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 a 1973 film starring Jack Nicholson. A sequel, ''Last Flag Flying'', based on his 2005 nove ...

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

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...

and currently resides in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

, 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 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 novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic ex ...

'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 and first titled "Magee monologue". It was inspired by Beckett's experience of listening ...

''. 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