06/15/2025
From EQMM
**** Ethel Lina White, Blackout and Other Tales of Suspense, Crippen & Landru, $22. Many mystery fans may be familiar with White’s The Wheel Spins (aka The Lady Vanishes of Alfred Hitchcock fame) and Some Must Watch (aka The Spiral Staircase of Robert Siodmak fame); her story “An Unlocked Window” was the basis for a chilling episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. This collection, which provides an early short-story version of The Wheel Spins (“Passengers”), showcases White’s extraordinary talents for establishing menace at the outset and transforming mild characters into champions of justice amid danger and deception. Standouts include “At Twilight,” “River Justice,” and “The Gilded Pupil” (with older female characters seeking to protect younger women), as well as “The Holiday” (with a young bedridden man playing an unexpected role against a criminal), and “Catastrophe” (with an equally jaded man grappling with the collision of values and larger forces). Lost too early to cancer, White well deserves renewed appreciation of her work.
Though Ethel Lina White caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock in the 1930s, the author was once as well known as the Crime Queens. During her short career from 1927 to her death in 1944, she wrote seventeen novels and many short stories. However, White has been forgotten over the years. Her books...
