In a post in November, 2020, I wrote about Castle Mandragora, a thriller with uncanny elements by Mary Durham, and I noted that nothing seemed to be known about the author, who published eleven novels in the Nineteen Forties and Fifties.
Now, however, crime fiction expert Jamie Sturgeon has uncovered important biographical details about her and reveals these at the Mystery*File blog. This establishes that the name is not a pseudonym, as might have been supposed, and that the author had a Suffolk background, which helps account for the atmospheric setting of Castle Mandragora in the lonely Breckland heaths of that county. His researches provide a very useful framework to understanding the context of her work.
Mary Durham lived until 1972, but her last known book appeared in 1952. We don't know why nothing further was published in those last twenty years: whether she wrote no more, or did but could not get it published. But, as Jamie Sturgeon comments, "if you want to try a new author who wrote in the Golden Age of Detection tradition Mary Durham is well worth seeking out."
(Mark Valentine)
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