Popular mystery and crime novelist Ann Granger has died at 86. She penned the beloved Campbell and Carter Mystery series, among many others.
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It was reported by The Telegraph, among other outlets, that she has passed away. No time of death nor cause was given alongside the announcement. We can assume she died of natural causes recently, but not much more than that.
Ann Granger wrote crime and mystery books that people loved internationally. Germany bought up millions of her stories alone. She also found American appreciation when her stories breached the top five best sellers.
Fans best know the author for writing about crime in the picturesque and bucolic settings in the British countryside. An expert of the classic rural whodunnit ritual, Granger spun off a few different series of stories, each tackling mystery and crime.
She began writing crime in 1991, with Say It with Poison. This was the first entry into her ‘Mitchell and Markby’ series, which found itself concluded in 2004 with 15 entries.
Tragically, her most recent published story was Death on the Prowl, released in 2024. It was the latest addition to the ‘Campbell and Carter’ series. One that will no longer see an official conclusion.
Ann Granger Didn’t Always Write Crime
Although Ann Granger gained traction in the early ’90s with Say It With Poison, she had been writing for years before that.
Born in 1939, Ann Granger would grow up to study French and German at the University of London. After a career that saw her travel some of Europe and meet who would become her husband, she began to write fiction in her free time.
Her first ever published work was a historical romance called A Poor Relation, as Ann Hulme, in 1979.
Through the 1980s, she wrote more than a dozen romances for Mills & Boon.
It was only in the 1990s that she decided to want to write crime and mystery. And I suppose it stuck with her: she wrote fictional mysteries ever since.
The Telegraph quotes her as saying, “Romance stories have only one plot [but] crime fiction opens up a world of possibilities for the writer. It allows you to tackle deep and difficult topics.”