Godfrey, Peter 1917-1992

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GODFREY, Peter 1917-1992

PERSONAL: Born September 8, 1917, in Vereeniging, South Africa; died, 1992; son of Louis (an entrepreneur) and Bessie (a homemaker; maiden name, Gluckman) Godfrey; married Naomi Cowan (an office consultant), July 3, 1941; children: Dennis Etien, Ronald Marcus. Education: University of the Witwatersrand, B.A. (literature), 1938; University of South Africa, B.A. (psychology; with honors), 1942.

CAREER: Journalist. Worked for various newspapers and magazines in South Africa, including editorships of anti-apartheid weekly Cape Standard and magazine Spotlight in Capetown and Johannesburg, 1933-61; Drum, London, England, editor in chief of East, Central, and West African editions, 1961-63; Odhams Press Ltd., London, England, subeditor of Daily Herald and Sun, 1963-69; IPC Business Press, London, England, chief subeditor of Industry Week, 1970; Clerical and Administrative Workers' Union, Wimbledon, England, public relations officer, 1970-71; Times, London, England, subeditor of "Business News," 1971-81; freelance writer, beginning 1981. Military service: South African Army, Counter Intelligence, 1939-43.

MEMBER: Crime Writers Association (past member of council), Mystery Writers of America.

AWARDS, HONORS: Ellery Queen Short Story Award, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, 1948, for "The Lady and the Dragon," 1949, for "The Newtonian Egg," and 1953, for "Hail and Farewell."

WRITINGS:

Death under the Table (short stories), South African Scientific Publishers, 1954.

Four o'Clock Noon (three-act play), first produced in Johannesburg, South Africa, at Library Theatre, 1961.

The Newtonian Egg: And Other Cases of Rolf Le Roux (short stories), Crippen & Landru (Norfolk, VA), 2002.

Also author of radio, television, and stage plays. Work represented in anthologies, including John Creasey's Crime Collection, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1978-86; Ellery Queen's Scenes of the Crime, Dial (New York, NY); Best Detective Stories of the Year, Dutton (New York, NY), 1978, 1980. Contributor of more than 2,000 stories to periodicals.

ADAPTATIONS: Godfrey's novella "Wanton Murder" was adapted into the film "The Girl in Black Stockings," starring Anne Bancroft.

SIDELIGHTS: Peter Godfrey was a South African journalist who wrote mystery stories on the side. A fairly prolific author of plays for stage and screen, he only published one collection of his stories, Death under the Table, before his death in 1992. His skills as a mystery writer were nevertheless rewarded with three Ellery Queen awards.

Many of Godfrey's stories that featured his recurring character, master sleuth Rolf le Roux, remained uncollected until the more recent publication of ten tales written between the years 1948 and 1986 in The Newtonian Egg: And Other Cases of Rolf Le Roux. Set in his native South Africa, which the author later left for England in protest of apartheid, the le Roux mysteries are somewhat in the spirit of Sherlock Holmes in that they feature a brilliant detective faced with bizarre cases, which he solves using his amazing powers of ratiocination. Some of the stories in The Newtonian Egg include the title story, in which le Roux must figure out how poison was put inside a boiled egg without cracking its shell, a story about a cable car conductor who is apparently murdered by an invisible assailant, and the strange case of a murdered Shakespearian actor that can only be solved by someone with an expert's knowledge of the play Macbeth. "The stories' apartheid regime background lends an extra dimension" to the book, commented a Publishers Weekly critic, who concluded that mystery fans "will eagerly devour this cunning author's work."