Wright, Sally S.

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WRIGHT, Sally S.

PERSONAL:

Married; children: two. Education: Graduated from Northwestern University; earned graduate degree from University of Washington.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Multnomah Publishers, 204 West Adams, Sisters, OR 97759.

CAREER:

Mystery writer.

WRITINGS:

Publish and Perish, Multnomah Publishers (Sisters, OR), 1997.

Pride and Predator, Multnomah Publishers (Sisters, OR), 1997.

Pursuit and Persuasion, Multnomah Publishers (Sisters, OR), 2000.

Out of the Ruins, Multnomah Publishers (Sisters, OR), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Sally S. Wright is the author of a series of mysteries featuring Ben Reese, World War II hero, one-time military intelligence analyst, and an archivist at Alderton, a small Midwestern university, during the 1960s. Reese is also a widower, and his grief lends an emotional depth to his conservative, intellectual character.

In Publish and Perish Reese grows suspicious after the sudden death of his good friend and colleague Richard West, and draws on his intelligence training to undertake his own investigation. He eventually uncovers a dangerous, remorseless murderer. With its academic setting, much of the book draws on the realm of ideas. "But Ben is not indulging in nebulous psychologizing, nor is Sally Wright. She plays fair with her clues. She also takes us through scenes of physical agony and moral squalor," wrote National Review contributor Linda Bridges. New York Times reviewer Marilyn Stasio noted that Wright "puts a clever twist on the campus mystery by setting Publish and Perish … in that transitional period of the early 1960s before scholars lost the ideological turf wars to bottom-line administrators."

Reese's next two adventures take him to the Scottish highlands. In Pride and Predator he must investigate the sudden death of a minister, best friend of a Scottish laird who is convinced that murder is afoot. The result is "an enjoyable tour of a pretty Scottish countryside, filled with castles, Bentleys, proper behavior (murder aside, of course) and quirky old uncles. The characters are often delightfully drawn, as in the classic mode of a British cozy, with the added element of a tough-as-nails American," wrote Martha Moore for the Mystery Reader Web site.

Pursuit and Persuasion also finds Reese in Scotland, this time investigating the death of Georgina Fletcher, who has left a letter, asking for an investigation of her own murder, and a series of poetic clues. A number of eccentric and interesting characters play their part, as does the romantic setting, "But this is not a drawing-room novel, and the climactic scene, on a hidden beach overshadowed by the ruins of a Scottish castle, is a masterpiece," concluded Linda Bridges in National Review.

In Out of the Ruins, Reese's fourth outing, he travels to Cumberland Island, an unspoiled wilderness off the coast of Georgia and a tempting target for eager developers, aggressive National Parks Department agents, and greedy relatives of bed-ridden matriarch Hannah Hill, who owns ninety percent of the island. When Hannah suddenly dies, her nephew Ben Reese must bring her murderer to justice. Despite "Too many interior monologues [that] take too many characters' emotional temperatures.… readers will fall in love with Cumberland," wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Others found more to appreciate. Though criticizing Wright's "choppy sentences," a Publishers Weekly reviewer concluded that "this otherwise impeccable mystery manages to take conventional plot devices—an isolated island, a startling will, a generations-old family feud—and makes them fresh." "There's rich tradition of literary mysteries of faith, and the finely crafted Ben Reese series deserves its place among them," noted Christianity Today contributor Cindy Crosby.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Christianity Today, February, 2003, Cindy Crosby, review of Out of the Ruins, p. 91.

Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 2002, review of Out of the Ruins, p. 1662.

National Review, May 3, 1999, Linda Bridges, review of Publish and Perish, p. 61; September 11, 2000, Linda Bridges, review of Pursuit and Persuasion.

New York Times Book Review, March 30, 1997, Marilyn Stasio, review of Publish and Perish, p. 23.

Publishers Weekly, December 23, 2002, review of Out of the Ruins, p. 50.