Deceiving Mirror

Margaret Beda Larminie, or Margaret Yorke as she became, is one of the most renowned and prolific female British mystery authors. During the Second World War she initially worked as a librarian before serving as a driver for the Women's Royal Naval Service. After the end of the war, she returned to literary pursuits, becoming the first woman to work at Christ Church library in Oxford. Yorke's spell here influenced her only serial character, the Shakespeare-loving, Oxford don sleuth Patrick Grant. She was actively involved in the crime writing community, chairing the Crime Writers' Association between 1979 and 1980. Yorke's novels met with great critical success; in 1993 she was awarded the CWA Golden Handcuffs and in 1999 received the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for an outstanding lifetime contribution to the genre. Her last book was Cause for Concern (2001). She died in 2012.

A star in our galaxy of crime writers