Created by Jane Haddam
Pseudonym of Orania Papazoglou
(1951-2019 )
And although GREGOR DEMARKIAN probably doesn’t really consider himself a private eye (he’s even embarrassed that his local paper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, frequently refers to him as “the Armenian-American Hercule Poirot”) and there’s definitely a whiff of traditional mystery lurking about this long-running series. Still, there’s no denying that the retired head of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit sure acts like a P.I at times, being called in as a consultant, a friend and/or a detective over and over again, often from his neighbours in the Cavanaugh Street area, Philadelphia’s Armenian-American enclave.
Gregor has a long-standing relationship with lady friend Bennis Hannaford, whom he eventually marries later on in the series. But don’t dismiss these books too quickly–sure, they’re loaded with the tropes of cozier fare, but there’s an unsettling darkness and a disturbing ambiguity in many of the characters and motives, particularly in the latter novels. Nothing–and nobody–is ever quite what they seem. Or, as her son Matthew once put it, in a tribute to his mother, “the central thesis of every novel my mother ever wrote, and the Gregor Demarkian series in particular (was that) people are more complicated than you think they are.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jane Haddam was the pen name of Orania Papazoglou, the author of over thirty novels, most featuring Gregor Demarkian. She was a finalist for both the Edgar and the Anthony Award. She was the widow of mystery writer and fellow mystery fan William DeAndrea.
STRAIGHT FROM THE AUTHOR’S MOUTH
- “My husband [mystery author William DeAndrea] got cancer and died young and left me with two small children, and the rest of my life blew up, and suddenly the books had a very different tone to them than they’d had at the beginning. You could see glimmers in some of the earliest books—say, Precious Blood—but things definitely changed, and that was when St. Martin’s took over.”
— Jane Haddam
NOVELS
- Not a Creature Was Stirring (1990) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Act of Darkness (1991)
- Precious Blood (1991)
- Quoth the Raven (1991)
- Feast of Murder (1992)
- A Great Day for the Deadly (1992)
- A Stillness in Bethlehem (1992)
- Murder Superior (1993)
- Bleeding Hearts (1994)
- Dear Old Dead (1994)
- Festival of Deaths (1994)
- Fountain of Death (1995)
- And One to Die On (1996)
- Baptism in Blood 1996)
- Deadly Beloved 1997)
- Skeleton Key (2000)
- True Believers (2001)
- Somebody Else’s Music (2002)
- Conspiracy Theory (2003)
- The Headmaster’s Wife (2005)
- Hardscrabble Road (2006) | Buy this book
- Glass Houses (2007) | Buy this book
- Cheating at Solitaire (2008) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Living Witness (2009) | Buy this book
- Wanting Sheila Dead (2010) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Flowering Judas (2011)
- Blood in the Water (2012)
- Hearts of Sand (2013)
- Fighting Chance (2014) | Buy this book |Buy the audio |Kindle it!
- One of Our Own (2020) | Buy this book |Buy the audio |Kindle it!
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- My Mother, The Mystery Writer
Matt De’Andrea remembers Orania Papazoglou (aka Jane Haddam). (November 2020, CrimeReads)
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
