Hillary Baldwin Waugh (June 22, 1920 – December 8, 2008) was a pioneering American

mystery Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters *Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange'' Films * ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film * ''Mystery'' ( ...

novelist. In 1989, he was named a Grand Master by the

Mystery Writers of America Mystery Writers of America (MWA) is an organization of mystery and crime writers, based in New York City. The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday. It presents the Edgar Awa ...

. Pseudonyms used by Waugh included Elissa Grandower, Harry Walker and H. Baldwin Taylor.

Career

Hillary Baldwin Waugh was born on June 22, 1920 in

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

. He graduated in 1942 from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

, majoring in art with a music minor. He was an editor of campus humor magazine ''

The Yale Record ''The Yale Record'' is the campus humor magazine of Yale University. Founded in 1872, it became the oldest humor magazine in the world when ''Punch'' folded in 2002."History", The Yale Record, March 10, 2010. http://www.yalerecord.com/about/histo ...

''. During his senior year at Yale, Waugh enlisted in the

United States Navy Air Corps A naval aviator is a commissioned officer or warrant officer qualified as a crewed aircraft pilot in the United States Navy or United States Marine Corps. United States Coast Guard crewed aircraft pilots are officially designated as "Coast Guard ...

and, after graduation, received his aviator's wings. He served in the Panama Canal Zone for two years, flying various types of

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engine ...

. While in military service, Waugh turned his hand to creative writing, completing and publishing his first novel ''Madam Will Not Dine Tonight'' in 1947. He quickly published two more novels, but they were not very well received. In 1949, as the result of reading a case book on true

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

, Waugh decided to explore a realistic crime novel. With the cooperation of his fiancée, who was a student at Smith College, Waugh set his police procedural '' Last Seen Wearing ...'' in a fictional women's college. Published in 1952, the book was a significant success and is now considered a pioneering effort exploring relentless police work and attention to detail. After ''Last Seen Wearing...'', Waugh went on to publish more than thirty-five additional detective novels, many aptly described as "

hardboiled Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence o ...

Personal life and death

Waugh married Diana Taylor, and the couple had three children. Waugh died in

Torrington, Connecticut Torrington is the most populated municipality and only city in Litchfield County, Connecticut and the Northwest Hills region. It is also the core city of Greater Torrington, one of the largest micropolitan areas in the United States. The city p ...

on December 8, 2008.

Publications

Series

Sheridan Wesley # ''Madam Will Not Dine Tonight'' (1947) # ''Hope to Die'' (1948) # ''The Odds Run Out'' (1949) Fred Fellows # ''Sleep Long, My Love'' (1959) filmed as '' Jigsaw'' (1962) # ''Road Block'' (1960) # ''That Night It Rained'' (1961) # ''Born Victim'' (1962) # ''The Late Mrs. D.'' (1962) # ''Death and Circumstance'' (1963) # ''Prisoner's Plea'' (1963) # ''The Missing Man'' (1964) # ''End of a Party'' (1965) # ''Pure Poison'' (1966) # ''The Con Game'' (1968) Homicide North # ''30 Manhattan East'' (1968) # ''The Young Prey'' (1969) # ''Finish Me Off'' (1970) Simon Kaye # ''The Glenna Powers Case'' (1980) # ''The Billy Cantrell Case'' (1981) # ''The Doria Rafe Case'' (1981) # ''The Nerissa Claire Case'' (1983) # ''The Veronica Dean Case'' (1984) # ''The Priscilla Copperwaite Case'' (1986)

Other novels

* '' Last Seen Wearing ...'' (1952) * ''A Rag and a Bone'' (1954) * ''The Case of the Missing Gardener'' (1954) * ''Rich Man, Dead Man'' (1956) * ''The Girl Who Cried Wolf'' (1958) * ''The Eighth Mrs. Bluebeard'' (1958) * ''Murder on the Terrace'' (1961) * ''The Duplicate'' (1964) * ''Girl on the Run'' (1965) * ''The Triumvirate'' (1966) * ''The Trouble with Tycoons'' (1967) * ''Run When I Say Go'' (1969) * ''The Shadow Guest'' (1971) * ''Parrish for the Defense'' (1974) * ''A Bride for Hampton House'' (1975) * ''Seaview Manor'' (1976) * ''The Summer at Raven's Roost'' (1976) * ''The Secret Room of Morgate House'' (1977) * ''Madman at My Door'' (1978) * ''Blackbourne Hall'' (1979) * ''Rivergate House'' (1980) * ''Murder on Safari'' (1987) * ''A Death in a Town'' (1988)

References

External links

Obituary
in the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

AP Obituary
in the Hartford Courant
Obituary
in The Telegraph
Obituary
in

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Waugh, Hillary 1920 births 2008 deaths 20th-century American novelists American male novelists American crime fiction writers Edgar Award winners Yale University alumni Writers from New Haven, Connecticut 20th-century American male writers Novelists from Connecticut United States Navy personnel of World War II