Vera Caspary

Jean McVeigh was lonely. Even her great wealth could not save her from bitterness and two attempts to end her life.

"The author of the successful Laura with another accomplished and artfully sustained novel of murder as indulgently infatuated Charlie brings his new wife, Bedelia, to his Connecticut home. Kittenish, childish, appealingly soft, Bedelia is the must alluring and affectionate of wives. Her contradictory claims about her past go unnoticed until Charlie is the victim of a poisoning attack, and the small deceptions become more obvious under the alert vigilance of Chaney, next door neighbor. Finally, approached by Chaney, who turns out to be a private detective, whose suspicions of Bedelia as a female bluebeard Charlie discredits, Charlie is forced to accept the evidence as Bedelia prepares to kill again. In spite of his love, in spite of himself, Charlie interrupts her criminal career. The female of the species, deadly and decorative, in a curious and clever tale.... This is a good one.". Kirkus Reviews

Explores the life of a Southern "black" woman who moves North and passes as white in the city of Chicago. It was convincing enough that some believed it to be written by a woman who was indeed "passing." At this time, to have even "a drop of Negro blood" was to be considered part of a controversial race.

It was a time when skirts were short and hair was shingled. A time of speakeasies, hipflasks and bathtub gin. A time when Evvie Ashton, the beautiful society girl who modeled, danced, painted and loved promiscuously had come of age—knowing all the right people, doing all the wrong things, and sharing all of it with her roommate and confidante, Louise. After being unusually reticent about her latest love, something unthinkable happens to Evvie. Louise must enter a world of duplicity and menace to learn of Evvie’s fate and the identity of her last flame.

When Fletcher marries Elaine, his second wife, nineteen years his junior, he can't imagine a more passionate union. Then an illness destroys his confidence, and all he can picture is her next affair. He keeps a secret diary of his fantasized suspicions, making his impending suicide look like murder...

John Ansell, young and idealistic editor of Truth and Crime magazine, wants to breathe new life into the stale and formulaic publication. Instead of rehashing a story that’s already been proven popular elsewhere, he finds a fresh one: the murder of Warren G. Wilson, famed figurehead of a correspondence course. The murder itself isn’t too remarkable—just a bullet in the back—but the victim is another case, as it becomes apparent that despite having a household name, nothing is known about him. Perhaps even more peculiar is how Ansell’s boss absolutely refuses to run the story and, soon thereafter, Ansell is poisoned.

From Google Books: "Vera Caspary, the celebrated author of Laura, tells her own story in this captivating autobiography. With a career that spanned from the 1920s through 1970s, one that produced over twenty novels, in addition to her many credits for film and theater, Caspary centered her life around a passion for writing. From her early experiences at an advertisement agency--where she developed a correspondence school and invented its "famed" instructor--to the struggles of being gray-listed in the McCarthy Era, Caspary constantly found a way to turn her creative needs into viable work. Caspary recalls the rest of a full life, too, including her flirtation with communism, travels across Europe, and a marriage. Caspary's skillful writing makes her incredible depictions of people, and the times in which they lived, jump off the page."

Ethel Lina White and Vera Caspary were storytellers of the first order. So it's no wonder their books attracted the attention of two first-rate directors -- Alfred Hitchcock and Otto Preminger -- and translated so brilliantly to the silver screen. Both motion pictures attained icon status over the years and have been endlessly imitated, but never matched. Now discover -- or rediscover -- for yourself the original novels that inspired those classic films...and the writers who proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the female can be the deadlier variety of the species. In The Lady Vanishes, young Iris Henderson befriends an elderly governess while traveling on a train back to England. Sometime during their journey, the governess disappears -- yet no one on the train can remember seeing her! In Laura, a beautiful woman is murdered on a sweltering day in New York City. As hard-boiled detective Mark McPherson investigates, he's startled to find himself falling in love with her. Don't miss these two intriguing masterpieces of suspense -- each has a tantalizing twist!