Patricia Carlon

Patricia Bernadette Carlon (Wagga Wagga NSW 9 January 1927 – Bexley NSW 29 July 2002) was an Australian crime fiction writer whose most notable works are fourteen suspenseful novels published between 1961 and 1970. She sometimes used the pseudonyms Patricia Bernard and Barbara Christie. She was rediscovered in the 1990s, after The Whispering Wall (1969) and The Souvenir (1970) were republished as part of a series of Australian Classic Crime.[1] These and other novels have subsequently been reissued in the United States[2] and Australia.[3]

Carlon lived almost all her life with, or next door to, her parents, in Wagga Wagga and the Sydney suburbs of Homebush and Bexley.[4] Her income source from her late teens onwards was writing articles and short stories for magazines as well as her novels. She refused all interviews.

After her death it became known that she had been profoundly deaf since the age of 11: something even her publishers had been unaware of, as she always communicated with them by letter. Her deafness has since been related to themes and plots in her novels, in which people in possession of the truth about a crime are often isolated and in peril, either through being physically trapped, or because they are unable make others believe them.[4][5]

Selected novels
  • Circle of Fear (1961)
  • Danger in the Dark (1962)
  • Who Are You, Linda Condrick? (1962)
  • The Price of an Orphan (1964)
  • The Unquiet Night (1965)
  • Crime of Silence (1965)
  • Betray Me If You Dare (1966)
  • The Running Woman (1966)
  • See Nothing, Say Nothing (1967)
  • Hush, It's a Game (1967)
  • Forty Pieces of Alloy (1968)
  • The Whispering Wall (1969)
  • The Souvenir (1970)
  • Death by Demonstration (1970)

References and notes
  1. Wakefield Crime Classics, series editors Michael J. Tolley and Peter Moss, Wakefield Press, Kent Town, South Australia
  2. SoHo Press, NY, have published several of the novels including The Whispering Wall (1996), The Price of an Orphan (1999), The Running Woman (1998), Crime of Silence (1998), Hush, Its a Game (2001) and The Souvenir (2003)
  3. Text Publishing, Melbourne, published The Unquiet Night and Crime of Silence in 2002.
  4. Windham, Susan ‘Ace thriller writer trapped in a silent world’ Sydney Morning Herald 25 September 2002.
  5. Adrian, Jack 'Patricia Carlon; suspense writer rediscovered in her 60s.' The Independent 8 October 2002.
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