June Wright wrote this lost gem in the mid-1950s, but consigned it to her bottom drawer after her publisher foolishly rejected it. Perhaps it was a little ahead of its time? Because while it’s a tour de force of the classic country-house murder mystery, it’s also a delightful romp, poking fun at the conventions of the genre. When someone takes advantage of a duck hunt to murder publisher Athol Sefton at a remote hunting inn, it soon turns out that virtually everyone, guests and staff alike, had a good reason for shooting him. Sefton’s nephew Charles thinks he can solve the crime by applying the rules of the game” he’s absorbed from his years as a reviewer of detective fiction only the killer evidently isn’t playing by those rules. Duck Season Death is a both a fiendishly clever whodunit and a marvelous entertainment.

Duck Season Death

Literature & Fiction

Wright, June

Literary

Dark Passage

First published in 1948, when it was the best-selling mystery of the year in the author’s native Australia, Murder in the Telephone Exchange stars feisty young operator Maggie Byrnes. When one of her more unpopular colleagues is murdered her head bashed in with a buttinsky,” a piece of equipment used to listen in on phone calls Maggie resolves to turn sleuth. Some of her coworkers are acting strangely, and Maggie is convinced she has a better chance of figuring out who is responsible for the killing than the rather stolid police team assigned to the case, who seem to think she herself might have had something to do with it. But then one of her friends is murdered too, and it looks like Maggie might be next. Narrated with verve and wit, this is a whodunit in the tradition of Dorothy L. Sayers and Josephine Tey, by turns entertaining and suspenseful, and building to a gripping climax.

Murder in the Telephone Exchange

June Wright's most memorable detective, Mother Paul, might seem a bit otherworldly, but little escapes the kindly nun - she has a shrewd grasp of all that goes on in the hostel for young women she runs in 1950s Melbourne. The atmosphere is already strained by a spate of anonymous letters, when Mary Allen finds a stranger stabbed to death in the garden. Then one of the girls drowns, an apparent suicide, and the tension reaches fever pitch. Is there a connection between the two deaths and the letters? The police investigate, but Mother Paul pursues her own enquiries.

Reservation for Murder

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Mother Paul returns to her sleuthing ways in June Wright's second mystery featuring the inimitable nun detective.

Faculty of Murder: Mother Paul Investigates

Make-Up for Murder: Mother Paul Investigates

Genre Fiction

Young doctor Marsh Mowbray is invited to the home of her revered mentor, Kate Waring, on the remote coast south of Melbourne. Marsh hopes to get much-needed rest, but her stay turns out to be far from relaxing. As storms rage outside, the house on the cliff's edge seethes with hatred and tension. Two suspicious deaths follow, and there is no shortage of suspects. Marsh s efforts to explain the deaths force her to question everyone's motives, even those of Dr. Kate.

The Devil's Caress

The return of Maggie Byrnes, heroine of Murder in the Telephone Exchange, finds her married, with a young son, and living in an outer Melbourne suburb. But violent death dogs her footsteps even in apparently tranquil Middleburn. It’s perhaps not that much of a surprise when widely disliked local bigwig James Holland (who also happens to be Maggie’s landlord) is shot, but Maggie suspects that someone is also trying to poison the infant who is his heir, and turns sleuth once more to uncover the culprits. First published in 1949, So Bad a Death is June Wright’s second novel, which she originally planned to call Who Would Murder a Baby? Her publishers demurred, but under any title it’s a worthy sequel to Murder in the Telephone Exchange. Novelist and crime fiction historian Lucy Sussex contributes an introduction to this reissue, which also includes a revealing interview she conducted with June Wright in 1996.

So Bad a Death

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wright, June. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Wright, June