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Superintendent Ditteridge #4
Alive and Dead
Martha Gragle, a volunteer at the National Guild for Unmarried Mothers, takes in a young, married woman seeking aid and enters an unfamiliar world of deceit and peril.
- GenresMystery
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1974
About the author
Elizabeth Ferrars
92 books28 followersAka E.X. Ferrars.
Born Morna Doris McTaggart in Rangoon, Burma of a Scottish father and an Irish-German mother, she grew up in England where she moved at age six. She attended Bedales school and then took a diploma in journalism at London University.
Her first two novels, 'Turn Single' (1932) and 'Broken Music' (1934), came out under her own name, Morna McTaggart. In the early 1930s she married her first husband but she left him, moved to Belsize Park in London and lived with Dr Robert Brown, a lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1942. She eventually divorced her first husband in October 1945 and married Dr, later Professor, Brown.
It was in 1940 that her first crime novel 'Give a Corpse a Bad Name' was published under the pseudonymn that she had adopted, Elizabeth (sometimes Elizabeth X. - particularly in the USA) Ferrars, the Ferrars her mother's maiden name. This novel featured her young detective Toby Dyke, who was to feature in four other of her novels.
When her husband was offered a post at Cornell University in the USA, the couple moved there but remained only a year before returning to Britain. They travelled with her husband's work, on one occasion visiting Adelaide when he was a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, and later moved to Edinburgh where her husband was appointed Regius Professor of Botany and they lived in the city until 1977 when, on her husband's retirement, they moved to Blewsbury in Oxfordshire where they lived until her sudden death in 1995.
She continued to write a crime novel almost every year and in 1953 she was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association of which she later became chairperson in 1977.
As well as her short series of works featuring Toby Dyke, she wrote a series featuring retired botanist Andrew Basnett and another series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer. All in all she wrote over seventy novels, her final one 'A Thief in the Night' being published posthumously.
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described her as having "a sound enough grasp of motives and human relations and a due regard for probability and technique, but whose people and plot are so standard".
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
Born Morna Doris McTaggart in Rangoon, Burma of a Scottish father and an Irish-German mother, she grew up in England where she moved at age six. She attended Bedales school and then took a diploma in journalism at London University.
Her first two novels, 'Turn Single' (1932) and 'Broken Music' (1934), came out under her own name, Morna McTaggart. In the early 1930s she married her first husband but she left him, moved to Belsize Park in London and lived with Dr Robert Brown, a lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1942. She eventually divorced her first husband in October 1945 and married Dr, later Professor, Brown.
It was in 1940 that her first crime novel 'Give a Corpse a Bad Name' was published under the pseudonymn that she had adopted, Elizabeth (sometimes Elizabeth X. - particularly in the USA) Ferrars, the Ferrars her mother's maiden name. This novel featured her young detective Toby Dyke, who was to feature in four other of her novels.
When her husband was offered a post at Cornell University in the USA, the couple moved there but remained only a year before returning to Britain. They travelled with her husband's work, on one occasion visiting Adelaide when he was a visiting professor at the University of South Australia, and later moved to Edinburgh where her husband was appointed Regius Professor of Botany and they lived in the city until 1977 when, on her husband's retirement, they moved to Blewsbury in Oxfordshire where they lived until her sudden death in 1995.
She continued to write a crime novel almost every year and in 1953 she was a founding member of the Crime Writers' Association of which she later became chairperson in 1977.
As well as her short series of works featuring Toby Dyke, she wrote a series featuring retired botanist Andrew Basnett and another series featuring a semi-estranged married couple, Virginia and Felix Freer. All in all she wrote over seventy novels, her final one 'A Thief in the Night' being published posthumously.
Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor described her as having "a sound enough grasp of motives and human relations and a due regard for probability and technique, but whose people and plot are so standard".
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 12, 2018
I can't do justice to the way this book affects me. Martha is a middle-aged volunteer who inherited a large house that used to be a boarding house. She works for a group that aids unmarried, pregnant women, and once in a while will offer one of them a room for a night or two. That's how she ends up with two strangers in her house, plus their boyfriends and, in one case, her parents. But Martha is a perpetual optimist, who thinks everyone really means well. Someone remarks to her that it would be interesting to see what would happen if Martha met someone who was really evil...Are two murders evil enough, do you think? But that makes it sound like a suspenseful, Gothic type of book, and it isn't at all. Martha is, of course, wrong--not everyone means well. But in a larger sense, she's right, and things end well for many of the characters.
February 2, 2021
Another very enjoyable read from Elizabeth Ferrars. This is pretty much a closed circle affair, with a small cast of characters and a story which is confined for the most part to the offices of a charity and the home of one of its volunteer workers.
Ferrars had a gift for deftly sketching characters that keep you interested, and telling a well-paced story at the same time. I have to admit that despite the limited number of suspects I was still blindsided by the solution. The clues are there, even if some are a touch oblique, and there's enough going on to muddy the waters without becoming irritating.
Ferrars had a gift for deftly sketching characters that keep you interested, and telling a well-paced story at the same time. I have to admit that despite the limited number of suspects I was still blindsided by the solution. The clues are there, even if some are a touch oblique, and there's enough going on to muddy the waters without becoming irritating.
September 18, 2021
Again many red herrings to keep one guessing as they are often plausible. It's been interesting reading these E.X. Ferrars from the early 70s as a couple of times there has been a derogatory term used which at the time was acceptable in certain circles, those in which the characters are portrayed, but you wouldn't see now unless to paint a portrait of intolerance. The world, we are a' changing.
July 12, 2009
I'd really call this a 3 1/2 star book.
Martha Crayle works at a charity for Unwed Mothers. She also has a large home with just her and one gentleman boarder. Since she has the room, she occasionally has one of the girls stay with her for a few days. One week she brings home two girls. Almost immediately, one of the girls is involved in a murder. Martha, who always believes in giving people the benefit of the doubt, hates to think that anyone would actually want to hurt her, but when she is nearly shot, she begins to think that maybe she should be more careful about who she trusts.
The plot on this is a little too complicated, I think, and the setting is a little out of date. But I really liked Martha as the main character, so I would recommend this one. It's not exactly a cozy and not exactly a gothic, but maybe a little of both.
Martha Crayle works at a charity for Unwed Mothers. She also has a large home with just her and one gentleman boarder. Since she has the room, she occasionally has one of the girls stay with her for a few days. One week she brings home two girls. Almost immediately, one of the girls is involved in a murder. Martha, who always believes in giving people the benefit of the doubt, hates to think that anyone would actually want to hurt her, but when she is nearly shot, she begins to think that maybe she should be more careful about who she trusts.
The plot on this is a little too complicated, I think, and the setting is a little out of date. But I really liked Martha as the main character, so I would recommend this one. It's not exactly a cozy and not exactly a gothic, but maybe a little of both.
April 26, 2014
Elizabeth Ferrars can be relied upon to give you a good read, her characters are believable and the plots are interesting. This one is rather dated and not one of her best. I found the constant use of the word 'darling' by Martha to her rather prim and proper male tenant annoyed me and seemed out of character but a good, solid read all the same.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews