Todd, half of mystery-writing duo, has died
Many mystery writers publish under a pen name. Caroline Todd may have been the only one to use two at the same time, one masking the other.
She was, first of all, half of the duo who wrote under the name Charles Todd. Her son, also named Charles Todd, was the other.
But as with any good mystery story, there’s a twist: Caroline and Charles Todd are pseudonyms, too. Caroline Todd was the pen name of Carolyn Watjen; Charles Todd is actually David Watjen.
They wrote two series, both set in various isolated villages around England just after World War I. One centered on Ian Rutledge, a Scotland Yard detective and former British army officer with post-traumatic stress disorder, and the other centered on Bess Crawford, an army nurse turned amateur detective.
The books, nearly 40 in all, won the duo awards, critical acclaim and legions of fans among readers and fellow mystery writers. Several were
New York Times bestsellers. “Everyone respected that their books weren’t fluff, that they were about real history, about real people in a real time,” said Rhys Bowen, a mystery novelist. “They were one of the better mystery writers.”
Reviewing their novel “A Matter of Justice” (2008), in which Rutledge investigates the murder of a reviled businessman, Marilyn Stasio wrote in the Times, “The mother and son who write under the name Charles Todd get it all right: a shocking crime in a bucolic setting; secretive characters who act from complex motives; a confounding puzzle elegantly presented and put before a detective with an intuitive understanding of the dark side of human nature.”
Caroline Todd died, Aug. 28, at a hospital in Wilmington, Delaware. She was 86. Her son said the cause was complications of a lung infection. Her death was not widely reported in the mainstream news media at the time.
The idea for the complicated, but quite productive, arrangement between mother and son began almost as a joke. In 1992, the two took a trip to the site of the Battle of King’s Mountain, a Revolutionary War engagement in South Carolina, and they came away fascinated by the story of a British officer who died mysteriously, possibly at the hands of his own men.
“We were driving back, and she said, ‘You know, we ought to try to write a mystery,’” Charles Todd said. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, Mom, sure.’ ”
Both had writing chops: She had published four Gothic romance novels in the 1970s (under yet another pen name), and he was a management consultant with years of experience in technical writing. But he was busy, and they shelved the thought.
Charles Todd returned to the idea, in 1994, when a job change had him on the road, with long stretches of free time, and he decided to take up writing. He suggested that they take turns typing out scenes, without an outline, then send the results to an editor for feedback.
For brevity’s sake, they used a single pen name to submit the book, “A Test of Wills,” in which Rutledge, newly back from World War I, pursues the killer of a country squire. To their surprise, the editor, Ruth Cavin at St. Martin’s Press, decided to publish it. The small first print run, in 1996, immediately sold out, and St. Martin’s offered them a three-book deal.