Emily "Emma" Medora Murdock Lynch Van Deventer ( – ) was an American mystery novelist who wrote under the name Lawrence L. Lynch. Emily Medora Murdock was born on in

Oswego, Illinois Oswego ( ) is a village in Kendall and Will counties, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 34,485. Oswego is the largest municipality in Kendall County. Part of the Chicago metropolitan area, it is an exurb of Chica ...

, the daughter of Charles L. Murdock, a lawyer and justice of the peace, and Emily A. (Holland) Murdock. She married Lawrence L. Lynch in 1877 and Dr. Abraham Van Deventer in 1887. She took the name of her first husband as her pseudonym for nearly two dozen detective novels popular in the US and England. Most of her novels were set in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, and ''Against Odds'' (1894) was set at the

1893 Chicago World's Fair The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The ce ...

. Some of her heroes were traditionally male characters, such as Francis Ferrars, a

Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's London boroughs, 32 boroughs. Its name derives from the location of the original ...

investigator who becomes a

private detective A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI; also known as a private detective, an inquiry agent or informally a private eye) is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigat ...

in America. She was also noted for her independent female characters, such as the private detective Madeline Payne and Leonore Arymn, who strikes a woman batterer with a large mallet in ''Shadowed by Three.'' Emma Murdock Van Deventer died on 3 May 1914 in Oswego.

Bibliography

* ''Shadowed by Three'' aka ''A Woman's Crime'' (1879) * ''The Diamond Coterie'' (1884) * ''Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter'' (1884) * ''Dangerous Ground; or, The Rival Detectives'' (1885) * ''Out of a Labyrinth'' (1885) * ''A Mountain Mystery: or, The Outlaws of the Rockies'' (1886) * ''The Lost Witness; or, The Mystery of Leah Paget Laird'' (1890) * ''Moina; or, Against the Mighty'' (1891) * ''A Slender Clue; or, The Mystery of Mardi Gras'' (1891) * ''The Romance of a Bomb Thrower'' * ''A Dead Man's Step'' (1893) * ''Against Odds: A Romance of The Midway Plaisance'' (1894) * ''No Proof'' (1895) * ''The Last Stroke. A Detective Story'' (1896) * ''The Unseen Hand'' (1898) * ''High Stakes'' (1899) * ''Under Fate's Wheel'' (1901) * ''The Woman Who Dared'' (1902) * ''The Danger Line'' (1903) * ''A Woman's Tragedy; or, The Detective's Task'' (1904) * ''The Doverfields' Diamonds'' (1906) * ''Man and Master'' (1908) * ''A Sealed Verdict'' (1910) * ''A Blind Lead'' (1912)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Murdock, Emma Created via preloaddraft 1853 births 1914 deaths American mystery writers American women novelists People from Oswego, Illinois 19th-century pseudonymous writers Pseudonymous women writers