Exchange in the competition, and while it did not win the £10,000 first prize, Hutchinson agreed to publish it. Australian crime fiction reviewers were generally full of praise for June’s first book, often singling out its quirky local setting, which she described in minute detail as only an insider could do.  For example, one reviewer wrote: “Perhaps it was the Melbourne setting that gave a new freshness to the form.  (One almost expected to meet the characters walking down the streets, to hear their voices over the phone.)  But I think there were other factors, too.  The atmosphere, the plot, the characterization, all are good.” June energetically promoted Murder at the Telephone Exchange in the press, on radio and at a number of literary events. The book was a bestseller, which “outsold even Agatha Christie and other world-famous authors in Australia” in 1948, according to The Advertiser in Adelaide. With the royalties from the book, June bought herself a fur coat and remodelled the Wright’s kitchen."

 

Bibliography

Murder in the Telephone Exchange (1948)

So Bad a Death (1949) original title was to be Who Would Murder a Baby?

The Devil's Caress (1953)

Reservation for Murder (1958)

Faculty of Murder (1961)

Make-up for Murder (1966)

Duck Season Death (2015)

 

NOTE: Duck Season Death was written in the mid-1950s and actually was Wright's sixth novel in her chronological bibliography. One of two books originally rejected for publication by Hutchinson it was rescued from oblivion by her family members and published for the first time in 2015. No existing manuscript of the other book rejected by Hutchinison, The Law Courts Mystery, has yet turned up. 

 

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