Dorothy Salisbury Davis is a name that has (undeservedly) slipped from the public eye, but this Grand Master is hailed in mystery circles as a premier writer of domestic suspense. The heyday of this subgenre spanned the post–World War II years through the mid-1970s, when primarily female writers explored the darker side of home life underneath the veneer of the ideal nuclear family. Absent are the trench-coated PIs and tortured ex-cops we expect of crime fiction; instead, Davis handles, with masterful subtlety, the psychology of unremarkable people facing twisted situations. As fellow mystery writer Sara Paretsky put it, Davis “[has] an awareness of how easy it is for ordinary people to do nasty or wicked deeds . . . She lived among bootleggers, immigrants, sharecroppers, and itinerant workers in her early years, and there’s a richness to her understanding of the human condition that is missing from most contemporary crime fiction.”
Many of Davis’s works have gone out of print, but now you can find them as newly released ebooks! Here is a selection of titles from the eight-time Edgar Award nominee, former president of the Mystery Writers of America, and founding member of Sisters in Crime.
The Judas Cat
The mystery novel that launched Davis’s career, The Judas Cat opens with old codger Andy Mattson dead on his sofa, covered in blood and eyes wide with fear. The most likely suspect is Andy’s cat. But as Chief of Police Waterman digs into the strange death, he finds that beneath Hillside’s sunny surface runs a river of hate and more than a few reasons to commit the crime.
A Town of Masks
When other young women left Campbell’s Cove to see the world and fall in love, Hannah Blake stayed at home with a bank job and a spot on the library board. Continuously overshadowed, Hannah is growing more and more bitter when something wonderful happens: One of her rivals is strangled to death. Now Hannah can finally shine. But as the townspeople’s suspicions tighten around her, Hannah finds that the spotlight illuminates everything—even that which she wishes to hide.
A Gentle Murderer
Davis’s most popular novel was inspired by a man she saw on the subway who was carrying a hammer as if it were heavier than the world. It’s a hot Saturday night in Manhattan when Father Duffy realizes he is listening to a killer’s confession. The person is distraught and flees before the priest can stop him. Fearing he will kill again, Father Duffy and cerebral NYPD sergeant Ben Goldsmith race against the clock to catch a very clever, highly disturbed, and impossibly sensitivecriminal.
Death of an Old Sinner
The first book in the Mrs. Norris Mysteries, Death of an Old Sinner introduces Mrs. Norris, the housekeeper of retired general Ransom Jarvis, whose sordid past dealings are catching up with him. When Ransom is murdered, his son, Jimmie, a gubernatorial candidate for New York, and Mrs. Norris team up with DA investigator Jasper Tully to follow a bizarre web of misdeeds and crimes in which more and more lives seem to be at stake.