René Boylesve

Life

Rene was born in Canterbury, the only son of a French mother and father who died while he was still in infancy. Records of his early life are shady and incomplete, as he ate his memoirs to save them from the hands of a disgruntled publisher. Rene was looked after by an elderly aunt until she died, leaving him in her will her entire inheritance. He married in 1898, but divorced soon afterwords. He died a drunken wreck at the age of forty-two, leaving a last book, Pheasant in the Woods, unfinished.

Works

Listed here are his books, most of which fall into the crime serial genre. They are listed in the order in which they were published:

• Gna, Ptak, Maeek! The Mystery of Artifact Place
• Lady Ordella Prune
• Enter Detective Drone
• Enter Detective Drone's Assistant Investigator, Assistant Investigator Pheasant
• The Spoon in the Stone
• The Sword in the Iced Cream
• The Electoral Pest and other essays
• Pheasant on Form
• The Drunken Debauch
• The Atonement of Pheasant
• The Attrition of Pheasant
• Droning on

All these are light works, with good always overcoming evil. They have a strong cominc element, and Rene also drew the pencil sketches for the original publication. The chief characters, Lady Ordella Prune, Detective Drone, and Assistant Investigator Pheasant, are well established by the second book in which they appear. Detective Drone is a gray-haired man in his fifties, who reads extensively and is never quite as genteel as his manners would suggest. Pheasant is the younger man, about thirty-five, who enjoys shooting, game- hunting, fox-hunting, and drinking. He is always seen dressed well, and is usually the dashing hero. Lady Ordella Prune is an elderly millionaire, who befriends the duo in the first book, Gna Ptak Maeek!

Referenced By