How many of you knew Sue Grafton’s father, C.W. Grafton, was once a promising mystery writer himself? In fact, Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press has partnered with the Library of Congress for the Crime Classics series, which will launch with C.W. Grafton’s book. Leslie Klinger is the editor of Crime Classics, which is republishing Grafton’s first mystery, The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope. The book, to be released June 2, can be pre-ordered through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2PlNUld
L. Wayne Hicks wrote a fascinating article that includes interviews and biographical information about C.W. Grafton. You can read it at https://crimereads.com/cw-grafton/. The article is called “The Life and Work of C.W. Grafton: Crime Novelist, Lawyer, and Father to a Mystery Icon”.
Here’s the description of The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope, the first of the Library of Congress Crime Classics.
Is this lawyer digging his way to the truth, or digging his own grave?
Short, chubby, and awkward with members of the opposite sex, Gil Henry is the youngest partner in a small law firm, not a hard-boiled sleuth. So when an attractive young woman named Ruth McClure walks into his office and asks him to investigate the value of the stock she inherited from her father, he thinks nothing of it—until someone makes an attempt on his life.
Soon Gil is inadvertently embroiled in scandal, subterfuge, and murder. He’s beaten, shot, and stabbed, as his colleagues and enemies try to stop him from seeing the case through to the end. Surrounded by adversaries, he teams up with Ruth and her secretive brother to find answers to the questions someone desperately wants to keep him from asking.
In this portrait of America on the eve of America’s entry into World War II, C.W. Grafton—himself a lawyer and the father of prolific mystery writer Sue Grafton—pens an award-winning mystery that combines humor and the hard-boiled style and will keep readers guessing until its thrilling conclusion.