Who The Heck Is Joyce Porter?

Who The Heck Is Joyce Porter?

 

As a mystery critic, I take pleasure in publicizing terrific writers who are less well-known than they ought to be.  I love the works of Agatha Christie, G.K. Chesterton, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Rex Stout, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Erle Stanley Gardner, but every now and then I find another, not nearly so famous crime writer, who needs some recognition.

 

I discovered Joyce Porter by listening to some British radio adaptations of her books.  Not only does she know how to write a terrific whodunit, but she also is one of the funniest writers I’ve ever read.  Porter spent the first stage of her adult life working in spycraft, before retiring and switching to writing.

 

She created three detectives: Inspector Dover, Scotland Yard’s laziest officer; Eddie Brown, an exceedingly reluctant spy; and the Honorable Constance Morrison-Burke (the “Hon Con”), a noblewoman who decides to start working as a private eye.  (The title of this post is a riff on Who the Heck is Sylvia?, an Hon Con novel.

 

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be profiling Porter’s great detectives.  I hope my work beings her wider recognition.

 

So what else can I do to promote Porter’s work?  Why, write a full-length literary analysis of her mysteries.  It’s scheduled to come out this summer.

 

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^thfrom MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.