In a House Unknown

by Dolores Hitchens

Pock is a young woman who has come from her teaching job in New Mexico to stay with her sister Rye, a widow whose husband died in Vietnam, until Rye's baby is born. They are both staying in their aunt's mansion in rural Louisiana. Someone is defacing Rye's husband's grave and trying to make her think that it is not really her husband who is buried there.

212 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Julia Clara Catherine Maria Dolores Robins Norton Birk Olsen Hitchens, better known as Dolores Hitchens, was an American mystery novelist who wrote prolifically from 1938 until her death. She also wrote under the pseudonyms D.B. Olsen, Dolan Birkley and Noel Burke.

Hitchens collaborated on five railroad mysteries with her second husband, Bert Hitchens, a railroad detective, and also branched out into other genres in her writing, including Western stories. Many of her mystery novels centered around a spinster character named Rachel Murdock.

Hitchens wrote Fool's Gold, the 1958 novel adapted by Jean-Luc Godard for his film Bande à part (Band of Outsiders, 1964).

Although she was known as Julia as a child, she later said Dolores was the only one of her five given names she liked. Robins was her maiden name; Norton and Birk were two previous stepfathers; Olsen was her first husband; and Hitchens was her second husband.

Reviews

[Mary Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

This started very slow but picked up near the middle. But it ended leaving me with a few questions. Not the author's best work.

[Darcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this mystery novelist, of whose work I had never before read. I liked the somewhat cranky, edgy main character who didn't have to be the quintessential good-tempered angel to become a love interest.