Anne Argula is a pen name used by

Darryl Ponicsan Darryl Ponicsan (; born May 26, 1938) is an American writer. He is best known as the author of the 1970 novel ''The Last Detail,'' which was adapted into the 1973 film of the same name starring Jack Nicholson. A sequel, '' Last Flag Flying'', ba ...

for several mysteries set in the Pacific Northwest. He was born in Northeast

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

and currently resides in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, Washington. The first novel in the series, ''Homicide My Own'' (2005) is about a cop who solves his own murder from a previous life. It was nominated for an

Edgar Award The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America which is based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards hon ...

. The second in the series is ''Walla Walla Suite'' (2007), which follows Quinn, who narrated the first book. Now she is in Seattle and working for a mitigation investigator until she is drawn into an unusual murder case. The third in the series is ''Krapp's Last Cassette,'' in which Quinn is hired by a screenwriter to verify the existence of a writer whose book he is adapting for HBO. The title is a play on the title of

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

's ''

Krapp's Last Tape ''Krapp's Last Tape'' is a 1958 one-act play, in English, by Samuel Beckett. With a cast of one man, it was written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee (actor), Patrick Magee and first titled "Magee monologue". It was inspired by Beckett's e ...

''. The fourth and final of the series is "The Other Romanian," in which Quinn becomes involved in recovering an 18 karat bookmark that belonged to Hitler, given to him by his mistress. Argula's Quinn novels are marked by humor and coal regions idiom.

Bibliography

* ''Homicide My Own'' (Pleasure Boat Studio, 2005 ) * ''Walla Walla Suite'' (Ballantine Books, 2007 ) * ''Krapp's Last Cassette'' (Ballantine Books, 2009 ) * ''The Other Romanian'' (Pleasure Boat Studio, 2012 )

References

Living people 21st-century American novelists American male novelists Novelists from Pennsylvania Writers from Seattle American mystery novelists 21st-century American male writers Novelists from Washington (state) 1938 births {{US-novelist-1930s-stub