Margaret Millar
Personal Information
Description
Margaret Ellis Millar (née Sturm) was an American-Canadian mystery and suspense writer. Born in Kitchener, Ontario, she was educated at the Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate Institute and the University of Toronto. She moved to the United States after marrying Kenneth Millar (better known under the pen name Ross Macdonald). They resided for decades in the city of Santa Barbara, which was often used as a locale in her later novels under the pseudonyms of San Felice or Santa Felicia. The Millars had a daughter who died in 1970. In the early '60s, two of her novels (Beast in View and Rose's Last Summer) were adapted for the anthology TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Thriller. She was a master of character, a genius of plot twists, and a superb stylist. It’s rare to find those three talents in one literary package, yet, over the course of a 55-year-long career, Maggie maintained her high standards throughout her 27 books, short stories, half a dozen screenplays, poems, radio stories, and one touching memoir. Plus, she did it while struggling to raise a child, keep a house, and deal with a husband who later became more famous than she. Perhaps you’ve heard of Ken Millar. He wrote under the pseudonym of Ross Macdonald and created the Lew Archer detective series, which paid homage to the hard-boiled detective masters Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler, and he eventually joined them in that genre’s pantheon of men. Source: Wikipedia & L. A. Review of Books
Books
The Couple Next Door
The first collection of noveletets and short stories by one of the great mystery writers, and a mistress of psychological suspense.
Mermaid
A young girl is rescued from a shipwreck, and is looked after by the sailors who saved her. A touching romance and moving adventure tale of love, family, friendship, and coming of age. -- from Google Books
The murder of Miranda
Rich widow Miranda Shaw and lifeguard Grady Keaton, half Miranda's age, disappear from the Penguin Beach Club, and, amid rumors and anonymous letters, attorney Tom Aragon begins a search--assisted by a nine-year-old who boasts of his Mafia connections
Ask For Me Tomorrow
Gilda Decker needs a new bag, what with her second husband being suddenly crippled and her ex-husband hiding himself and his money somewhere in the hinterlands of Mexico. Gilda's recently retained lawyer, Tom Aragon, Mexican himself, is the best man for the job. But the deeper Aragon digs into her ex-husband's past the more dangerous his job becomes. One of Millar’s few reoccurring characters and her only foray into the tradition of Chandler and Hammett, Tom Aragon, ranks among her best creations. A sarcastic but talented young lawyer with a few rough edges, Aragon finds himself navigating one entitled nest of vipers after another, not to mention racial prejudice.
Beyond This Point Are Monsters
In a tense courtroom the night of October the thirteenth is vividly recreated as a young widow listens to accounts of her husband's murder
How like an angel
Joe Quinn is cut adrift. He’s lost everything. His girl. His job. His place in the universe. A security head for a casino in Reno just can’t afford to have a gambling problem. Life takes a turn from tragic to strange when Quinn finds himself on the doorsteps of a religious cult’s tower in the remote California hills. Quinn hitched a ride from Reno but never thought he’d end up in a place like this. But a gambler has to play the hand he’s dealt. When one of the cultists asks Quinn to check on a man named Patrick O’Gorman and slides a not so small amount of money in his jacket, well, that’s just the sort of hand Quinn has been looking for. Thing is, Quinn soon finds out, O’Gorman disappeared under bizarre circumstances several years ago. For reasons he doesn’t entirely understand, perhaps for the sake of having a purpose, Quinn begins a lurid quest to uncover the truth. What he finds out instead is that there are just as many crazies outside the walls of a cultist tower as there are inside.
A stranger in my grave
What happened to Daisy Harker on Decemeber 2,1955? That was the date she had seen on the tombstone and yet she was still alive. The name on the grave was hers but whose was the body? Regardless of the lives that would be shattered by the truth, her implacable search for a single day in her past leads back through a maelstrom of hatred and remorse to the single catastrophic fact that underlies a lifetime of deception.
Rose's last summer
When Rose French, a former silent film star, is found dead in a deserted garden, only Frank Clyde, a friend and social worker, believes it was murder
The iron gates
From Google Books: "Lucille Morrow was blessed -- a beautiful woman with a devoted husband. One day a mysterious messenger delivered a package, and suddenly Lucille Morrow was gone. Dominated by fear, she committed herself into an asylum. Searching for the cause, Inspector Sands follows a long trail which takes him to an abyss of horror, murder and retribution the likes of which he's never seen."
Wall of eyes
A blind woman totally dependent on her family becomes the intended victim of a murder plot
The devil loves me
In an anonymous letter to Dr. Pry, an unknown murderer warns of his intention. He tells Pry that he's about to give him a murder to solve at his own doorstep, saying that it is high time someone combined a wedding and a funeral. He left the note in Pry's friend's pocket instead of the ring, "not because you can stop me, but merely to assure you that I am deadly serious." A bride, a groom, and a wedding feast are about to be interrupted by a clever killer. But will he be clever enough to get past Dr. Pry?