The Fire Within

Dora Amy Elles (15 October 1877 - 28 January 1961), who wrote as Patricia Wentworth, was a British crime fiction writer.


She was born in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India (then the British Raj), and was educated first privately, then at Blackheath High School for Girls in London. Her father was General Edmond Elles, and her mother was Lady Clare (Rothney) Elles.


She and her first husband, Lt. Col. George Frederick Horace Dillon, had one daughter. She also became stepmother to Dillon's three sons, two of whom died during World War I. After Dillon's death, in 1906, she settled in Camberley, Surrey. In 1920, she married Lt. Col. George Oliver Turnbull. One of her stepsons who died in World War I had Wentworth as a middle name, after Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon, and she adopted Wentworth as her pen name.


Dora Amy Turnbull died on 28 January 1961, aged 83. Her His estate was valued at £24 561.


Wentworth wrote a series of 32 crime novels in the classic whodunit style, featuring Miss Maud Silver, a retired governess and teacher who becomes a professional private detective, in London, England. Miss Silver works closely with Scotland Yard, especially Inspector Frank Abbott, and is fond of quoting the poet Tennyson. Miss Silver is sometimes compared to Jane Marple, the elderly detective created by Agatha Christie.


"Miss Silver is well known in the better circles of society, and she finds entree to the troubled households of the upper classes with little difficulty. In most of Miss Silver's cases there is a young couple whose romance seems ill fated because of the murder to be solved, but in Miss Silver's competent hands the case is solved, the young couple are exonerated, and all is right in this very traditional world."


Wentworth also wrote 34 books outside that series. She won the Melrose prize in 1910 for her first novel A Marriage Under The Terror, set in the French Revolution. Her novels were the topic of Jariel D. O'Neil's 1988 doctoral dissertation. (wikipedia.org)