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Wolf! Wolf!

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Book by josephine bell

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

17 people want to read

About the author

Josephine Bell

86 books17 followers
Josephine Bell (the pseudonym of Doris Bell Collier Ball) was born into a medical family, the daughter of a surgeon, in Manchester in 1897.

She attended Godolphin School from 1910 to 1916 and then she trained at Newnham College, Cambridge until 1919. On completing her studies she was assigned to University College Hospital in London where she became M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P. in 1922 and M.B. B.S. in 1924. She married Dr. Norman Dyer Ball in 1923 and the couple had a son and three daughters.

From 1927 until 1935 the couple practised medicine together in Greenwich and London before her husband retired in 1934 and she carried on the practice on her own until her retirement in 1954.
Her husband died in 1936 and she moved to Guildford, Surrey and she became a member of the management committee of St. Luke's Hospital from 1954 to 1962.

She began writing detective fiction in 1936 using the pen name Josephine Bell and her first published novel in the genre was 'Murder in Hospital' (1937).

Perhaps not surprisingly many of her works had a medical background and the first one introduced one of her enduring characters, Dr David Wintringham who worked at Research Hospital in London as a junior assistant physician. He was to feature in 18 of her novels, ending with 'A Well Known Face' (1960).

Overall she wrote more than 60 books, 45 of them in the detective fiction genre where, as well as medical backgrounds, she used such as archaeology in 'Bones in the Barrow' (1953), music in 'The Summer School Mystery' (1950) and even a wildlife sanctuary as background in 'Death on the Reserve' (1966).

She also wrote on drug addicition and criminology and penned a great number of short stories. In addition she was involved in the foundation of the Crime Writers' Association in 1953, an organisation in which she served as chair person in the 1959–60 season.

She died in 1987.

Gerry Wolstenholme
June 2010

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1,782 reviews4 followers
May 12, 2013
Aunt Amy sees something she is concerned about when she is exercising her legs in the hospital corridor following an operation. Shortly afterwards a young nurse is found strangled inside the room near where Aunt Amy saw two men arguing. The police are inclined to distrust Amy’s evidence when she is certain one of the men looked like a famous serial killer.

This is an intriguing mystery where many strands both past and present are skilfully plaited together to make a satisfyingly complex whole. I found I was willing Aunt Amy to have hit upon something dubious and I didn’t want her to be written off as a dotty old woman who was imagining things. I enjoyed the skilful way this author creates her characters, both good and bad and I liked the partly medical background to the story.

I recommend this author to anyone who likes their crime stories well-constructed and involving other crimes apart from murder.
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