Thursday, June 28, 2007

Cecil Street: alias John Rhode et al

Cecil Street had three pseudonyms: John Rhode, Miles Burton, and Cecil Wayne. He was extremely prolific, writing some 140 books over the thirty-seven years between 1924 and 1961. Though some regard him as a humdrum writer (which at least is not a ‘hack’) there are others who claim that he had a gift for plot construction, a great eye for detail, a subtle sense of humour (one of his victims was killed with a hedgehog and another with a vegetable marrow), and a not-always acknowledged gift for characterization.

Her wrote most novels under the name of John Rhode. These generally featured an armchair detective called Dr Lancelot Priestley. The novels written as Miles Burton had mostly rural settings, and featured an amateur sleuth called Desmond Merrion. As Cecil Wayne he wrote four thrillers, all featuring yet another detective, this one called Christopher Perrin.

Again there’s a lengthy bibliography available from the same site as previously.

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