A New York Times book reviewer once noted that the detective writer Patricia Moyes, who died on August 2nd aged 77, "made drug dealing look like bad manners rather than bad morals". Hers was a cosy genre of classic crime fiction, which continues to be successful - mainly in the US. Earlier in her career, she had been a radar operator in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, an assistant to Peter Ustinov, a scriptwriter, translator and Vogue journalist.
Patricia Moyes, known to all as Penny, was the creator of the imperturbable and engaging Scotland Yard detective, Henry Tibbett, (initially chief inspector, and eventually detective chief superintendent), and his cheerful, but formidable Dutch wife, Emmy. Tibbett features in 19 novels, from Dead Men Don't Ski (1959) to Twice In A Blue Moon (1993). Many Deadly Returns (1970) won the Edgar Allan Poe special award from the Mystery Writers of America.
The books were written in the well-established tradition of detective fiction, in which solving the crime is the focus rather than the crime itself. But her perspective was international: she lived in France, Switzerland, Holland and the US, before moving to the British Virgin Islands, where she died, and drew on her experiences of these places.
Patricia Pakenham-Walsh was born in Dublin; her father was in the Indian civil service and retired in 1938 as a high court judge in Madras. She was educated at Overstone girls' school, Northampton, where she was an exceptional pupil. At 15, she sat an entrance examination for Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. The examiner said her papers were as good as any, but that she was far too young and should reapply.
When the second World War came in 1939, she added a year to her age in order to join the WAAF. She had always wanted to write and, while a flight officer, wrote review sketches for barrack concerts. Peter Ustinov invited her to be his technical assistant on the film, School For Secrets (1946) about the search for and discovery of radar. They became friends, and she later became his personal assistant for eight years.
Her translation of Jean Anouilh's play, Leocadia, was produced in 1957 in London and on Broadway, as Time Remembered, starring Richard Burton and Helen Hayes. She was assistant editor on Vogue (19531958), and in 1960 collaborated on the script of School For Scoundrels, based on Stephen Potter's books, One Upmanship and Lifemanship. With the success of Time Remembered, she moved to France, where she wrote her first novel while recovering from a skiing accident.
After the break-up of her first marriage (1951-1959) to photographer John Moyes, she married James Haszard, a lawyer and interpreter at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The couple were renowned sailors and skiers. James Haszard only accepted his posting in the early 1970s to the International Monetary Fund in Washington on condition that their boat, wine cellar and cats were transported there too. On James Haszard's retirement, they settled in Virgin Gorda, where he died in 1994.
She loved cats, and, on Virgin Gorda, she was involved in a campaign to inoculate, treat and spay the wild-cat population. Cats featured in many of her writings, and she wrote two books specifically about them: After All They're Only Cats (1973), and How To Talk To Your Cat (1991).
Patricia Moyes's knowledge of radar was partly responsible for her first steps as a writer. One night, the air ministry sent a message asking for names of people with film script-writing experience and knowledge of radar. Patricia Moyes, who had worked on state-of-the-art short wavelength radar, but had never seen a film script, looked longingly at the message, wishing she had the qualifications to apply. Next day, her commanding officer told her he had submitted her name. "Sir, you're crazy!" she said - but she got the job with Peter Ustinov.
She had a sharp eye for material for use in her plots; a chat with "a very nice greyhound trainer" in Surrey led to The Curious Affair Of The Third Dog (1986), and tips from a parasailing instructor in Jamaica came in useful for Black Girl White Girl (1990).
It was in a bookshop in New York that she first met the crime writer Sarah Caudwell. The two established an instant rapport, and soon managed to combine forces for book-signing tours. Friends thought them alike. They both eschewed the mean streets and wrote about murders among the well-mannered middle classes, but while Sarah Caudwell tended to be vague and academic - puffing on her pipe and talking about Catullus - Patricia Moyes was practical, and made sure that they always arrived on time.
Even so, on one tour of the US, Sarah Caudwell contrived to lose her travellers' cheques, passport, return ticket to England and raincoat. Slightly annoyed, Patricia Moyes protested. Sarah Caudwell remained placid. Eventually documents - and equanimity - were restored. "Sarah might have been less calm if she'd lost her pipe," Patricia Moyes said later.
Patricia Moyes (Haszard): born 1923; died, August 2000
