Patricia McGerr

Patricia ("Pat") McGerr was an American crime writer, primarily known for her puzzle mystery novels, who was born in 1917. She is principally known for having created a hitherto-unknown twist on the traditional whodunnit. Her best-known novel, "Pick Your Victim" (1946) ["Pick Your Victim" as by Pat McGerr, Doubleday, 1946; Collins, 1947, also published as Dell mapback number #307.] , tells the story of a small group of American soldiers in an isolated Arctic base who are desperate for reading material and diversion. They find a torn scrap of newspaper which has arrived as the cushioning for a parcel. The torn scrap tells part of the story of a man who has been convicted of a murder, and who is known personally by one of the GIs -- the murderer is known, but the name of the victim has been torn away. The GIs form a betting pool and pump their informant for every bit of information about any potential victim to enable them to better place their bets, and the story told by the informant is the body of the novel. At the end, the name of the victim is revealed.

McGerr's other novels were sometimes ingenious but rarely commercially successful. "The Seven Deadly Sisters" (1947) ["The Seven Deadly Sisters", Doubleday, 1947; Collins, 1948, also published as Dell mapback #412] attempts a similar inversion of the whodunnit formula, with less success. The reader learns that one of seven sisters has murdered her husband, but which sister is not known until the end. Near the end of her writing career, McGerr created a continuing character, Selena Mead, who became involved in espionage-based plots in and around Washington D.C.