Fraser, Antonia

(British, 1932– )

A popular biographer and historian, Fraser is also renowned for her strongly plotted and compelling mystery novels, which centre on Jemima Shore, a young television journalist whose research is often the starting-point for the complicated, dangerous investigations she is drawn into. Begin with Quiet as a Nun (1977), where Shore investigates the murder of Sister Miriam at a Sussex convent. Her death may have been connected with her money, and as the full complexity of the situation becomes apparent and the ghostly Black Nun begins to appear, Shore realizes she has to solve the mystery before the danger spreads. Move on to Oxford Blood (1985), where startling information and the murder of a student raise disturbing questions, deflecting Shore's attention from the programme she's making about Oxford undergraduates.

Patricia Highsmith, Dorothy L. Sayers, P. D. James  SR