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Fred Fellows #3
That night it rained.
1961, Published for the Crime Club by Doubleday & Co., NY, hardcover edition, 186 pages. In the middle of a stormy downpour in Connecticut, most people are in the warmth of their own homes. But one man has business and seeks out a man and shoots him in the heart with a dum-dum bullet. Chief of Police Fred C. Fellows has his work cut out for him.
- GenresMystery
Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
72 people want to read
About the author
Hillary Waugh
156 books15 followersAka Elissa Grandower (5 books), H. Baldwin Taylor (3 books), Harry Walker (1 book).
Hillary Baldwin Waugh was a pioneering American mystery novelist. In 1989, Waugh was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.
During his senior year at Yale, Waugh enlisted in the United States Navy Air Corps and, after graduation, received his aviator's wings. He served in Panama for two years, flying various types of aircraft. While in military service, Waugh turned his hand to creative writing, completing and publishing his first novel Madam Will Not Dine Tonight in 1947. He quickly published two more novels, but they were not very well received.
In 1949, as the result of reading a case book on true crime, Waugh decided to explore a realistic crime novel. With the cooperation of his fiancée, who was a student at Smith College, Waugh set his police procedural Last Seen Wearing... in a fictional women's college. Published in 1952, the book was a significant success and is now considered a pioneering effort exploring relentless police work and attention to detail.
After Last Seen Wearing..., Waugh went on to publish more than thirty-five additional detective novels, many aptly described as "hard boiled". Pseudonyms include "Elissa Grandower," "Harry Walker" and "H. Baldwin Taylor."
Waugh married Diana Taylor, and the couple had three children. Waugh died on December 8, 2008.
Hillary Baldwin Waugh was a pioneering American mystery novelist. In 1989, Waugh was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.
During his senior year at Yale, Waugh enlisted in the United States Navy Air Corps and, after graduation, received his aviator's wings. He served in Panama for two years, flying various types of aircraft. While in military service, Waugh turned his hand to creative writing, completing and publishing his first novel Madam Will Not Dine Tonight in 1947. He quickly published two more novels, but they were not very well received.
In 1949, as the result of reading a case book on true crime, Waugh decided to explore a realistic crime novel. With the cooperation of his fiancée, who was a student at Smith College, Waugh set his police procedural Last Seen Wearing... in a fictional women's college. Published in 1952, the book was a significant success and is now considered a pioneering effort exploring relentless police work and attention to detail.
After Last Seen Wearing..., Waugh went on to publish more than thirty-five additional detective novels, many aptly described as "hard boiled". Pseudonyms include "Elissa Grandower," "Harry Walker" and "H. Baldwin Taylor."
Waugh married Diana Taylor, and the couple had three children. Waugh died on December 8, 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 6, 2023
Hillary Waugh published his first ground-breaking "police procedural" in 1949 and it immediately established him as a popular mystery writer. After that he could have put his brain into neutral and cranked out a book every year and made a good living. It's happened to many other writers.
But Waugh was a man who respected the craft of writing and never stopped learning and growing. Each of his books (or at least all the ones I've been able to acquire) show the loving care that most writers put into their first books. And as America moved from the post-WWII period into the '50's, 60's, and 70's, Waugh's books prove that he was a man who knew what was happening in the world around him. He didn't always like it, but he never ignored the changes in society that brought about huge changes in crime and in police work.
This is one of his books that feature Police Chief Fred Fellows of Stockton, Connecticut. A hard-working farmer is murdered and suspicion falls on his pretty young wife, on his hired hand, on his brother, and on damned near everyone else at some point. It's a hellava case and Chief Fellows and his men are kept busy chasing one dead end after another.
Police work was and always will be a matter of meticulously shifting through evidence, but it's fascinating to look back at how it was done in pre-cell phone, pre-computer days when even a tape recorder was high-tech equipment. Fellows refers to the murdered man and his neighbors as "second-generation Poles." Not contemptuously, but to indicate that they were hard-working, rather old-fashioned people who resisted change. The murdered man has neither a television set or a telephone in his home and the local fertilizer man operates on a pay-me-when-you-can basis.
With Waugh's books, you can count on professional writing, creative plotting, and meaty characters. What more can you ask for? (Except for his books to be available on Kindle, of course.)
But Waugh was a man who respected the craft of writing and never stopped learning and growing. Each of his books (or at least all the ones I've been able to acquire) show the loving care that most writers put into their first books. And as America moved from the post-WWII period into the '50's, 60's, and 70's, Waugh's books prove that he was a man who knew what was happening in the world around him. He didn't always like it, but he never ignored the changes in society that brought about huge changes in crime and in police work.
This is one of his books that feature Police Chief Fred Fellows of Stockton, Connecticut. A hard-working farmer is murdered and suspicion falls on his pretty young wife, on his hired hand, on his brother, and on damned near everyone else at some point. It's a hellava case and Chief Fellows and his men are kept busy chasing one dead end after another.
Police work was and always will be a matter of meticulously shifting through evidence, but it's fascinating to look back at how it was done in pre-cell phone, pre-computer days when even a tape recorder was high-tech equipment. Fellows refers to the murdered man and his neighbors as "second-generation Poles." Not contemptuously, but to indicate that they were hard-working, rather old-fashioned people who resisted change. The murdered man has neither a television set or a telephone in his home and the local fertilizer man operates on a pay-me-when-you-can basis.
With Waugh's books, you can count on professional writing, creative plotting, and meaty characters. What more can you ask for? (Except for his books to be available on Kindle, of course.)
October 22, 2023
Good book and a look into the time i5 was written...the late 1950s/ early 1960s
Funny quote advising against murder mystery books..."This book was bought long before the murder was conceived."
"There ought to be a law against such books. They're bad for people. They give them ideas."
"They don't give people ideas, Sid. The ideas are already there. A man doesn't commit crimes because he reads about them. He commits crimes because it's in him. All the book does is tell him how somebody else has committed them. It might suggest an M.O., but that's all." Page 182
Funny quote advising against murder mystery books..."This book was bought long before the murder was conceived."
"There ought to be a law against such books. They're bad for people. They give them ideas."
"They don't give people ideas, Sid. The ideas are already there. A man doesn't commit crimes because he reads about them. He commits crimes because it's in him. All the book does is tell him how somebody else has committed them. It might suggest an M.O., but that's all." Page 182
April 30, 2019
Very meticulous plotting keeps you on the alert for clues. I thought I was wide awake but missed a vital hint along the way - if you can't read this book in a day, be prepared for a lot of turning back and rereading - and yes, it all checks out. This is not usually my kind of read but, when I saw an old Brit black and white film based on a Waugh novel, I was inspired to follow up an unfamiliar name. It still isn't exactly my thing - hence 4 stars, but is more absorbing than glib celebrity detective stories. I now have 'Last seen Wearing' on the tottering pile of to-reads, so maybe I am on the way to being hooked.
June 13, 2020
A solid and sober police procedural from Hillary Waugh that isn't even misogynist this time. Will wonders never cease.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews