William Murray (writer)

William Murray (April 8, 1926, New York City – March 9, 2005, NYC) was an American fiction editor and staff writer at The New Yorker for more than thirty years.

Biography

He was the son of Natalia Danesi Murray, editor at publishing houses Mondadori and Rizzoli, and William Murray, head of the William Morris Agency in New York. He attended Harvard University, but left after a year. He served in the military. At one time he wanted to be an opera singer. He wrote a book about growing up with his mother and the latter's partner, Janet Flanner, Janet, my mother, and me (2000).

Career

He wrote a series of mystery novels set in the world of horse racing, many featuring Shifty Lou Anderson, a professional magician and horseplayer. Among his many contributions to The New Yorker was the magazine's "Letters from Italy" of which he was the sole author. The majority of his later years were spent living in Del Mar, California, "exactly 3.2 miles from the finish line" of Del Mar Thoroughbred Club. Murray died in March 2005 at age 78. Just prior to his death, Murray had completed a book about Chicago’s Lyric Opera Center for American Artists.

Selected works

Shifty Lou Anderson Series

1. Tip on a Dead Crab (1985)
2. The Hard Knocker's Luck (1985)
3. When the Fat Man Sings (1987)
4. The King of the Nightcap (1989)
5. The Getaway Blues (1990)
6. I'm Getting Killed Right Here (1991)
7. We're Off to See the Killer (1993)
8. Now You See Her, Now You Don't (1995)
9. A Fine Italian Hand (1996)
10. mystery on the island

External links

• William Murray Papers MSS 691. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library.
• [1] Obituary for William Murray in The New York Times, March 12, 2005