Frank Lucius Packard (February 2, 1877 – February 17, 1942) was a Canadian

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...

Life

Frank L. Packard was born in

Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...

and educated at

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous ...

and the

University of Liège The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the 301 ...

. As a young man he worked as a civil engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway. His experiences working on the railroad led to his writing many railroad stories, then to a series of

mystery novels Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as s ...

, the most famous of which featured a character called Jimmie Dale. Several of his novels were made into films. Frank Packard died in 1942 in

Lachine, Quebec Lachine () is a borough (''arrondissement'') within the city of Montreal on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It was an autonomous city until the municipal mergers in 2002. History Lachine, apparently from the French term ' ...

and was buried in the Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal.

Works

Jimmie Dale series

*'' The Adventures of Jimmie Dale'' (1917) –
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*'' The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale'' (1919) –
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*''Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue'' (1922) *''Jimmie Dale and Blue Envelope Murder'' (1930) *''Jimmie Dale and the Missing Hour'' (1935) *''Return of the Grey Seal'' (2007) – (

e-book An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...

compilation of first two books) *''Jimmie Dale, Alias the Gray Seal'' by Michael Howard (2017) – (The first new Gray Seal book in more than eighty years.)

Other works

* ''On the Iron at Big Cloud'' (1911)
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*''Greater Love Hath No Man'' (1913)
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*'' The Miracle Man'' (1914) –
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*'' The Belovéd Traitor'' (1915) – (

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital libr ...

book) *''The Sin That Was His'' (1917) *''The Wire Devils'' (1918) *''Coogan's Last Run''. (Novella) Published in Top-Notch magazine, Feb. 1918; a slightly expanded version of the short story "The Guardian of the Devil's Slide," which is included in On The Iron at Big Cloud (1911).) *''From Now On'' (1919) *''The Night Operator'' (1919) *'' The White Moll'' (1920) –
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*''Pawned'' (1921) *''Doors of the Night'' (1922) *''The Four Stragglers'' (1923) *''The Locked Book'' (1924) *''Running Special'' (1925) *''Broken Waters'' (1925) *''The Red Ledger'' (1926) *''The Devil's Mantle'' (1927) *''Two Stolen Idols'' (1927) *''Shanghai Jim'' (1928) *''The Big Shot'' (1929) *''Tiger Claws'' (1929) *''Gold Skull Murders'' (1931) *''The Hidden Door'' (1933) *''The Purple Ball'' (1933) *''The Dragon's Jaws'' (1937) *''More Knaves Than One'' (1938) (Includes: More Knaves Than One, The King of Fools, Behind The Masks, and The Devil Sits In.)

References

External links

* * * * *
Sony Reader e-book version of ''Return of The Grey Seal''

Frank L. Packard fonds (R1916)
at Library and Archives Canada {{DEFAULTSORT:Packard, Frank L. 1877 births 1942 deaths 20th-century Canadian male writers 20th-century Canadian novelists Anglophone Quebec people Burials at Mount Royal Cemetery Canadian civil engineers Canadian mystery writers Canadian male novelists McGill University alumni University of Liège alumni Writers from Montreal