Butler, Gwendoline 1922- (Jennie Melville)

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Butler, Gwendoline 1922- (Jennie Melville)

PERSONAL:

Born August 19, 1922, in London, England; daughter of Alfred Edward and Alice Williams; married Lionel Butler (a professor of medieval history; deceased), October 16, 1949; children: Lucilla. Education: Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, M.A., 1948. Politics: Conservative. Religion: Church of England. Hobbies and other interests: History, archeology, art history.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Surrey, England.

CAREER:

Writer and lecturer. Taught briefly at two Oxford colleges.

MEMBER:

Detection Club, Reform Club, Royal Society of Arts (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Silver Dagger, Crime Writers Association, 1973, for A Coffin for Pandora; Romantic Novelists Association prize, 1980, for The Red Staircase; Ellery Queen Short Story Award.

WRITINGS:

MYSTERIES

Receipt for Murder, Bles (London, England), 1956.

Dead in a Row, Bles (London, England), 1957.

The Dull Dead, Bles (London, England), 1958, Walker & Co. (New York, NY), 1962.

The Murdering Kind, Bles (London, England), 1958, Roy (New York, NY), 1964.

The Interloper, Bles (London, England), 1959.

Death Lives Next Door, Bles (London, England), 1960, published as Dine and Be Dead, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1960.

Make Me a Murderer, Bles (London, England), 1961.

Coffin in Oxford, Bles (London, England), 1962.

Coffin for Baby, Walker & Co. (New York, NY), 1963.

Coffin Waiting, Bles (London, England), 1963, Walker & Co. (New York, NY), 1965.

Coffin in Malta, Bles (London, England), 1964, Walker & Co. (New York, NY), 1965.

A Nameless Coffin, Bles (London, England), 1966, Walker & Co. (New York, NY), 1967.

Coffin Following, Bles (London, England), 1968.

Coffin's Dark Number, Bles (London, England), 1969.

A Coffin from the Past, Bles (London, England), 1970.

A Coffin for Pandora, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1973, published as Olivia, Coward (New York, NY), 1974.

A Coffin for the Canary, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1974, published as Sarsen Place, Coward (New York, NY), 1974.

The Vesey Inheritance, Coward (New York, NY), 1975.

The Brides of Friedberg, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1977, published as Meadowsweet, Coward (New York, NY), 1977.

The Red Staircase, Collins (London, England), 1980.

Coffin on the Water, Collins (London, England), 1986, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Coffin in Fashion, Collins (London, England), 1987, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1990.

Coffin Underground, Collins (London, England), 1988, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Coffin in the Black Museum, Collins (London, England), 1989, published as Coffin in the Museum of Crime, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Coffin and the Paper Man, Collins (London, England), 1990, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1991.

Coffin on Murder Street, HarperCollins (London, England), 1991, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1992.

Cracking open a Coffin, HarperCollins (London, England), 1992, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1993.

A Coffin for Charley, HarperCollins (London, England), 1993, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1994.

The Coffin Tree, HarperCollins (London, England), 1994, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1996.

A Dark Coffin, HarperCollins (London, England), 1995.

A Double Coffin, HarperCollins (London, England), 1996, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Butterfly, Thorndike (Thorndike, ME), 1997.

Coffin's Game, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Let There Be Love, Severn House (New York, NY), 1997

Coffin's Ghost, HarperCollins (London, England), 1998.

A Cold Coffin, HarperCollins (London, England), 2000.

A Grave Coffin, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

The King Cried Murder, Crime Time Publishing (Harpenden, England), 2000.

Coffin Knows the Answer, Allison & Busby (London, England), 2002.

Dread Murder, St. Martin's Minotaur (New York, NY), 2007.

UNDER PSEUDONYM JENNIE MELVILLE

Come Home and Be Killed, M. Joseph (London, England), 1962, British Book Centre (New York, NY), 1964.

Burning Is a Substitute for Loving, M. Joseph (London, England), 1963, British Book Centre (New York, NY), 1964.

Murderers' Houses, M. Joseph (London, England), 1964.

There Lies Your Love, M. Joseph (London, England), 1965.

Nell Alone (also see below), M. Joseph (London, England), 1966.

A Different Kind of Summer, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1967.

The Hunter in the Shadows, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1969, McKay (New York, NY), 1970.

A New Kind of Killer, an Old Kind of Death, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1970, published as A New Kind of Killer, McKay (New York, NY), 1971.

The Summer Assassin, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1971.

Ironwood, McKay (New York, NY), 1972.

Nun's Castle, McKay (New York, NY), 1973.

Raven's Forge, McKay (New York, NY), 1975.

Dragon's Eye, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1976.

Axwater, Macmillan (London, England), 1978, published as Tarot's Tower, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1978.

Murder Has a Pretty Face, Macmillan (London, England), 1981, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1989.

The Painted Castle, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1982.

The Hand of Glass, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1983.

Listen to the Children, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1986.

Death in the Garden, Macmillan (London, England), 1987, published as Murder in the Garden, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1990.

Windsor Red, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1988.

A Cure for Dying, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1989.

Witching Murder, Macmillan (London, England), 1990, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1991.

Making Good Blood, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1990.

Footsteps in the Blood, Macmillan (London, England), 1991, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1993.

Dead Set, Macmillan (London, England), 1992, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1993.

Whoever Has the Heart, Macmillan (London, England), 1993, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1994.

Baby Drop, Macmillan (London, England), 1994, published as Death in the Family, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1995.

The Morbid Kitchen, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1995.

The Woman Who Was Not There, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1996.

Revengeful Death, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1997.

Stone Dead, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1998.

Dead Again, G.K. Hall (Boston, MA), 2000.

Complicity, Severn House (Sutton, England), 2000.

OTHER

Nell Alone (radio play; based on novel of same title) 1968.

Albion Walk, Coward McCann (New York, NY), 1982, published as Cavalcade, Fontana (London, England), 1984.

Contributor to anthologies, including Ellery Queen's Murder Menu, World Publishing (New York, NY), 1969, and Winter's Crimes 4, edited by George Hardinge, Macmillan (London, England), 1972.

SIDELIGHTS:

Gwendoline Butler, also known as Jennie Melville, has focused her attention on many types of mystery writing: police procedural novels featuring Detective Inspector John Coffin; historical mysteries set in Victorian or Edwardian England; women's police procedurals featuring Chief Superintendent Charmian Daniels; and gothic romantic thrillers. In all of these areas she has achieved critical acclaim for her work. In the words of Booklist contributor Emily Melton, Butler is "one of today's most underrated mystery writers," one who "constructs superb stories with byzantine plots, tantalizing suspense, and dark psychological overtones."

Melton described John Coffin as "complex and charismatic, with a dark and checkered past." "Coffin is an excellent and unusual creation, a tough, self-educated man with a habit of getting involved in bizarre cases," stated St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers contributor Patricia Craig. In her books built around this detective, Butler is "able to create an atmosphere of subliminal evil and corruption (the ‘smell of something nasty’) while achieving an intimate chatty style," Craig added. In Coffin Knows the Answer, the detective pursues a serial killer and a pedophile who are both threatening his wife. According to a critic in Kirkus Reviews, "every procedural detail, from the workings of the Second City force to the personnel's inevitable personal problems, rings as true as ever."

The "Melville" gothic romances are usually told in the first person, with the narrator being a young girl caught up in a mysterious, dangerous situation. Most often, remarked Craig, "someone wishes [the heroine] ill, generally for economic reasons; someone else has nothing but her good at heart, and often she is hopelessly confused between the two. The lover/killer figure is a favourite motif of Melville's: naturally, since it provides a focus for the tensions of the plot and takes to its most obvious extreme the concept of fear as an erotic force." This plot device is seen clearly in the novel Complicity, in which an unassuming career woman is driven to violence and murder by a mysterious stranger who arrives on her doorstep claiming to be her husband. Booklist correspondent Whitney Scott called the novel a "puzzling, cold-blooded brainteaser."

Writing under her Melville pseudonym, Butler has also produced detective stories featuring a policewoman named Charmian Daniels, originally of the Deerham Hills police division. Daniels investigates grisly murders under the most bizarre circumstances, but her stories are characterized by "their flippant narrative tone, their quirks and eccentricities of plot and characterization," noted Craig. According to Mary Hadley, writing in Clues, "What is particularly interesting about Melville's writing is that as Daniels grows and alters, she vividly reflects societal changes regarding expectations for women in general and police women in particular." In a Spectator review of The Vesey Inheritance, Patrick Cosgrave remarked that "so delectable is Mrs. Butler's writing and characterization, so fine and sure her touch, that she must be dubbed the Jane Austen of the crime story." Melvyn Barnes, a contributor in Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical Writers, concluded that Melville titles such as Ironwood, Raven's Forge, Dragon's Eye, and Axwater "are uniform in displaying gripping readability, an intimate style, blended perceptiveness and ironic humor, and, above all, an ability to squeeze every sinister nuance from a character or situation…. They also show her versatility as a superlative plotter."

In The King Cried Murder, Butler introduces Major Mearns, a retired British Army officer who covertly spies on King George IV and other residents of Windsor Castle. Mearns investigates a grisly murder in Dread Murder, a second historical mystery. "Butler is a gifted storyteller who knows just how to evoke murky period ambience," Melton remarked.

Butler once told CA: "I first became interested in crime fiction at the age of eight when I read the whole of Gaston Leroux's Mystery of the Yellow Room in one afternoon sitting in the firelight. The other great influences have been Charles Dickens, whom I am bringing into one of my current crime novels, and Jane Austen, both for her style and the pleasure she always gives me. I wrote a book about Chairmian Daniels and my agent got it accepted at first attempt. I wanted to write under anonymous masculine initials but the publisher stated they had just sadly lost a female crime writer and I must replace her. I have been listed in several reference books as the originator of the women's police procedural. I find it helps to write as two people (I was a twin but my sister died soon after birth)."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, 4th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical Writers, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1994.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 15, 1992, Emily Melton, review of Dead Set, p. 717; January 1, 1996, Emily Melton, review of The Coffin Tree, p. 794; November 15, 2000, Whitney Scott, review of Complicity, p. 624; February 15, 2007, Emily Melton, review of Dread Murder, p. 38.

Clues, fall-winter, 2000, Mary Hadley, "Jennie Melville: The Forgotten Case of the Police Procedural," p. 1.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2000, review of Complicity, p. 1392; January 11, 2002, review of Coffin's Ghost; February 15, 2003, review of Coffin Knows the Answer, p. 272.

Publishers Weekly, February 12, 2007, review of Dread Murder, p. 66.

Spectator, August 11, 1973, review of A Coffin for Pandora, p. 187; June 12, 1976, Patrick Cosgrave, review of The Vesey Inheritance, p. 21; October 29, 1977, review of The Brides of Friedberg, p. 23.

Times Literary Supplement, December 12, 1965, review of Coffin in Malta, p. 41; May 12, 1966, review of A Nameless Coffin, p. 412; December 25, 1970, review of A Coffin From the Past, p. 1525; August 31, 1973, review of A Coffin for Pandora, p. 1007; September 6, 1974, review of A Coffin for the Canary, p. 960.