A New Kind of Killer, an Old Kind of Death

Charmian Daniels #7

by Jennie Melville

Sergeant Charmian Daniels of the Deerham Hills police force was at Midport University on a three-fold mission-to lecture to local police cadets, to keep an eye on student trouble-makers and to start a diploma in criminology. The subject of her thesis was already forming in her mind-the new kind of killer. The population was growing younger all the time; given a decade or two, statistics would show that one man in three would have a violent act in his past. Society was creating a new kind of killer, casual, committing murder almost without thought. And in the world of the future, Charmian knew that woman stood a better than average chance of being victims. What she didn't know was that even as she thought about the new pattern in crime, the ominous statistics for it were already being proven on dangerously close ground.

190 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Gwendoline Williams Butler (aka Gwendoline Butler)

Gwendoline Williams was born on 19th August 1922 in South London, England, UK, daughter of Alice (Lee) and Alfred Edward Williams, her younger twin brothers are also authors. Educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she read History, and later lectured there. On 16th October 1949, she married Dr Lionel Harry Butler (1923-1981), a professor of medieval history at University of St. Andrews and historian, Fellow of All Souls and Principal of Royal Holloway College. The marriage had a daughter, Lucilla Butler.

In 1956, she started to published John Coffin novels under her married name, Gwendoline Butler. In 1962, she decided used her grandmother's name, Jennie Melville as pseudonym to sing her Charmian Daniels novels. She was credited for inventing the "woman's police procedural". In addition to her mystery series, she also wrote romantic novels. In 1981, her novel The Red Staircase won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.