Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of The 1940s (LOA #268)

Helen Eustis was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on December 31, 1916. She graduated from Smith College in 1938. She was pursuing a doctorate in English at Columbia University, when she gave up her studies in favor of a writing career. She wrote for several magazines in the 1940s including Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and The New Yorker. Her first novel, The Horizontal Man, won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for best first novel in 1947. Her other works included The Captains and the Kings Depart, The Redheaded Woman, and The Fool Killer, which was adapted into a 1965 film starring Anthony Perkins and Edward Albert. She also translated books written in French by authors including Christiane Rochefort and Georges Simenon. She died on January 11, 2015 at the age of 98.

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