Gaylord Larsen (born January 4, 1932) is an American

crime writer Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professiona ...

. He is well known for his fictional murder mystery ''Dorothy and Agatha'', incorporating the well-known mystery novelists

Dorothy L. Sayers Dorothy Leigh Sayers ( ; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime novelist, playwright, translator and critic. Born in Oxford, Sayers was brought up in rural East Anglia and educated at Godolphin School in Salisbury and Somerv ...

and

Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English people, English author known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving ...

as title characters, where Sayers must solve a crime when a man is murdered in her dining room. Larsen was born in

Canova, South Dakota Canova is a town in Miner County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 89 at the 2020 census. History Canova was platted in 1883. The town is named after Italian sculptor Antonio Canova. Ted and Dorothy Hustead lived in Canova just ...

, and educated at Sioux Falls College (B.A. 1953) and the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

(M.A. 1959). During the 1960s, he worked in the television and advertising industries in Los Angeles. In addition to his crime novels, Larsen is also a former writer for the Christian television anthology series '' This Is the Life''. His literary influences include

Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...

, and

Ross Macdonald Ross Macdonald was the main pseudonym used by the American-Canadian writer of crime fiction Kenneth Millar (; December 13, 1915 – July 11, 1983). He is best known for his series of hardboiled novels set in Southern California and featur ...

."Gaylord Larsen". In ''

Contemporary Authors ''Contemporary Authors'' is a reference work that has been published by Gale since 1962. The work provides short biographies and bibliographies of contemporary and near-contemporary writers and is a major source of information on over 116,000 liv ...

Online''. Gale. 2002. He is also the author of the ''Jason Bradley Mystery Series,'' as well as: * 1981 ''The Kilbourne Connection'' * 1983 ''Trouble Crossing the Pyrenees'' issued 1986 as ''An Educated Death'' * 1987 ''One Hundred Eighty Degrees Murder'' * 1988 ''A Paramount Kill'' set in Hollywood with

as detective. * 1989 ''Atascadro Island'' * 1990 ''Dorothy and Agatha''

References

American mystery writers American male screenwriters University of Sioux Falls alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni 1932 births People from Miner County, South Dakota Living people American male novelists American male television writers Television writers from California Screenwriters from South Dakota {{US-fiction-writer-stub