Victor Lorenzo Whitechurch was born in 1868, was educated at Chichester Grammar School and Chichester Theological College and eventually became a canon of the Anglican Church, living and working for many years in the country rather than in towns and cities.

He held various positions as curate before he became vicar of St. Michael's, Blewbury in 1904. In 1913 he became Chaplain to the Bishop of Oxford, and an honorary canon of Christ Church and in 1918 he became Rural Dean of Aylesbury.

He began his writing career with religious works, as befitted his profession, and edited 'The Chronicle of St George' in 1891 before producing his own work 'The Course of Justice' in 1903. He wrote his first quasi-detective novel, also considered as a clerical romance, in 1904 when 'The Canon in Residence' was published and was later adapted for stage and radio.

He also contributed detective stories to the Strand Magazine, the Railway Magazine and Pearson's and Harmsworth's Magazines. Some of his railway stories were published as 'Thrilling Stories of the Railway' in 1912, 15 stories in all, nine of which feature his specialst in railway detection, Thorpe Hazell, a strict vegetarian.

After producing a variety of romantic novels, he returned to thrillers with 'The Templeton Case', 1924, and another collection of short stories on a railway and spy theme, 'The Adventures of Captain Ivan Koravitch' in 1925.

Two quite different books appeared from his pen in 1927, 'The Truth in Christ Jesus' and 'The Crime at Diana's Pool' before he devoted his final years almost solely to detective fiction, writing four further such novels between 1927 and 1932, the last of them 'Murder at the College' written after he had suffered a long and debilitating illness.

Although his thriller output was relatively low, 12 of his 27 books being of the genre, Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor in their splendid 'Catalogue of Crime' wrote of him, "He was the greatest improviser in the genre - all but one of his stories has distinct merit." Ellery Queen and Dorothy L Sayers meanwhile admired his books for their "immaculate plotting and factual accuracy" believing him to be "one of the first writers to submit his manuscripts to Scotland Yard for vetting as to police procedure."

He died in 1933.

Gerry Wolstenholme
May 2010