It’s been a while since I’ve written a Dames of Crime blog, so I thought it was time I shone a light on another great woman of mystery – Ursula Torday.

You’d be forgiven for never having heard of writer of mysteries, gothic and historical romance fiction Ursula Torday (1912-1997) because she only wrote three novels under that name. She did write many under pseudonyms, including Paula Allardyce (29 novels), Charity Blackstock (27 novels), Lee Blackstock (2 novels) and Charlotte Keppel (6 novels).

The only child born to a Scottish mother, and a father who was a Hungarian anthropologist, Torday had polio as a child which afflicted her gait throughout her life. She was educated in London at Oxford University and published her first three romance novels in the 1930s under her true name then stopped writing aged 26. She did not publish again until 1954. Over the next three years she published six books and continued to be prolific until the ’80s.

Torday’s dual interests of romance and mysteries meant that emotions and passion were important in her novels and often given precedence over death and motive in her mysteries. Sardonic humour, passion, hate, fear and loathing reverberate through her loathsome mystery characters to create tension and brooding romance.

Torday was said to be her own woman – cultured, sophisticated, opinionated, with wide interests and a zest for life. During World War II she worked as a probation officer for the Citizen’s Advice Bureau then ran a refugee scheme for Jewish children following the war. Her war time work inspired two novels written under the pseudonym Charity Blackstock (The Briar Patch, 1960 and The Children, 1966). Later she worked as a typist at the National Central Library in London which inspired body in the library mystery Dewey Death written under the same name. Dewey Death was set in the Inter-Libraries Despatch Association and includes themes of adultery, drug trafficking, romance and murder. Torday also worked for Naim Attallah’s publishing house (Quartet Books, The Women’s Press) for a period and sat at a desk opposite Quentin Crisp exchanging tips on the latest nail varnishes.

The Woman in the Woods, a mystery-suspense written as Charity Blackstock, in which two schoolboys stumble across a skeleton in the woods and soon the whole village is caught up in the death was nominated to win the 1959 Edgar Award for best novel.

Mystery novels

• After the Lady (1954) (as Paula Allardyce)
• The Doctor’s Daughter (1955) (as Paula Allardyce)
• A Game of Hazard (1955) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Adam and Evelina (1956) (as Paula Allardyce)
• The Man of Wrath (1956) (as Paula Allardyce)
• The Lady and the Pirate (1957) aka Vixen’s Revenge (as Paula Allardyce)
• Southarn Folly (1957) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Beloved Enemy (1958) (as Paula Allardyce)
• My Dear Miss Emma (1958) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Death My Lover (1959) (as Paula Allardyce)
• A Marriage Has Been Arranged (1959) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Johnny Danger (1960) (as Paula Allardyce)
• The Gentle Highwayman (1961) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Adam’s Rib (1963) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Respectable Miss Tarkington-Smith (1964) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Dewey Death (1956) (as Charity Blackstock)
• Miss Fenny (1957) aka The Woman in the Woods (as Charity Blackstock) 
• All Men Are Murderers (1958)  aka The Shadow of Murder (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Foggy, Foggy Dew (1958) (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Bitter Conquest (1959) (as by Charity Blackstock)
• The Briar Patch (1960) aka Young Lucifer (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Exorcism (1961) aka A House Possessed (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Gallant (1962) (as by Charity Blackstock)
• Mr. Christopoulos (1963) (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Factor’s Wife (1964)  aka The English Wife (as Charity Blackstock)
• When the Sun Goes Down (1965)  aka Monkey On a Chain (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Children (1966) (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Knock at Midnight (1966) (as Charity Blackstock)
• Party in Dolly Creek (1967)  aka The Widow (as Charity Blackstock)
• Wednesday’s Children (1967) (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Melon in the Cornfield (1969)   aka The Lemmings (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Encounter (1971) (as Charity Blackstock)
• I Met Murder on the Way (1977) (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Shadow of Murder (1964) (as Charity Blackstock/Lee Blackstock)
• Madam, You Must Die (1974) aka Loving Sands, Deadly Sands (as Charlotte Keppel)
• When I Say Goodbye, I’m Clary Brown (1976) aka My Name Is Clary Brown (as Charlotte Keppel)

Other novels – gothic, historical, romance

• The Ballad-Maker of Paris (1935) (as Ursula Torday)
• No Peace for the Wicked (1937) (as Ursula Torday)
• The Mirror of the Sun (1938) (as Ursula Torday)
• The Rogue’s Lady (1961) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Witches’ Sabbath (1961) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Paradise Row (1964) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Octavia (1965) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Emily (1966) (as Paula Allardyce)
• The Moonlighters (1966) aka Gentleman Rouge (as Paula Allardyce)
• Six Passengers for the Sweet Bird (1967) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Waiting At the Church (1968) (as Paula Allardyce)
• The Ghost of Archie Gilroy (1970) aka Shadowed Love (as Paula Allardyce)
• Miss Jonas’s Boy (1972) aka Eilza as Paula Allardyce)
• The Gentle Sex (1974) as Paula Allardyce)
• Legacy of Pride (1975) (as Paula Allardyce)
• The Carradine Affair (1976) (as Paula Allardyce)
• Miss Philadelphia Smith (1977) (as Paula Allardyce)
• The Daughter (1970) (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Jungle (1972) (as Charity Blackstock)
• Haunting Me (1978) (as Charity Blackstock)
• Miss Charley (1979) (as Charity Blackstock)
• With Fondest Thoughts (1980) (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Lonely Strangers (1972) (as Charity Blackstock)
• People in Glass Houses (1975) (as Charity Blackstock)
• Ghost Town (1976) (as Charity Blackstock)
• Dream Towers (1981) (as Charity Blackstock)
• The Woman in the Woods (1959) (as Charity Blackstock/Lee Blackstock)
• The Villains (1980) (as Charlotte Keppel)
• I Could Be Good to You (1980) (as Charlotte Keppel)
• The Ghosts Of Fontenoy (1981) (as Charlotte Keppel)
• The Flag Captain (1982) (as Charlotte Keppel)