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FRANK USHER

1909 - 1976

Writing as: Charles Franklin, Frank Lester, Frank Usher


According to Wikipedia: "Charles Franklin, the pen-name of Frank Hugh Usher, (22 October 1909 - 1976) born in Leicester, Leicestershire, a British author of mystery novels and spy novels. He also wrote under the pen-names Frank Usher, and Frank Lester.

Little interested in the whodunit, still in vogue in England in the immediate post-war period, he followed in the footsteps of Peter Cheyney and David Hume and showed a clear penchant for Noir fiction and, less surprisingly, from the 1960s, for spy novels.

Under the pseudonym Charles Franklin, he published his first novel, Exit Without Permit, in 1946, with his most famous recurring hero, Grant Garfield, a young and intrepid lawyer, sometimes assisted in his twelve investigations, by his charming secretary Barbara Wenthworth. After abandoning Garfield, he wrote three novels for Inspector Jim Burgess, and three others for the spy Maxine Dangerfield, a kind of female James Bond. He also published under Charles Franklin's name historical works dealing with famous legal or criminal cases.

Under his birth name, he was the author of the adventures of Daye Smith, a portrait painter and amateur sleuth.[1] He also used this name for his fantasy short stories and a short series of spy novels centred on the duo of Amanda Curzon and her sidekick Oscar Sallis."



Series Books
Charles Franklin
 
Maxine Dangerfield The Dangerous Ones (1964)
  On The Day Of The Shooting (1965)
  Death In The East (1967)
  The Escape (1968)
 
Other The Bath of Acid [Inspector Jim Burgess] (1962)
  Breathe No More [Grant Garfield] (1959)
  Cocktails With a Stranger (1947)
  The Dangerous Ones [Maxine Dangerfield] (1964)
  Darling Murderess (1957)
  Death in the East (1967)
  Death on My Shoulder [Grant Garfield] (1958)
  Died in the Grass (1971)
  The Escape [Maxine Dangerfield] (1968)
  Escape to Death (1951)
  Exit Without Permit [Grant Garfield] (1946)
  Face the Music (1957)
  Fear Runs Softly [Grant Garfield] (1961)
  The Fortieth Victim (1963)
  Gallows for a Fool [Grant Garfield] (1952)
  Girl in Shadow [Grant Garfield] (1955)
  Guilt for Innocence [Inspector Jim Burgess] (1960)
  Guilty You Must Be [Grant Garfield] (1959)
  A Handful of Sinners (1960)
  The Home Secretary Affair (1971)
  The KGB is Here (1972)
  Kill Me and Live [Inspector Jim Burgess] (1961)
  Maid for Murder (1951)
  The Mark of Kane [Grant Garfield] (1949)
  A Mirror of Murder (1964)
  Murder Before Dinner (1963)
  The Murder Column (1970)
  Murder on My Hands (1973)
  No Other Victim (1957)
  On the Day of the Shooting [Maxine Dangerfield] (1965)
  One Night to Kill (1950)
  Out of Time (1956)
  Perchance to Kill (1954)
  Play With Death (1953)
  Rope of Sand (1948)
  She'll Love You Dead [Grant Garfield] (1950)
  Spies of the Twenthieth Century (NF) (1967)
  Stop That Man [Grant Garfield] (1954)
  Storm in an Inkpot [Grant Garfield] (1949)
  The Stranger Came Back [Grant Garfield] (1953)
  They Walked a Crooked Miles (NF) (1967)
  The Third Degree (1970)
  The Trembling Thread (1955)
  Woman in the Case (1967)
  World Famous Acquittals (NF) (1970)
  The World’s Famous Trials (NF) (1967)
  The World’s Greatest Scandals (NF) (1967)
  The World’s Worst Murderers (NF) (1965)
 
Frank Lester
 
Other The Bamboo Girl [Geoffrey Slade] (1961)
  The Corpse Wore Rubies [Geoffrey Slade] (1958)
  Death in the South Wind [Geoffrey Slade] (1958)
  Death of a Frightened Traveller (1959)
  Death of A Pale Man [Geoffrey Slade] (1960)
  Finch Takes to Crime (1963)
  Fly Me a Killer [Geoffrey Slade] (1962)
  The Golden Murder [Geoffrey Slade] (1959)
  Hide My Body [Geoffrey Slade] (1961)
  Lead Me to the Gallows (1962)
 
Frank Usher
 
Amanda Curzon The Man From Moscow (1965)
  No Flowers In Brazlov (1968)
  The Boston Crab (1970)
 
Other Body in Velvet (1963)
  Death in Error [Daye Smith] (1959)
  Death is Waiting [Daye Smith] (1958)
  Die, My Darling [Daye Smith] (1960)
  The Faceless Stranger [Daye Smith] (1961)
  Fall Into My Grave [Daye Smith] (1962)
  Fear Runs Softly (1961)
  First To Kill [Daye Smith] (1959)
  Ghost of a Chance [Daye Smith] (1956)
  The Lonely Cage [Daye Smith] (1956)
  Portrait of Fear [Daye Smith] (1957)
  The Price of Death [Daye Smith] (1957)
  Shot in the Dark [Daye Smith] (1961)
  Stairway to Murder [Daye Smith] (1964)
  Who Killed Rosa Gray? [Daye Smith] (1962)