Genre Crime fiction Name Margaret Yorke | Role Fiction writer | |
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Occupation Writer
Crime Writers Association chair (1979-80) Died November 17, 2012, Long Crendon, United Kingdom Awards Cartier Diamond Dagger, Martin Beck Award Books Dead in the morning, Almost the truth, No Medals for the Major, The price of guilt, Summer Flight | ||
Margaret Yorke (30 January 1924 – 17 November 2012) was an English crime fiction writer, real name Margaret Beda Nicholson (née Larminie). She had changed to the Yorke pen name to avoid readers' confusion with a similarly named published family member.
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Life and work
Born in Compton, Surrey, near Godalming, she spent her childhood in Dublin, moving to England in 1937. During World War II she worked as a hospital librarian, then at eighteen she joined the WRNS as a driver. She lived in Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire until her death in 2012.
She published her first novel Summer Flight in 1957, and in Dead in the Morning invented an Oxford don sleuth, Patrick Grant, who shared her love of Shakespeare. Her most recent novels are A Case to Answer (2000) and Cause for Concern (2001). Her five Patrick Grant books were reissued in paperback by House of Stratus in 2012.
She was chairman of the Crime Writers Association in 1979-80. She was awarded the 1999 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger, and the 1982 Martin Beck Award from the Swedish Academy of Detection for The Scent of Fear. Yorke died at the age of 88 on 17 November 2012.