Amy Myers

Amy Myers (born 3 August 1938) is a British mystery writer. She is best known for her Marsh and Daughter mystery series, featuring a writing team consisting of a wheel-chair bound ex-policeman and his daughter, and for another series, featuring a Victorian era chef, Auguste Didier. Myers' books have been favourably reviewed in ''Library Journal'', ''Publishers Weekly'', ''Booklist'', and ''Kirkus Reviews''. Myers has also been published many times in ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine''. Janet Hutchings, the magazine's longtime editor, called Myers "one of our best and most frequent contributors of historicals" (i.e., historical mysteries).

Personal life

Myers was born in Barnehurst, Kent (part of Greater London since 1965) in 1938. While working in publishing, Myers met her American soon-to-be husband. She oversaw the publication of an autobiography by the English bullfighter Henry Higgins; she met him, his co-author and the co-author's cousin, James Myers. Myers was born in Buffalo, New York, US, but had spent his adult life in Europe.

For ten years, the Myers maintained a commuter marriage, dividing their time between Paris, where James worked, and London, where Amy worked. During her stays in Paris, Myers dreamed up the character for her first mystery series, Auguste Didier, a half-English, half-French chef who reluctantly dabbled in detection during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. The couple now live in Kent full-time.

Writing career

Like the character Luke Frost in Myers' Marsh and Daughter series, Myers was once a publisher. She was a director of the now-defunct publishing firm of William Kimber & Co. Ltd., which specialised in war and theatrical memoirs, autobiographies, biographies and tales of hauntings. She published her first mystery, ''Murder in Pug's Parlor'', in 1986. In 1988, she turned to writing full-time.

After eleven Auguste Didier mysteries, Myers introduced the former police detective Peter Marsh and his daughter Georgia in ''The Wickenham Murders'' in 2004. The father–daughter team write true-crime novels in which they expose an injustice or sleuth out the answer to an unsolved crime from the distant past.# The Marshes' investigations almost inevitably involve them with present-day murders stemming from secrets involving the past.

Myers launched a third series in 2007 with ''Tom Wasp and the Murdered Stunner''. Wasp, a Victorian era chimney sweep in East London, solves crimes with his former apprentice, Ned. Myers' fourth series, written with the help of her car buff husband, began in 2011 with ''Classic in the Barn''. That series features a modern-day classic-car restorer in Kent, Jack Colby, who helps the police with cases involving classic cars.

In 2017, Myers introduced yet another cosy mystery series, featuring Nell Drury, a female French-trained chef in 1925 Kent when such a thing was a real anomaly. The first novel is titled ''Dancing with Death''.

For her romances, historical sagas and suspense novels, Myers created the pseudonym Harriet Hudson, although she has occasionally also used the names Laura Daniels and Alice Carr.

Myers also writes reviews of other books at the online crime and thriller magazine ''Shots''.

Many of her crime novels are available in German translation.

Mystery novels

Auguste Didier series
* 1986 ''Murder in Pug's Parlour''
* 1986 ''Murder in the Limelight''
* 1989 ''Murder at the Masque''
* 1991 ''Murder Makes an Entree''
* 1992 ''Murder Under the Kissing Bough''
* 1994 ''Murder in the Smokehouse''
* 1995 ''Murder at the Music Hall''
* 1996 ''Murder in the Motor Stable''
* 1999 ''Murder with Majesty''
* 2000 ''Murder in the Queen's Boudoir''

Marsh and Daughter series
* 2004 ''The Wickenham Murders''
* 2005 ''Murder in Friday Street''
* 2006 ''Murder in Hell's Corner''
* 2007 ''Murder and the Golden Goblet''
* 2008 ''Murder in the Mist''
* 2009 ''Murder Takes the Stage''
* 2010 ''Murder on the Old Road''
* 2011 ''Murder in Abbot's Folly''
* 2022 ''The Maid of Kent Murders''

Tom Wasp series
* 2007 ''Tom Wasp and the Murdered Stunner''
* 2010 ''Tom Wasp and the Newgate Knocker''
* 2019 ''Tom Wasp and the Seven Deadly Sins''

Classic Car series
* 2011 ''Classic in the Barn''
* 2012 ''Classic in the Clouds''
* 2012 ''Classic Calls the Shots''
* 2013 ''Classic Mistake''
* 2014 ''Classic in the Pits''
* 2015 ''Classic Cashes In''
* 2015 ''Classic in the Dock''
* 2016 ''Classic at Bay''

Nell Drury series
* 2017 ''Dancing with Death''
* 2018 '' Death at the Wychbourne Follies''
* 2020 '' Death and the Singing Birds''

Under the pseudonym Harriet Hudson
* 1989 ''Look for Me by Moonlight''
* 1991 ''When Nightingales Sang''
* 1992 ''The Wooing of Katie May''
* 1993 ''The Girl from Gadsby's''
* 1998 ''Into the Sunlight''
* 1999 ''Not in our Stars''
* 2000 ''The Sun in Glory''
* 2000 ''To My Own Desire''
* 2001 ''Quinn''
* 2002 ''Tomorrow's Garden''
* 2003 ''Catching the Sunlight''
* 2005 ''Applemere Summer''
* 2007 ''The Windy Hill''
* 2007 ''The Stationmaster's Daughter''
* 2010 ''The Man Who Came Back''

The Ashden Quartet
(set in the English homefront during the First World War at the rectory in the Sussex village of Ashden)
* 1996 ''The Last Summer'' (under the pseudonym Alice Carr)
* 1999 ''Dark Harvest'' (under the pseudonym Alice Carr)
* 1999 ''Winter Roses'' (under the pseudonym Harriet Hudson)
* 2001 ''Songs of Spring'' (under the pseudonym Harriet Hudson)

Under the pseudonym Laura Daniels
* 1995 ''Pleasant Vices''
* 1995 ''The Lakenham Folly''

Short story collections
*2006 ''Murder, 'Orrible Murder!'' Published by Crippen & Landru

References

External links

*

Crime in the Fast Lane
where James Myers blogs in the guise of his wife's character, Jack Colby, and about classic cars

{{DEFAULTSORT:Myers, Amy
English women writers
English mystery writers
People from Bexley
1938 births
Living people