False scent; The man who followed women; Tiger on my back

Julia Clara Catharine Dolores Birk Olsen Hitchens was born in San Antonio, Texas. She worked as a nurse and as a teacher before she started her writing career. She wrote a large number of lightweight mysteries, mostly in the cozy tradition, but she also wrote a pair of hardboiled mysteries featuring a private eye named Jim Sader, books squarely in the Chandlerite tradition. Her first book, A Clue in the Clay, was published in 1938. She produced almost 50 books over the course of her career.