Abigail Melanie Grant (1918-2021)
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
-Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, 1751.
That is from Abbey’s favorite poem. She used to have it hanging in her office as a reminder, she said, of getting too full of oneself. If there was one thing Abbey wasn’t it was full of herself. Abbey was born Abigail Melanie Kenilworth on March 9, 1918, in Hoboken, New Jersey, a few months after her father was killed fighting the Germans in the Battle of Paris. She grew up hearing stories of how he fought bravely to save the Louvre. She was very close to her mother, Viola, and her stepfather, James Grant.
Though her brothers Cyrus and Peter were allowed to join the army when they were old enough, Abbey was both too young and a woman. When America joined the Second Great War in 1935, Abbey tried to join as a soldier, but she was found out and sent home. When Cyrus died at the Battle of Monte Casino against the French the next year, Abbey poured her grief into a mystery novel. Mile Square Blues, which introduced detective Cyrus Michaels, was published in 1938, on the suggestion of her mother and stepfather.
That novel was followed by 21 others including Cyrus Says, Garden Varieties, Beside the City that Never Sleeps and Outrun the Devil. Though she was proposed to many times, Abbey always said that she was married to her work. Eventually, Abbey branched out into nonfiction writing several True Crime stories set in various U.S. States and a couple of Canadian Providences.
I first met Abbey in 1969, while she was researching for Lake O’ the Wisps about Manitoba’s Will-O’-the-Wisps killer and her theories about that case. We became good friends after that and kept in touch ever since. She gave me her views on politics (“Never trust a politician if you can help it. Only one in a billion is worth a damn.”), marriage (“What’s the use of ruining a perfectly good friendship? Unless you’re lucky, you’re stuck with that person forever. Even if you do get divorced”) and sex (“I don’t understand the appeal. A lot of grunting and moaning for a brief moment of euphoria. Not for me thank you very much.”).
Still writing into her 70s, she only stopped when her vision started going. Abigail Grant died April 4, 2021 at age 103.
Bibliography:
Cyrus Michaels
Mile Square Blues (1938)
The Wild Beyond the Outskirts (1940)
Cyrus Says (1941)
Grants and Gin (1943)
Garden Varieties (1945)
Bodies and Bunkum (1946)
Beside the City that Never Sleeps (1949)
Cyrus Times (1950)
The Wanderers (1953)
The Inevitable Hour (1957)
Hart and Dole (1960)
Cyrus’s Interests (1961)
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1965)
Here There Be Monsters (1966)
Cowardice of Curs (1968)
Outrun the Devil (1973)
Twelve Days (1975)
A Study in the Field (1977)
Stations of the Cross (1982)
If Wishes Were Horses (1986)
Might and Wright (1991)
The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed (1994)
Non-fiction
The House by the Lake (1963)
Lake O’ the Wisps (1969)
The Ladies of Salem (1979)
Death With a Smile (1984)
A Guide Through Hell (1990)
A Noise of Thunder (1993)
Plots Have I Laid (1997)
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
-Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, 1751.
That is from Abbey’s favorite poem. She used to have it hanging in her office as a reminder, she said, of getting too full of oneself. If there was one thing Abbey wasn’t it was full of herself. Abbey was born Abigail Melanie Kenilworth on March 9, 1918, in Hoboken, New Jersey, a few months after her father was killed fighting the Germans in the Battle of Paris. She grew up hearing stories of how he fought bravely to save the Louvre. She was very close to her mother, Viola, and her stepfather, James Grant.
Though her brothers Cyrus and Peter were allowed to join the army when they were old enough, Abbey was both too young and a woman. When America joined the Second Great War in 1935, Abbey tried to join as a soldier, but she was found out and sent home. When Cyrus died at the Battle of Monte Casino against the French the next year, Abbey poured her grief into a mystery novel. Mile Square Blues, which introduced detective Cyrus Michaels, was published in 1938, on the suggestion of her mother and stepfather.
That novel was followed by 21 others including Cyrus Says, Garden Varieties, Beside the City that Never Sleeps and Outrun the Devil. Though she was proposed to many times, Abbey always said that she was married to her work. Eventually, Abbey branched out into nonfiction writing several True Crime stories set in various U.S. States and a couple of Canadian Providences.
I first met Abbey in 1969, while she was researching for Lake O’ the Wisps about Manitoba’s Will-O’-the-Wisps killer and her theories about that case. We became good friends after that and kept in touch ever since. She gave me her views on politics (“Never trust a politician if you can help it. Only one in a billion is worth a damn.”), marriage (“What’s the use of ruining a perfectly good friendship? Unless you’re lucky, you’re stuck with that person forever. Even if you do get divorced”) and sex (“I don’t understand the appeal. A lot of grunting and moaning for a brief moment of euphoria. Not for me thank you very much.”).
Still writing into her 70s, she only stopped when her vision started going. Abigail Grant died April 4, 2021 at age 103.
Bibliography:
Cyrus Michaels
Mile Square Blues (1938)
The Wild Beyond the Outskirts (1940)
Cyrus Says (1941)
Grants and Gin (1943)
Garden Varieties (1945)
Bodies and Bunkum (1946)
Beside the City that Never Sleeps (1949)
Cyrus Times (1950)
The Wanderers (1953)
The Inevitable Hour (1957)
Hart and Dole (1960)
Cyrus’s Interests (1961)
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1965)
Here There Be Monsters (1966)
Cowardice of Curs (1968)
Outrun the Devil (1973)
Twelve Days (1975)
A Study in the Field (1977)
Stations of the Cross (1982)
If Wishes Were Horses (1986)
Might and Wright (1991)
The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed (1994)
Non-fiction
The House by the Lake (1963)
Lake O’ the Wisps (1969)
The Ladies of Salem (1979)
Death With a Smile (1984)
A Guide Through Hell (1990)
A Noise of Thunder (1993)
Plots Have I Laid (1997)