author
Annie Haynes
1864–1929
A forgotten but once-popular British mystery writer, she helped shape early Golden Age crime fiction with clever plots and a steady stream of novels in the 1920s. Her books often center on suspicious deaths, hidden motives, and patient detective work.
1 Audiobook
The Crow's Inn tragedy
by Annie Haynes
About the author
Born in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, in September 1864, Annie Haynes became a British mystery writer whose fiction found a wide readership in the 1920s. Reliable sources agree that she died on March 30, 1929, and that much of her personal life remains only lightly documented.
Her first crime novel, The Bungalow Mystery, appeared in 1923, and it was followed by a run of detective novels over the rest of the decade. She is especially associated with classic puzzle-style mysteries and with recurring investigators including Inspector Stoddart and Inspector Furnival.
Accounts of her life suggest she lived in London by the early 1900s and moved in literary and feminist circles. Modern reissue publishers and crime-fiction historians have helped bring her work back into view, presenting her as a notable but long-overlooked voice from the early years of British detective fiction.