William Leonard Marshall
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William Marshall (or William Leonard Marshall) (born 1944, Australia) is an Australian author, best known for his Hong Kong-based "Yellowthread Street" mystery novels, some of which were used as the basis for a British TV series.[1]
In the Yellowthread Street series, the detectives of the Yellowthread Street police station in fictitious Hong Bay, Hong Kong -- DCI Harry Feiffer, a European born and raised in Hong Kong; Senior Inspector Christopher O'Yee, half-Chinese, half-Caucasian American, and all neurotic; and the ever-bickering team of Inspectors Auden and Spencer -- attempt to find the rational basis for inexplicable and seemingly bizarre crimes.[2] The Yellowthread novels show the influence of Ed McBain in their overlapping plotlines, snappy dialogue, world-weary detectives and often-difficult civilians.[3]
Marshall's novels manage to juggle violence, suspense, and slapstick humor in his twist on the police procedural form. He has also written two mystery series based in Manila and late-19th-century New York City, the latter featuring City Detective Virgil Tillman -- New York City's "first thinking detective" -- and his partner, patrolman Ned Muldoon of the Strong Arm Squad.
Contents |
[edit] Yellowthread Street
- Yellowthread Street (1975)
- The Hatchet Man (1976)
- Gelignite (1976)
- Thin Air (1977)
- Skulduggery (1979)
- Sci Fi (1981)
- Perfect End (1981)
- War Machine (1982)
- The Far Away Man (1984), London, Secker and Warburg, ISBN 0436273233
- Roadshow (1985)
- Head First (1986)
- Frogmouth (1987)
- Out of Nowhere (1988)
- Inches (1994)
- Nightmare Syndrome (1997)
- To the End (1998)
[edit] Other works
- The Fire Circle Melbourne, Macmillan (1969)
- The Age of Death New York, Viking Press ISBN 0670109614 (1971)
- Whisper: a Manilla Bay mystery New York, Viking Press ISBN 067081959X (1988)
- Faces In The Crowd New York, Mysterious Press edition ISBN 0446401625 (1991)
