Biddle, Cordelia Frances 1947–

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Biddle, Cordelia Frances 1947–

(Nero Blanc, a joint pseudonym)

PERSONAL:

Born July 25, 1947, in Philadelphia, PA; daughter of Livingston (an arts administrator) and Cordelia Frances Biddle; married (divorced); married Steve Zettler, August 13, 1988; children: (previous marriage) Cordelia Biddle Dietrich, H. Richard Dietrich III, and Christian Braun Dietrich. Education: Attended Vassar College. Religion: Episcopalian.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Alice Martell, 545 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER:

Writer and actor. Has appeared in both stage and television productions, including the play Gemini and the daytime television drama One Life to Live.

WRITINGS:

"CROSSWORD MYSTERY" SERIES; WITH HUSBAND, STEVE ZETTLER, UNDER JOINT PSEUDONYM NERO BLANC

The Crossword Murder, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 1999.

Two Down: A Crossword Murder Mystery, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2000.

The Crossword Connection, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2001.

A Crossword to Die For, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2002.

A Crossworder's Holiday (short stories), Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2002.

Corpus de Crossword, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2003.

A Crossworder's Gift, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2003.

Wrapped up in Crosswords, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2004.

Anatomy of a Crossword, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2004.

Another Word for Murder, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2005.

A Crossworder's Delight, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2005.

Death on the Diagonal, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2006.

OTHER

(With Mary Kearney Levenstein) Caring for Your Cherished Possessions: The Experts' Guide to Cleaning, Preserving, and Protecting Your China, Silver, Furniture, Clothing, Paintings, and More, Crown (New York, NY), 1989.

Beneath the Wind (novel), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1993.

(With Patricia Hearst) Murder at San Simeon (novel), Scribner (New York, NY), 1996.

The Conjurer: A Martha Beale Mystery (novel), St. Martin's Minotaur (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor of short stories to periodical, Hemispheres.

SIDELIGHTS:

Cordelia Frances Biddle worked as an actor in New York City on stage and screen for many years before becoming a writer. Biddle and her husband Steve Zettler are authors of "The Crossword Mystery" series, which they publish under the joint pseudonym Nero Blanc. However, they both continue to publish works independently. Biddle's writing tends to fall into the historical drama genre, and she often uses her Philadelphia ancestry as fodder for her books. She also draws on her experience as an actor to help guide her writing. "Drama remains with me in my writing," remarked Biddle on her Web site. "I inhabit my characters when working; I see the settings I describe in cinematic terms. I hear the sounds of the street, touch the fabrics, smell and taste the food prepared in either spacious or cramped kitchens."

The "Crossword Mystery" series of mystery novels offer mystery stories directly linked to crossword puzzles and clues found in the puzzle solutions. Copies of the puzzles are included in the books, allowing astute readers the chance to solve them and gather clues along with the protagonists, crossword editor Annabella (Belle) Graham and Greek-American private investigator and ex-cop Rosco Polycrates.

In The Crossword Murder, the first Nero Blanc book, Thomas C. Briephs, the crossword puzzle editor for the Newcastle, Massachusetts, Herald, has been found dead in his bed, apparently the victim of heart failure. Though the police rule his death accidental, Briephs's mother insists the fifty-one-year-old man was in perfect health. She hires investigator Rosco Polycrates to look into the situation. For background information on crossword puzzles, Polycrates goes to Annabella Graham, crossword editor at the Herald's rival newspaper, Evening Crier. Not only does Belle provide him with plenty of crossword information, she also joins him on the case. The wealthy, unmarried Briephs's sexual antics made him an easy target for blackmail, and for the previous year he had been submitting to demands for regular cash payments. It was after a meeting with his black- mailer that he was found dead. When some of Briephs's final crosswords are published, Belle surmises that they contain clues to his murder. An attack on Briephs's secretary JaneAlice and the theft of three of Briephs's unpublished puzzles complicate matters.

A Kirkus Reviews critic noted that Blanc "present[s] a likable if a bit too passive detective" in the book. "The Crossword Murder is an inventive, unique novel that shows there are still many creative ways to distribute clues to readers," commented Harriet Klausner on Book browser.com. Blanc "delivers an enjoyable, complex solution and likable protagonists who are strong enough to carry the series forward," remarked a reviewer in Publishers Weekly.

When banker Tom Pepper's wife, Genie, and her soap-opera actress friend Jamaica Nevisson disappear while at sea in Two Down: A Crossword Murder Mystery, the reliable Rosco Polycrates is called in to investigate. Fishermen recover Genie's rented sailboat, charred by fire, and Pepper believes that negligence by the boat rental agent led to his wife's presumed death. Belle begins to receive crossword puzzles that, when solved, contain what she thinks are clues to the women's disappearance. Then Rosco discovers the missing women's inflatable life raft on a lonely beach, gashed beyond repair. As they search for clues in the case, Rosco and Belle find romance sparking between them, which makes Rosco even more concerned when Belle receives new crosswords containing not-so-subtle threats. "Readers who enjoy a different type of who-done-it … will fully relish Mr. Blanc's latest across and down novel," Klausner commented in her Bookbrowswer.com review.

Belle and Rosco's wedding day is quickly approaching in The Crossword Connection, but the murder of a homeless man in Newcastle delays their nuptials. Suspicions arise that the murder might be part of a plan to close down a homeless shelter so that developers can exploit the location for profit. Socialite Sara Crane Briephs enlists Rosco's aid to find a puppy recently adopted by the murdered man, and after a second murder Rosco disappears, apparently kidnapped. Once again, ominous, threatening crossword puzzles arrive in Belle's hands, puzzles she thinks are coming from Rosco's kidnapper. An increasingly desperate Belle turns to Al Lever, Rosco's former partner on the police force, to find the missing detective. "Blanc builds the suspense slowly and surely, challenging the reader with a dandy puzzler," remarked a Publishers Weekly reviewer.

Belle goes Hollywood in Anatomy of a Crossword after agreeing to put together puzzles for a television movie based on one of her cases. When she arrives on the set, murders occur—first the movie's writer, then other important crewmembers. The solution to the murders demands that Belle solve a series of devious crosswords—and, as in the previous books in the series, they are included in the book to test readers' skills. Ilene Cooper, writing in Booklist, declared that "this is a delight for both amateur sleuths and crossword-puzzle aficionados."

Philadelphia in the 1840s is the backdrop of Biddle's 2007 solo novel, The Conjurer: A Martha Beale Mystery, which is the first in a series. "The Conjurer grew out of my love of Philadelphia. Some of the novel was inspired by family lore; the rest was assiduously researched," Biddle asserted. Martha Beale's life changes considerably when her father, Main Line financier Lemuel Beale, fails to return from a routine hunting trip. It is presumed that he accidentally drowned; however, capable but sheltered Martha believes otherwise. She enlists the help of Thomas Kelman, assistant to the mayor of Philadelphia, and together they set out to discover the truth about what really happened to her father. At the same time, a serial killer of young prostitutes is terrorizing the slums of Philadelphia, and traveling spiritualist Eusapio Paladino is dazzling aristocratic audiences with his ability to conjure the dead.

Several critics were impressed with the portrait that Biddle paints of Philadelphia during the time period, but found the multiple plot lines confusing. According to a Publishers Weekly contributor, she "wonderfully evokes the color and culture of the time, but her overstocked tale ends hastily and unbelievably." Carter Jefferson, a reviewer for the Gumshoe Web site, believed that "readers who value atmosphere and setting will find this book fascinating…. As social history, it's a great success. But those for whom plot matters a great deal had better read it through at a sitting, or plan to spend some time leafing back to keep track of just who is who, and what's going on." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Edward Pettit felt otherwise; he praised Biddle's novel, saying that she "successfully uses 19th-century Philadelphia, mining the landscape for the kinds of jewels that illuminate a good mystery, and shaping characters that ring true to the elements of their creation. The Conjurer is a worthy inclusion in the genre, and I hope there are many more Martha Beale mysteries to come."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July, 2004, Ilene Cooper, review of Anatomy of a Crossword, p. 1823; January 1, 2007, Sue O'Brien, review of The Conjurer: A Martha Beale Mystery, p. 60.

Editor & Publisher, March 1, 1997, Hiley Ward, review of Murder at San Simeon, p. 5.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 1999, review of The Crossword Murder, p. 1173; June 15, 2002, review of A Crossword to Die For, p. 839; September 1, 2002, review of A Crossworder's Holiday, p. 1266; November 1, 2006, review of The Conjurer, p. 1102.

Library Journal, October 1, 2003, Rex Klett, review of A Crossworder's Gift, p. 121.

New Mystery Reader, February, 2007, Susan Illis, review of The Conjurer.

New York Times, August 14, 1988, "Cordelia F. Biddle Wed to H.S. Zettler."

Philadelphia Inquirer, February 28, 2007, Edward Pettit, review of The Conjurer.

Publishers Weekly, July 12, 1999, review of The Crossword Murder, p. 79; June 12, 2000, review of Two Down: A Crossword Murder Mystery, p. 56; June 11, 2001, review of The Crossword Connection, p. 64; June 3, 2002, review of A Crossword to Die For, p. 69; June 2, 2003, review of Corpus de Crossword, p. 37; June 28, 2004, review of Anatomy of a Crossword, p. 35; November 27, 2006, review of The Conjurer, p. 35.

Weekly Standard, December 23, 2002, Jon L. Breen, review of A Crossworder's Holiday, p. 37.