10 Dorothy Salisbury Davis Books to Show You Why She's a Hidden Gem

On a hot Saturday night in Manhattan, Father Duffy sits in a confessional, growing alarmed as he listens to the voice of a distraught young man who talks of death and dark thoughts leading him to murder. Before the priest can persuade the man to confess to the police, the killer flees, still clutching a bloodied hammer in his hands. 

The next day, Father Duffy learns that a high-class call girl on the East Side has been savagely murdered. No suspect has been arrested by Father Duffy knows what's happened. Only he can locate the disturbed man responsible for his spree. Joining forces with New York Police detective Sergeant Ben Goldsmith, it's a race against time before the hammer falls again.

General Ransom Jarvis is writing his memoirs, detailing his distinguished career in the army that spanned decades, wars, and continents. He even stumbles across a juicy drama involving one of his ancestors, an American ambassador to England who went on to become president of the United States. But there's a more pressing matter to deal with that has left the General potentially embroiled in a great scandal of fraud and murder. 

Enter Mrs. Norris, the housekeeper who has been almost a mother to Ransom's son Jimmie since he was a boy. Jimmie is currently running for governor of New York but a sudden death leaves him and Mrs. Norris forced to solve a bizarre case headed up by Jasper Tully, chief investigator for the Manhattan district attorney's office. Generations of family pain and secrets are on the line if they don't uncover the truth.

Former actress Julie Hayes lives in the shadow of her globe-trotting journalist husband. She wants some excitement in her life and to be the center of attention for once. On what amounts to a dare, she sets herself up as “Friend Julie,” a storefront fortune-teller in Manhattan’s seedy Theater District. She spins great yarns while mingling with the neighborhood's most eccentric characters. 

When a man is found murdered in the room of a young prostitute, Julie finds herself embroiled in the case. Her tarot cards reveal a future she might not live to see.

John Eakins is a writer who has moved to Greece, ostensibly to pursue his studies in the works of Byron. But his deeper concern is to find out the truth about the murder of Alexander Webb, a fellow writer who was killed during the Greek Communist rebellion 17 years before. 

Eakins took the fall for Webb's death, and now he wants to uncover the truth. His search takes him from Athens to the primitive village of Kaléa, where he finds Paul Stephanou, a blind man also implicated in the Webb murder. Former enemies, they must now work together to find our what happened to Webb and reveal a nefarious plot that could tear the whole country apart.

Father McMahon is struggling to write a sermon when a boy runs into his office. A man in his tenement is dying, the boy says, covered in blood with a knife wound in his chest. It's too late for a doctor. The man doesn't want the police here, nor does he want to reveal his killer's name. All he wants is to talk of life with Father McMahon. 

No one in the neighborhood—neither his lover nor his friends—knows the man’s real name, where he came from, or why someone would want to kill him. But in his final minutes, he reveals one clue that sends Father McMahon on a trail through New York to find out the truth.

But in the fall of 1943, the village of St. Hilaire, France, is struggling amid the Nazi occupation of France. Paris has fallen, the Gestapo roam the streets, and nobody knows who is their neighbor and who is their traitor. For Sister Gabrielle, a novice in the local convent, her dedication to her faith has never been more strained. But she's about to get a chance to stand up to evil. Marc and Rachel Daridan are a Jewish couple who have arrived in St. Hilaire in need of sanctuary. The secret police are on their trail and they need help to avoid the death camps. Sister Gabrielle and her fellow nuns must risk everything to help their fellow man.

For generations, bitter old Andy Mattson was viewed as the reclusive grouch of Hillside, one who kept to himself and became a boogeyman of sorts to the locals young and old alike. His life was a mystery: how did this bitter old man, who seemed to spend his life stroking his cat on the front porch, support himself? How did he pass the days? And why did he die such a gruesome death, covered in blood and with his eyes wide in fear? The only real suspect is Andy's cat, but Waterman, the Hillside Chief of Police, thinks something fishy is going on. The more he digs into the strange death, the more secrets he uncovers about Andy and the seemingly idyllic town he calls home.

Phil McGovern is the sports editor of an Ohio newspaper, but he'd rather be traveling the world reporting on big stories like his friend Dick Coffee. But tragedy has struck and Phil must go to Winston, a mining town on the West Virginia border, after Dick is reported dead. No one knows what Dick was doing in Winston, a small town built around coal mining. The authorities think he jumped to his death but that doesn't sound right to Phil. With the inquest delayed and people saying Dick drank heavily and kept company with a local woman, Phil joins forces with Sheriff Sam Fields to find out what his friend was up to. What was he reporting on, and what did he uncover that may have led to his murder?

These eight stories of suspense were first published when the author was in her seventies and eighties but still at the height of her powers. In “Christopher and Maggie,” based on Davis’s own experiences during the Great Depression, a traveling magician stumbles upon a murder and becomes embroiled in solving it. In other stories: a woman does her good deed for the day by picking up a hitch-hiker but it quickly backfires; a former detective decides to commit the perfect crime by bumping off his wife; a man gets involved in a road accident from which he simply cannot drive away; and a gossip columnist turned part-time sleuth gets to work on a unique case.

This collection compiles many of the author's most well-known short stories, the first of which was published in 1952. "Lost Generation" chronicles the story of a small-town policemen who straddles the barriers between good and evil. In "A Matter of Public Notice," a midwestern town is set on edge by three strangulations of women who live alone, with no end in sight to the carnage. "Spring Fever" follows a lonely farmer's wife who finds love with a stranger but soon suffers the consequences of a fatal attraction. In "Mrs. Norris Observes," a crime-solving housekeeper stumbles across an explosive scene at the New York Public Library.