Photo de l'auteur

Charlotte Armstrong (1905–1969)

Auteur de Une dose de poison

66+ oeuvres 1,878 utilisateurs 36 critiques 3 Favoris

A propos de l'auteur

Séries

Œuvres de Charlotte Armstrong

Une dose de poison (1956) 171 exemplaires
The Gift Shop (1966) 131 exemplaires
Troublez-moi ce soir (1950) 125 exemplaires
The Unsuspected (1945) 120 exemplaires
The Chocolate Cobweb (1948) 89 exemplaires
Le jour des parques (1968) 80 exemplaires
Lemon in the Basket (1967) 79 exemplaires
The Witch's House (1963) 76 exemplaires
The Turret Room (1965) 74 exemplaires
The Innocent Flower (1945) 59 exemplaires
The Dream Walker (1955) 52 exemplaires
Dream of Fair Woman (1966) 52 exemplaires
The Better to Eat You (1954) 51 exemplaires
The Protege (1970) 48 exemplaires
Catch-As-Catch-Can (1952) 43 exemplaires
The Girl With a Secret (1959) 40 exemplaires
A Little Less Than Kind (1963) 39 exemplaires
Lay on, Mac Duff! (1942) 38 exemplaires
The Black-Eyed Stranger (1951) 37 exemplaires
Seven Seats to the Moon (1969) 36 exemplaires
Quelque chose de bleu (1959) 34 exemplaires
The Charlotte Armstrong festival (1975) 34 exemplaires
The Albatross (1970) 28 exemplaires
I See You (1973) 25 exemplaires
The Trouble in Thor (1953) 25 exemplaires
The Seventeen Widows of Sans Souci (1959) 14 exemplaires
The One-Faced Girl (1963) 14 exemplaires
Incident at a Corner (1973) 11 exemplaires
Ganz starke Frauen (1993) 5 exemplaires
Who's Been Sitting in My Chair? (1954) 4 exemplaires
A sombra do passado (1948) 2 exemplaires
Univaeltaja 1 exemplaire
Presentbutiken : [thriller] (1974) 1 exemplaire
Svartögd främling 1 exemplaire
And Already Lost... 1 exemplaire
The Mark of the Hand (1963) (1963) 1 exemplaire
VENENO! 1 exemplaire

Oeuvres associées

Un petit reconstituant (2000) — Contributeur — 265 exemplaires
Masterpieces of Mystery and Suspense (1988) — Contributeur — 189 exemplaires
Histoires préférées du maître ès crimes (1979) — Contributeur — 148 exemplaires
Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1950s (2015) — Contributeur — 128 exemplaires
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: A Month of Mystery (1968) — Contributeur — 120 exemplaires
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: My Favorites in Suspense (1959) — Contributeur — 118 exemplaires
Stories to Stay Awake By (1971) — Contributeur — 100 exemplaires
Isaac Asimov's Magical Worlds of Fantasy, Volume 7: Magical Wishes (1891) — Contributeur — 90 exemplaires
The Big Book of Female Detectives (2018) — Contributeur — 80 exemplaires
14 of My Favorites in Suspense (1959) — Contributeur — 77 exemplaires
Great American Mystery Stories of the 20th Century (1989) — Contributeur — 74 exemplaires
Fifty Best Mysteries (1991) — Contributeur — 71 exemplaires
Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s and 1950s (2015) — Contributeur; Contributeur — 59 exemplaires
Stories To Stay Awake By [abridged] (1971) — Contributeur — 41 exemplaires
Simply the Best Mysteries: Edgar Award Winners and Front-Runners (1998) — Contributeur — 40 exemplaires
Troublez-moi ce soir (Don't Bother to Knock) (1952) — Original novel — 31 exemplaires
Merci pour le chocolat (2000) — Original novel — 26 exemplaires
Murder Most Divine: Ecclesiastical Tales of Unholy Crimes (2000) — Contributeur — 23 exemplaires
Masterpieces of Mystery: The Fifties (1976) — Contributeur — 22 exemplaires
Ellery Queen's Mystery Mix (1962) — Contributeur — 19 exemplaires
Lethal Black Book (1965) — Contributeur — 18 exemplaires
Best Detective Stories (1959) — Contributeur — 17 exemplaires
The Queen's Awards: Sixth Series (1953) — Contributeur — 15 exemplaires
He Who Whispers | The Unsuspected | Crows Can't Count (1946) — Contributeur — 10 exemplaires
The Unsuspected [1947 film] (1947) — Original novel — 9 exemplaires
Dangerous Ladies (1992) — Contributeur — 8 exemplaires
Verhalen omnibus (1967) — Contributeur — 7 exemplaires
Classic short stories of crime and detection, 1950-1975 (1983) — Contributeur — 6 exemplaires
Saturday Evening Post Stories 1958 (1959) — Contributeur — 5 exemplaires
Child's Ploy (1984) — Contributeur — 4 exemplaires
Ellery Queen's Aces of Mystery (1975) — Contributeur — 4 exemplaires
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine - 1969/01 (1969) — Contributeur — 3 exemplaires
A Magnum of Mysteries (1963) — Contributeur — 2 exemplaires
Dream of Fair Woman | The Holm Oaks | Dusty Death (1966) — Contributeur — 2 exemplaires

Étiqueté

Partage des connaissances

Nom légal
Lewi, Charlotte Armstrong
Autres noms
Valentine, Jo (pen name)
Date de naissance
1905-05-02
Date de décès
1969-07-18
Sexe
female
Nationalité
USA
Lieu de naissance
Vulcan, Michigan, USA
Lieu du décès
Glendale, California, USA
Lieux de résidence
Vulcan, Michigan, USA
New York, New York, USA
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Glendale, California, USA
Études
Barnard College (BA|1925)
University of Wisconsin
Vulcan High School
Professions
playwright
poet
novelist
mystery writer
Courte biographie
Charlotte Armstrong Lewi was an American author. Under the names Charlotte Armstrong and Jo Valentine, she wrote more than 28 novels. She also worked for The New York Times advertising department, and as a fashion reporter for Breath of the Avenue (a buyer's guide), and in an accounting firm. She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Barnard College in 1925. She had a daughter and two sons with her husband, Jack Lewi.

Membres

Critiques

Murderer in the Turret?
Review of the Mysterious Press/Open Road Kindle eBook edition (2012) of the Amereon Ltd. hardcover original (1965)

This was quite an unorthodox book in the crime/mystery genre for several reasons. The culprit(s) are revealed quite early, but everyone is oblivious as to how twisted they are, except for the heroine investigator Edie. Edie takes it upon herself to not only shield the main suspect, but to also solve the crime of an attempted murder in the mansion of her relatives the Whitmans. The title room only comes into it because that is where she is hiding the suspect. The police are at first reluctant to believe her explanations, but finally the craziness will out and all is revealed.

See cover image at https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/...
The front cover of the original 1965 Amereon Ltd. hardcover edition. Image sourced from Goodreads.

I was perhaps not as taken with The Turret Room as my GR friend Sportyrod, so I encourage you to read his 5-star review.

I discovered The Turret Room by Charlotte Armstrong from reading Christopher Fowler's excellent The Book of Forgotten Authors (2017) which I recently reviewed and rated as Five Stars. Charlotte Armstrong is the 2nd of the "Forgotten Authors" that I have investigated after first reading books by Gladys Mitchell.

Fowler describes Armstrong's style as follows:
She had abandoned a detective series to start this new style of writing, which largely avoids the whodunnit angle to portray women locked in psychological warfare with the members of their extended families and male-dominated workforces. Naturally she deals with stereotypes of the time, but the thrill comes in seeing her constrained protagonists gradually become empowered.


Trivia and Links
The Turret Room was not adapted for film, but several other Charlotte Armstrong books were. She also wrote for the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television program.

Fowler cites her book Mischief (1951) which was adapted as the 1952 film Don't Bother to Knock directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Richard Widmark and Marilyn Monroe. Two French movies by director Claude Chabrol were based on books by Armstrong. These were Merci pour le Chocolat (2000), based on The Chocolate Cobweb (1948)) and La Rupture (1970) based on The Balloon Man (1968).

Fowler also recommends Armstrong's Night Call and Other Stories of Suspense for both the title story and The Other Shoe.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
alanteder | 2 autres critiques | Oct 27, 2023 |
[The Chocolate Cobweb] begins as a "switched-at-birth" mystery, but morphs into something far more sinister. A Mrs. Garth and a Mrs. Garrison each give birth to a baby, virtually at the same time and in the same hospital. Husbands arrive, and each is shown a newborn. But Mrs. Garth recalls being shown a baby girl in the delivery room, not the baby boy presented to Mr. Garth. He asks questions, of course, and the mixup is resolved amicably with the girl baby going home with the Garths and the boy baby going with the Garrisons.

Jump ahead 23 years, and for the first time Mandy Garth is told about the baby switch by a gabby relative. Astonished, Mandy wants to decide for herself whether these Garrisons are really her parents. Maybe? Tobias Garrison is a much admired and prosperous painter. Mandy has artistic aspirations. Hmmm, where did that come from? After visiting a showing of his art and actually seeing the artist and his wife and son, she is provoked to make the artist's acquaintance. And she does. Toby Garrison is smitten and invites her to stay for several days so he can tutor her in his studio. During the visit she finds Ione, Garrison's wife, a bit of a cold fish and a sneak. Thone, the son, is cranky, distant, but very attractive. But trouble is in the air.

What's going to happen?
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
weird_O | 1 autre critique | Oct 15, 2023 |
One chapter in, and I was already dreading the rest of the book, with the setup of the main character and their access to Chekov's Gun, if you will, leading me to believe I already knew where all of this was going. The weapon of choice is in the title of the novel, after all.

Or is it?

I'm glad I ignored my instincts and forged ahead, for A Dram of Poison turns out to be so much more than the dry whodunit it's false start implies, and instead evolves into a bizarre existential road movie, a strange cross between Agatha Christie and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I won't even discuss the plot out of fear of spoiling... not any obscure plot twist, but the slow revelation of personalities and situations that completely endear every eclectic character that jumps on as the story barrels towards the inevitable conclusion.

This is a book with feels, and it earns your trust as it entertains. For the life of me, I can't understand how this has not been adapted to the screen yet. As far as I can tell, Charlotte Armstrong has had many works adapted to film and television, but the best A Dram of Poison was an episode of an old Playhouse episode most likely lost to time. Seriously, if you enjoy caring about the characters you read, and don't mind some philosophical soul-searching mixed in with your mystery, you can't pass this one up.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
smichaelwilson | 5 autres critiques | Aug 25, 2023 |
This is pretty good suspense tale is awash in 1940’s sensibilities. It is not any period description that nails the time and place but instead the presentation of the hearts and minds of the characters. They are as trapped in their time and mindset as they are in the hotel where much of the story takes place. Every time I thought this story was just a light entertainment, the story lived up to the title Mischief and surprised me. They were not cheap surprises like a squirrel popping out of a cake but surprises derived from the characters strengths and weaknesses—allowing for a slow ratcheting of suspense a click at a time. The stakes seem modest but all the more credit for drawing the reader in. Liked the ending just as much as the rest—a marvelous ambivalence. Looking forward to seeing what else I can find by the author.… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
KurtWombat | 3 autres critiques | Jan 8, 2023 |

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Statistiques

Œuvres
66
Aussi par
43
Membres
1,878
Popularité
#13,711
Évaluation
½ 3.6
Critiques
36
ISBN
189
Langues
7
Favoris
3

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