William Marshall (or William Leonard Marshall) (1944-2003) was an Australian author, best known for his Hong Kong-based "Yellowthread Street" mystery novels, some of which were used as the basis for a British TV series.

Career

William Marshall worked as a playwright, journalist, proofreader, and morgue attendant and was a teacher in an Irish prison. He was also the author of several series of police novels set across the globe and in various centuries. Born in Sydney, Australia in 1944, he lived in Hong Kong, Switzerland, Wales, Ireland, and USA, before returning to Australia in 1983 with his wife and daughter. He died in 2003. In the Yellowthread Street series, the detectives of the Yellowthread Street police station in fictitious Hong Bay, Hong Kong – DCI Harry Feiffer, a European born and raised in Hong Kong; Senior Inspector Christopher O'Yee, half-Chinese, half-Irish American, and all neurotic; and the ever-bickering team of Inspectors Auden and Spencer – attempt to find the rational basis for inexplicable and seemingly bizarre crimes. The Yellowthread novels show the influence of

Ed McBain Evan Hunter, born Salvatore Albert Lombino,(October 15, 1926 – July 6, 2005) was an American author and screenwriter best known for his 87th Precinct novels, written under his Ed McBain pen name, and the novel upon which the film '' Blackb ...

in their overlapping plot-lines, snappy dialogue, world-weary detectives and often difficult civilians. Marshall's novels manage to juggle violence, suspense, and slapstick humor in his twist on the police procedural form. He has also written two mystery series based in

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

and late-19th-century New York City, the latter featuring City Detective Virgil Tillman – New York City's "first thinking detective" – and his partner, patrolman Ned Muldoon of the Strong Arm Squad.

Bibliography

Yellowthread Street series

* ''Yellowthread Street'' (1975) * ''The Hatchet Man'' (1976) * ''Gelignite'' (1976) * ''Thin Air'' (1977) * ''Skulduggery'' (1979) * ''Sci Fi'' (1981) * ''Perfect End'' (1981) * ''War Machine'' (1982) * ''The Far Away Man'' (1984), London, Secker and Warburg, * ''Roadshow'' (1985) * ''Head First'' (1986) * ''Frogmouth'' (1987) * ''Out of Nowhere'' (1988) * ''Inches'' (1994) * ''Nightmare Syndrome'' (1997) * ''To the End'' (1998)

Manila Bay series

*''Manilla Bay'' New York, Penguin (1986) * ''Whisper: a Manila Bay Mystery'' New York, Viking Press (1988)

Tillman and Muldoon series

*''New York Detective'' New York, Mysterious Press (1989) * ''Faces In The Crowd'' New York, Mysterious Press edition (1991)

Other works

* ''The Fire Circle'' Melbourne, Macmillan (1969) * ''The Age of Death'' New York, Viking Press (1971) * ''Shanghai'' Hamish Hamilton / Pan Books

References

External links

Bibliography
at the

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, William Leonard 20th-century Australian novelists Australian male novelists Australian crime fiction writers Australian mystery writers 1944 births 2003 deaths 20th-century Australian male writers