Mystery
Monday: The Elusive Emma Lou Fetta
More is known about Susan Yates, Emma Lou Fetta’s
fashion designing protagonist, than the author herself. Born Emma Louise
Hawkins Fetta on September 21, 1898, she attended Earlham College, a Quaker institution
located in her hometown of Richmond, Indiana. Initially a boarding school at
its founding in 1947, a collegiate department was added in 1859. Ahead of its
time, Earlham was the first co-educational Quaker college.
From 1918 to 1920, Emma worked as a reporter for the
Richmond (IN) newspaper, the Palladium
then moved on to the Cincinnati Enquirer
where she was a feature writer. A talented journalist, she went on to work for
Chicago and New York papers before becoming the American correspondent for one
of the London paper and press chairman for the Fashion Group.
Information is sketchy, but somewhere during that time
she met and married George Walling Minster. It is unclear how and where they
became acquainted.
In 1939, she added novelist to her resume when she
published Murder in Style, the first
of her three books. Because of Emma’s experience reporting the world of
fashion, it is no surprise she chose that as her setting. In Murder in Style, the main character,
Susan, is suspected of the crime- killing of a fellow committee member, so she attempts
to prove her innocence. Assistant ADA Lyle Curtis is assigned to the case,
adding romantic tension to the story.
In Mystery
Women, the author observed that this pairing formed the combination that
became common in the 1980s of an established female professional in another
field romantically tied to a male whose profession dealt with crime.
Emma Lou’s second book Murder on the Face of It, published in 1940, was chosen as a Crime Club Mystery Novel. Her third, Dressed to Kill was released in 1941.
All three books are well-written, delightful cozies (before cozies became a
subgenre) and received high marks from critics and readers. Why she stopped
writing mysteries is a mystery itself.
Who is your favorite cozy writer?
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