Dolores Hitchens

Julia Clara Catherine Maria Dolores Robins Norton Birk Olsen Hitchens (December 25, 1907 – August 1, 1973)

Hitchens collaborated on five railroad mysteries—"police procedurals about a squad of railroad cops"—with her second husband, Bert Hitchens, a railroad detective. In 1910, Dolores (as Julia C. Robbins) and her apparently widowed mother were living with Dolores's paternal grandfather in San Antonio.

Sometime over the next decade, Dolores's mother married a second time, to an unknown Norton, but she was divorced by the time mother and daughter showed up in the 1920 census for Kern County, California.

Myrtle married a third time in 1922, to Oscar ( Arthur) Carl Birk. The Birk family was living in Long Beach by 1930 and Dolores apparently assumed her stepfather's surname.

Hitchens married, in about 1934, Beverley S. Olsen, a radio operator on a merchant vessel, and their 1940 household included the widowed Myrtle Birk.

It is not known whether Dolores divorced Olsen or was widowed, but she apparently married Hubert A. Hitchens, a Railroad Police, by the early 1940s, as they had a child together in 1942.

Dolores died in Orange County, California on August 1, 1973, and Hubert died in Riverside County in 1979.

Publications

As Dolores Hitchens

Jim Sader mysteries Sleep with Strangers (Doubleday: The Crime Club, 1955); U.K. edition, London: Macdonald, 1956 Sleep with Slander (Doubleday CC, 1960); UK: London: T.V. Boardman & Co., 1961, American Bloodhound Mystery no. 345 Simon & Schuster issued trade paperback editions in 1989 (Sleep with Strangers, ; Sleep with Slander, ).

By Dolores and Bert Hitchens F.O.B. Murder (Doubleday CC, 1955); UK: 1957, American Bloodhound no. 154 One-Way Ticket (Doubleday CC, 1956); UK: 1958, American Bloodhound no. 193 End of Line (Doubleday CC, 1957); UK: 1958, American Bloodhound. no. 216 The Man Who Followed Women (Doubleday CC, 1959); UK: 1960, American Bloodhound no. 332 The Grudge (Doubleday, 1963); UK: 1964, American Bloodhound. no. 466

Standalone books Stairway to an Empty Room (Doubleday CC, 1951) Nets to Catch the Wind (Doubleday CC, 1952) — also Widows Won't Wait (NY: Dell Publishing, 1954) Terror Lurks in Darkness (Doubleday CC, 1953) Beat Back the Tide (Doubleday CC, 1954); UK: Macdonald, 1955 — abridged as The Fatal Flirt (NY: Joseph W. Ferman, Bestseller mystery no. 184) Fool's Gold (Doubleday CC, 1958); UK: 1958, American Bloodhound no. 234 The Watcher (Doubleday, 1959); UK: 1959, American Bloodhound. no. 279 Footsteps in the Night (Doubleday CC, 1961); UK: 1961, American Bloodhound no. 366 The Abductor (Simon & Schuster, 1962); UK: 1962, American Bloodhound no. 385 The Bank with the Bamboo Door (Simon & Schuster, 1965); UK: 1965, American Bloodhound no. 504 The Man Who Cried All the Way Home (Simon & Schuster, 1966); UK: London: Robert Hale, 1967 Postscript to Nightmare (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1967) ; UK title, Cabin of Fear (Michael Joseph, 1968) A Collection of Strangers (Putnam, 1969) ; UK title, Collection of Strangers (Macdonald, 1970) The Baxter Letters (Putnam, 1971) ; UK: Hale, 1973 In a House Unknown (Doubleday CC, 1973) ; UK: Hale, 1974

Plays A Cookie for Henry: one-act play for six women (NY: Samuel French, 1941), as Dolores Birk Hitchens

As D. B. Olsen Rachel Murdock mysteries Cat Saw Murder (Doubleday, 1939) Alarm of Black Cat (Doubleday, 1942) Catspaw for Murder (Doubleday, 1943); aka Cat's Claw The Cat Wears a Noose (Doubleday, 1944) Cats Don't Smile (Doubleday, 1945) Cats Don't Need Coffins (Doubleday, 1946) Cats Have Tall Shadows (Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1948) The Cat Wears a Mask (Doubleday, 1949) Death Wears Cat's Eyes (Doubleday, 1950) Cat and Capricorn (Doubleday, 1951) The Cat Walk (Doubleday, 1953) Death Walks on Cat Feet (Doubleday, 1956)

Prof. A. Pennyfeather mysteries Shroud for the Bride (Doubleday, 1945); aka Bring the Bride a Shroud Gallows for the Groom (Doubleday, 1947) Devious Design (Doubleday, 1948) Something About Midnight (Doubleday, 1950) Love Me in Death (Doubleday, 1951) Enrollment Cancelled (Doubleday, 1952); aka Dead Babes in the Wood

Lt. Stephen Mayhew mysteries Death Cuts a Silhouette (Doubleday, 1939) The Ticking Heart (Doubleday, 1940)

As Dolan Birkley Blue Geranium (Bartholomew House, 1944) The Unloved (Doubleday, 1965)

As Noel Burke Shivering Bough (E. P. Dutton, 1942)