William Edward Vickers
William Edward Vickers was an English mystery writer better known under his pen name Roy Vickers, but used also the pseudonyms Roy C. Vickers, David Durham, Sefton Kyle, and John Spencer. He is the author of over 60 crime novels and 80 short stories. Vickers is now remembered mostly for his attribution to Scotland Yard of a Department of Dead Ends, specialized in solving old, sometimes long-forgotten cases, mostly by chance encounters of odd bits of strange and apparently disconnected evidence.
He was educated at Charterhouse School, and left Brasenose College, Oxford without a degree. For some time he studied law at the Middle Temple, but never practised. He married Mary Van Rossem and they had one son. He worked as a journalist, as a court reporter and as a magazine editor; he also wrote a large number of nonfiction articles and sold hundreds of them to newspapers and magazines. Between November 1913 and February 1917, twenty short stories by Vickers were published in The Novel Magazine. About this time he published his first book, a biography of Field Marshal Frederick, Earl Roberts. In 1924 he published The Exploits of Fidelity Dove under the name David Durham, one of the rarest mystery books of the twentieth century.
In September 1934, The Rubber Trumpet, the first of thirty-eight stories featuring the fictitious Department of Dead Ends, appeared in Pearson's Magazine.
In 1960 he edited the Crime Writers' Association's anthology of short stories Some Like Them Dead. The Manchester Evening News called one of his collections, "one of the half-dozen successful books of detective short stories published since the days of Sherlock Holmes".
Vickers's work has been adapted for film and TV, including Girl in the News, Violent Moment, A Question of Suspense, and three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Non-Fiction as Roy Vickers
- ''Lord Roberts: the Story of His Life''
As Roy Vickers
Novels
Humbugs Ltd. Serialised, The Novel Magazine, June to October 1914Bonnie Mary Myles or The Mystery of Old Monkland. Serialised, Dundee People's Journal, 1919The Woman without a Soul The Lady of Lombard Street The Man from Dartmoor. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1920The Brown Arm. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1920The Fatal Necklace. Serialised, San Francisco Examiner, 12, 19 and 26 September 1920The Thief of Love. Serialised, Dundee Evening Telegraph, 1921The Mystery of the Scented Death The Vengeance of Henry Jarroman. Serialised, London Daily Mail, 17 March to 17 May 1921; and Chicago Tribune, 1922The Marriage Flaw. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1922The Door to Desire. Serialised as The Dominant Desire, London Daily Mail, 2 May to 28 June 1922; and Chicago Tribune, 1922The Gay Adventure. Serialised, Dundee Evening Telegraph, 1922The Woman Accused. Serialised as Suppressed Evidence, London Daily Mail, 14 June 14 to 25 July 1923, and reprinted in other newspapers Dundee Evening Telegraph, 1923Ishmael's Wife Murder for a Million The Man in the Shadow. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1924The Man She Bought. Serialised, San Francisco Examiner, 1924Four Past Four. Serialised, Melbourne HeraldThe Pearl-Headed Pin. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1925The Master of Money. London Daily Mail, 1 July to 19 August 1925The Unforbidden Sin. Expanded from the novella qvHis Other Wife The White Raven. Serialised, London Daily Mail, 17 November 1926 to 25 January 1927They Wouldn't Believe. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1927Seals of Silence. Serialised, San Francisco Examiner, 1928Master of Money. Serialised, Evening News, 1928The Radingham Mystery A Girl of These Days. Serialised as If Love Should Change, 26 November 1928 to 14 January 1929The Hawk. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1929Hidden Gold. Serialised, London Evening News and other newspapers, for example Derby Evening Telegraph, 1929The Rose in the Dark. Serialised, Michigan Times Herald, 1930The Victim. Serialised, Topical Times, 1930The Gold Game Deputy for Cain. Serialised, Melbourne Herald, 1931, as The Deputy for CainThe Mystery of the Scented Death The Girl in His Way. Serialised, (Dundee) Sunday Post, 1932The Whisperer. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1932. Published as The Whispering Death The Marriage for the Defence Bardelow's Heir Swell Garrick. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1933Money Buys Everything The Forgotten Honeymoon. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1934Kidnap Island. Serialised, Tit-Bits, 1934The Exploits of Fidelity Dove Hide Those Diamonds Four Past Four Too Dangerous to Live. Serialised, Topical Times, 1937I'll Never Tell. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1936; and Daily Mirror, 1936Find This Girl. Serialised Daily News, 1937The Girl in the News The Life Between The Enemy Within Fate Calls the Tune. Serialised, Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, 1939The Girl in the Shadows. Serialised, Daily News, 1940She Walked in Fear Playgirl Wanted Brenda Gets Married War Bride Six Came to Dinner A Date with Danger The Girl Who Stood Alone. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1942The Wicked Mrs Steel. Serialised, Chicago Tribune, 1945A King's Ransom. Serialised, Daily News, 1947Murder at Bishop's Runt. Daily News, 18 and 25 July 1948The Department of Dead Ends – short story collectionBlackmail. Boston Globe, 9 October 1949Death's Warning. Boston Globe, 16 October 1949Murder of a Snob Dinner for Two. Boston Globe, 12 February 1950Maid to Murder On the Road. Boston Globe, 7 May 1950Murdering Mr Velfrage Anointed Quinine. Boston Globe, 4 June 1950Gold and Wine They Can't Hang Caroline Murder Will Out – short story collectionThe Snatch Racket. Boston Globe, 22 April 1951The Sole Survivor and The Kynsard Affair The Fire Bug. Philadelphia Inquirer, 21 June 1953Eight Murders in the Suburbs – short story collectionDouble Image – short story collectionSeven Chose Murder – short story collectionFind the Innocent The Girl Who Wouldn't Talk Best Detective Stories – short story collectionShort stories
The Stolen Melody. Sheffield Weekly Telegraph, 21 June 1913Harwood's Discovery. Sheffield Weekly Telegraph, 11 October 1913The Goth. The Novel Magazine, November 1913The House that Didn't Exist. Sheffield Weekly Telegraph, 22 November 1913Duplicates. Pearson's Weekly, , 1913. Reprinted Nebraska State Journal, 25 October 1913TITLE UNKNOWN. Chambers's Journal, April 1914The Hands of the Clock. The Novel Magazine, July 1915Polite Society. The Novel Magazine, October 1915Somewhere in London. The Novel Magazine, November 1915The Secret Remedy. The Novel Magazine, December 1915The Lost Platoons. The Novel Magazine, January 1916The Blackleg. Pearson's Weekly, 28 March 1916The Unforbidden Sin. The Novel Magazine, March to June 1916. Reprinted: Detective Story Magazine, 23 and 30 October 1917Honours Easy. The Novel Magazine, January 1917Blackmail. Detective Story Magazine, 11 December 1917A Champion of Poverty. Detective Story Magazine, 25 December 1917Instinct vs Logic. Detective Story Magazine, 1 January 1918A Dicker in Art. Detective Story Magazine, 15 January 1918The Man from Dartmoor. Serialised, Topical Times, Vol 1 No 1 – DATE OF ISSUE UNKNOWNTITLE UNKNOWN. Ideas Magazine, Christmas 1924TITLE UNKNOWN. Pearson's Weekly, October 1927The Red Ember· Complete Detective Novel Magazine, December 1932The Rubber Trumpet. Pearson's Magazine, September 1934The Starting-Handle Murder. Pearson's Magazine, October 1934The Three-Foot Grave. Pearson's Magazine, November 1934TITLE UNKNOWN. Pearson's Magazine, March 1935According to Plan. The Thriller, 26 October 1935The Notorious Miss Walters. Radio Review No 1, October – November 1935The Man Who Murdered in Public. Fiction Parade, 1935The Case of Poor Gertrude. Fiction Parade, 1935Murder in Mayfair.The Yellow JumperThe Hen-Pecked MurdererA Toy for JiffyThe Case of the Social ClimberA Man and His Mother-in-LawThe House-in-Your-HandLittle Things Like ThatKill Me, kill My DogThe Nine-Pound MurderMarion, Come BackThe parrot's beakA fool and her moneyThe lady who laughedThe snob's murderThe Cowboy of Oxford StreetThe Clue of the Red CarnationsBlind Man's BuffThe Meanest Man in EuropeThe Case of the Merry AndrewMean Man's MurderThe Man Who Was Murdered by a BedThe Case of the Honest MurdererThe Eight Pieces of TortoiseshellDinner for TwoThe Crocodile CaseWit's EndThe Patchwork MurderThe Man with the SneerThe Hair ShirtThe Man Who Could Not Hold WomenMiss Paisley's CatLittle Things Like ThatThe Frame-UpThe Man Who Punished HimselfDouble Image- ''The Color of Truth''
As Sefton Kyle
Novels
The Man in the Shadow Dead Man's Dower Guilty – But The Hawk Red Hair The Life He Stole The Man without a Name Silence Number 73 The Durand Case The Notorious Miss Walters The Body in the Safe During Her Majesty's Pleasure Missing Miss X The Judge's Dilemma The Shadow over Fairholme The Girl Known as D13 Sweet Adversity The Price of Silence- ''Love was Married''
Short stories
On the Giant's Head. The Novel Magazine, July 1915. Reprinted as by Roy Vickers. Detective Story Magazine, 28 October 1919As David Durham
Hounded Down The Exploits of Fidelity Dove The Pearl-Headed Pin- ''The Forgotten Honeymoon''
As John Spencer
The Whispering Death- ''Swell Garrick''