Murder Out Of Turn

Author: Frances Louise (1896-1963) and Richard Orson Lockridge

Year: 1941

Publisher: Frederick A. Stokes Company

Place: New York

Description:

294 pages. Octavo (8" x 5 1/4") bound in original publisher's purple cloth printed in black, map endpapers in original dust jacket. First edition.

The third Mr. and Mrs. North mystery novel, written by the husband-and-wife duo Frances and Richard Lockridge.
Frances Louise Lockridge and Richard Orson Lockridge were American writers of detective fiction. The pair wrote 50 novels together, including one of the most famous American mystery series, Mr. and Mrs. North. They also wrote other series, including Lt Heimrich, Nathan Shapiro, and Paul Lane. In 1937, Frances Lockridge conceived the plot for a detective novel, but had problems with her characters. Richard Lockridge collaborated with his wife, using her plot and the characters he had created earlier for a series of comic sketches in The New Yorker, Mr. and Mrs. North (named for the "stupid people who played the north hand in bridge problems," according to Lockridge). The book was published in 1940 as The Norths Meet Murder, launching a series of twenty-six novels, which was adapted for the stage, film, radio, and television.

Condition:

Slight spine lean, spine cloth sunned, spine edge bumped; bookplate to half title, some fraying to spine ends. Jacket chipped, creased and worn at extremities, spine darkened, panels soiled; else very good in like jacket.