This article is about the writer. For the artist, see Amy Myers (artist).
Amy Myers (born 3 August 1938) is a British mystery writer. She is best known for her Marsh and Daughter mystery series, featuring a writing team consisting of a wheel-chair bound ex-policeman and his daughter, and for another series, featuring a Victorian era chef, Auguste Didier.[1] Myers' books have been favourably reviewed in Library Journal,[2][3]Publishers Weekly,[4]Booklist,[5] and Kirkus Reviews.[6] Myers has also been published many times in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.[7] Janet Hutchings, the magazine's longtime editor, called Myers "one of our best and most frequent contributors of historicals" (i.e., historical mysteries).[8]
Personal life
Myers was born in Barnehurst,[9]Kent (part of Greater London since 1965) in 1938. While working in publishing, Myers met her American soon-to-be husband. She oversaw the publication of an autobiography by the English bullfighter Henry Higgins; she met him, his co-author and the co-author's cousin, James Myers.[10] Myers was born in Buffalo, New York, US, but had spent his adult life in Europe.[11]
For ten years, the Myers maintained a commuter marriage, dividing their time between Paris, where James worked, and London, where Amy worked.[1][10][12] During her stays in Paris, Myers dreamed up the character for her first mystery series, Auguste Didier, a half-English, half-French chef who reluctantly dabbled in detection during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods.[12] The couple now live in Kent full-time.[2]
Writing career
Like the character Luke Frost in Myers' Marsh and Daughter series, Myers was once a publisher. She was a director of the now-defunct publishing firm of William Kimber & Co. Ltd., which specialised in war and theatrical memoirs, autobiographies, biographies and tales of hauntings.[9] She published her first mystery, Murder in Pug's Parlor, in 1986. In 1988, she turned to writing full-time.
After eleven Auguste Didier mysteries, Myers introduced the former police detective Peter Marsh and his daughter Georgia in The Wickenham Murders in 2004. The father–daughter team writes true-crime novels in which they expose an injustice or sleuth out the answer to an unsolved crime from the distant past.# The Marshes' investigations almost inevitably involve them with present-day murders stemming from secrets involving the past.[13]
Myers launched a third series in 2007 with Tom Wasp and the Murdered Stunner. Wasp, a Victorian era chimney sweep in East London, solves crimes with his former apprentice, Ned.[13] Myers' fourth series, written with the help of her car buff husband, began in 2011 with Classic in the Barn.[11] That series features a modern-day classic-car restorer in Kent, Jack Colby, who helps the police with cases involving classic cars.[13]
In 2017, Myers introduced yet another cosy mystery series, featuring Nell Drury, a female French-trained chef in 1925 Kent when such a thing was a real anomaly. The first novel is titled Dancing with Death.[14]
For her romances, historical sagas and suspense novels, Myers created the pseudonym Harriet Hudson, although she has occasionally also used the names Laura Daniels and Alice Carr.[10][12]
Myers also writes reviews of other books at the online crime and thriller magazine Shots.[12]
Many of her crime novels are available in German translation.
^Vicarel, Jo Ann (1 August 2007). "Murder and the Golden Goblet: A Marsh and Daughter Mystery". Library Journal. 132 (13). Media Source, Inc.: 55. ISSN0363-0277. - Vicarel, Jo Ann (1 September 2008). "Murder in the Mist: A Marsh and Daughter Mystery". Library Journal. 133 (14). Media Source, Inc.: 102. ISSN0363-0277. - Jacobsen, Teresa L. (1 June 2011). "Classic in the Barn: A Case for Jack Colby, Car Detective". Library Journal. 136 (10). Media Source, Inc.: 84. ISSN0363-0277.
^"Tom Wasp and the Newgate Knocker". Publishers Weekly. 257 (11). PWxyz LLC: 41. 15 March 2010. ISSN0000-0019. - "Classic in the Barn: A Case for Jack Colby, the Car Detective". Publishers Weekly. 228 (20). PWxyz LLC: 59. 16 May 2011. ISSN0000-0019.
^Flanagan, Margaret (15 December 2012). "Classic in the Clouds". Booklist. 109 (8). American Library Association: 21. ISSN0006-7385.
^"Book Review: Tom Wasp and the Newgate Knocker". Kirkus Reviews. 78 (6). Kirkus Reviews, LLC: 229. 15 March 2010. ISSN1948-7428. - "Book Review: Classic Calls the Shots". Kirkus Reviews. 80 (12). Kirkus Media, LLC: 1218. 15 June 2012. ISSN1948-7428. - "Book Review: Classic Mistake". Kirkus Reviews. 81 (14): 330. 15 July 2013. ISSN1948-7428.
^"2011". Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
^Hutchings, Janet (27 March 2013). ""History Mystery" (by Amy Myers)". Editor of Ellery Queen′s Mystery Magazine. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
^ ab"Amy Myers". Goodreads. Retrieved 16 September 2012.