Strange, John Stephen

It was not until two years before her death in 1983 that it was revealed who lay behind the pseudonym John Stephen Strange: the very retiring, almost anonymous, American Dorothy Stockbridge Tillett (often wrongly spelt Tillet), the wife of an academic. This happened when the first of her 22 crime novels was re-issued under her real name. She had then for almost 50 years, from 1928 to 1976, been if not brilliant star, at least a respected – and mysterious – name among people who like detective stories in many countries.