![]() ![]() Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan, which has been an unexpected seasonal hit. “When I saw the appeal I got in touch with the publishers.” “We didn’t know the book was being republished until my brother, Derek, spotted a copy in his local Waterstones,” said Dr Katy Brown, an art historian, who lives in Reigate, Surrey. A true man of mystery if ever there was one!”īut the Observer can reveal the riddle was solved last week when the author’s daughter stepped forward to let Vintage staff know more about her late father, who had been a lecturer in economics and history, and about his neglected back catalogue of books. “Despite extensive research, all that has been uncovered is the fact that the author wrote and published a number of crime novels across 20 years from 1937. ![]() “It’s become apparent that the real puzzle is the inexplicable absence of any biographical information available about Francis Duncan himself,” said Vintage. So an appeal went out for anyone with information about him. They could find no biographical details for Duncan, who wrote a succession of murder mysteries in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Unfortunately the editors at Vintage Books, part of the Random House group, were also in the dark. “With some 20 crime novels to his credit, a relaunch seems long overdue.” ![]() ![]() “Kept guessing to the end, I am left wondering why it has taken so long to discover Francis Duncan, an author who made his mark in the 40s,” wrote the Daily Mail’s critic, Barry Turner. ![]()
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