The Grudge: A Crime Club Selection

by Dolores Hitchens

The Grudge, first published in 1963, is a fast-paced murder mystery set in southern California by veteran authors Bert and Dolores Hitchens. From the dustjacket: “Tommy Collins had a corroding, insensate grudge—against his mother and sisters, who had turned him over to the police—against the railroad which had fired him from his job. And now, having killed three people in his explosive escape from State Prison Hospital, he was at large, wreaking vengeance in his characteristically deadly way. It was already too late to save one member of the family, and Special Agent Farrel, of the Los Angeles Railroad Police, had to halt Tommy’s rampage of death and destruction before it claimed another victim ... For Tommy was playing for keeps—with dynamite.”

187 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Julia Clara Catharine Dolores Birk Olsen Hitchens, better known as Dolores Hitchens, was an American mystery novelist who wrote prolifically from 1938 until her death. She also wrote under the pseudonyms D.B. Olsen, Dolan Birkley and Noel Burke.

Hitchens collaborated on five railroad mysteries with her second husband, Bert Hitchens, a railroad detective, and also branched out into other genres in her writing, including Western stories. Many of her mystery novels centered around a spinster character named Rachel Murdock.

Hitchens wrote Fool's Gold, the 1958 novel adapted by Jean-Luc Godard for his film Bande à part (Band of Outsiders, 1964).

Reviews

[John Woolley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, not terribly good. Another (the last) in the Hitchens's series about railroad police. This one has some interesting relationships between characters -- a pair of sisters, a cop and one of the sisters, etc.