Roy Vickers
Roy C. Vickers was a British writer and journalist known for his contributions to mystery fiction, particularly through his short stories. He attended Charterhouse School and later studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he also pursued law. Over his career, Vickers produced more than sixty-five novels and numerous short stories, gaining particular recognition for his series featuring the fictional Department of Dead Ends, which focused on unsolved crimes. This series began in 1934 and continued for nearly twenty years, with stories characterized by inverted mysteries where the criminal is known, but the focus is on their capture.
Vickers's writing style and quality have been critiqued, with some reviewers suggesting that while his postwar short stories showcase his talent, his novels may not meet contemporary literary standards due to their sensational nature and hasty production. Despite this, his work significantly contributed to the mystery genre, and one of his notable novels, "Murdering Mr. Velfrage," exemplifies his inverted mystery approach. Vickers passed away in 1965, leaving behind a legacy in British literature that continues to be acknowledged and examined.
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Roy Vickers
Fiction Writer
- Born: 1888 or 1889
- Died: 1965
Biography
Roy C. Vickers attended the Charterhouse School in Surrey, then Brasenose College in Oxford, England. He also studied law. He spent his career as a journalist, court reporter, salesman, editor and writer. Although Vickers wrote more than sixty-five novels under his own name and various pseudonyms, he remains best known for his short stories.
Perhaps his most memorable stories were those about the Department of Dead Ends, Vickers’s made-up department of Scotland Yard that deals with unsolved crimes. The series started in 1934 and ran for approximately twenty years. Each of the Department of Dead Ends stories are inverted mysteries in which the person who committed the crime is known and the problem is how the criminal will be caught by the police. One reviewer wrote that Vickers’s postwar stories “unexpectedly revealed Vickers to be one of the finest British short story writers.” His stories “have a quality which sets him apart as a major contributor to mystery fiction,” said a reviewer.
One critic commented that his novels “are not of high quality by the standards of today.” He wrote them hastily for the mass market of the time; most of today’s readers would find them outdated. They are “sensational thrillers . . . filled with master criminals and their gangs, plots of immense proportions, handsome and daring heroes who rescue, and fall in love with, beautiful and innocent maidens,” as a critic put it. One of Vickers’s better novels, Murdering Mr. Velfrage, published in 1950, is also an inverted mystery.
Vickers died in 1965.