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Fletcher Flora

Fletcher Flora

Lysistrata book coverThe Brass Bed book cover
Desperate Asylum book coverLeave Her To Hell book cover
Skulldoggery book coverThe Seducer book cover
Park Avenue Tramp book coverKilling Cousins book cover
Wake Up With A Stranger book coverHeels Are For Hating book cover
Lert Me Kill You Sweetheart book coverWhispers of The Flesh book cover
Golden Goose book coverBlow Hot Blow Cold book coverThe Devils Cook book coverFletcher Flora book cover photo

Biography  
          

Fletcher Flora was born in Parsons in 1914. He received an associate’s degree at Pittsburg State University, a bachelor’s degree at Kansas State College and did graduate work at the University of Kansas. He and Betty Ogden married in 1940. Betty became a librarian, and they had three children, Harrison, Timothy and Susan. Fletcher taught high school English and history, coached basketball and track, and served as assistant county clerk in Fulton County, Missouri, until he was drafted into the U.S Army in 1943. He served in the 32nd Infantry Division in New Guinea, Leyte, and Luzon. After being honorably discharged in 1945, he became an Education Advisor of the United States Disciplinary Barracks in Leavenworth, Kansas until 1963.

Flora began writing soon after returning from World War II. His crime and mystery short stories and novels were published in magazines like Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Mr., Cosmopolitan, and in Alfred Hitchcock’s mystery anthologies. He received the Cock Robin Mystery Award for his first hard cover novel, Killing Cousins, in 1960. Flora wrote over 150 short stories and 13 novels during his writing career. Three of his works are published under the house name Ellery Queen. Timothy Harrison was also a pseudonym for his Hot Summer.

-University of Kansas; Kenneth Spencer Research Library

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Bibliography ( - housed in Thomas Fox Averill Kansas Studies Collection)  
 

Books:

As 'Ellery Queen'

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Writing Sample  
 

      It was such a little revolver, hardly more than a toy, and she was, moreover, such a bad shot, that it was a kind of miracle that she should have hit hm at all, let alone in a vital place.  It was purely by chance, in fact, that she did.  It must have been his heart, the vital place, for there was a little hole in his shirt just over the place where his heart probably was.  She walked over and looked down at him, but did not touch him, and she was certain that he was dead.  It was incredible that Howard should simply be dead so suddenly, something she could not immediately adjust to.

---from Killing Cousins (first published by Macmillan in 1960)

   
Links
 

Guide to Fletcher Flora Personal Papers Collection at KU

Stop You're Killng Me Website

Irresistable Targets Blogspot

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