Today, Boucher is probably best remembered among mystery aficionados. He helped to found the Mystery Writers Association, which tried to act something like a union and get mystery writers better pay rates from the fiction mags. (It didn’t work.) The MWA also established the Edgar (Allen Poe Award)s. Annual mystery writer conventions are now known as Bouchercons.
Boucher’s first success as a writer came with mysteries. He was writing during what is now killed “The Golden Age” of mysteries, and his stories were in-line with others of the time: they focused on impossible crimes, were rather bloodless affairs, all told, with the emphasis on a single clue which could point, in succession, to three or four or five suspects. The stories were often very contrived and highlighted artifice. These were not the noir novels—although Boucher became very familiar with the whole range of mystery writings. He reviewed novels for the San Francisco Chronicle when World War II called away its usual reviewer (Boucher’s asthma made him undraftable). He also did reviews for the New York Times and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, among other places. He further refined his skills reviewing operas—another favorite. As well, his facility with languages made it possible for him to read mysteries from other countries. He translated a number for EQMM, including the first translation of Borges’s work into English. This wide-ranging knowledge of the genre made him more than a reviewer—he became a critic, able to place a work in the history of the genre, show how it fit and did not, and draw connections between it and other writings.
Boucher published his first mystery novel, The Case of the Seven of Cavalry, while he was in southern California. These he followed with six more, as well as a number of short stories. In large part, these works were based on autobiographical details—set on the UC Berkeley campus, for example—and were well-received.
In the early 1940s, he and Phyllis and their two sons settled back in Berkeley, where Boucher did some teaching work and also expanded upon his writing. He did more reviews. He wrote a number of radio plays, building on his early interest in theater, and continued to translate. He also became involved with politics—Boucher was a stout liberal, working for the left end of the Democratic Party. His MWA advocacy was thus part of a broader philosophy. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he even experimented with a collective form of writing that, it seems to me, reflected this political orientation, working with other MWA locals to combine and write a novel that followed a coherent synopsis but which had different authors writing different chapters.
Boucher’s first success as a writer came with mysteries. He was writing during what is now killed “The Golden Age” of mysteries, and his stories were in-line with others of the time: they focused on impossible crimes, were rather bloodless affairs, all told, with the emphasis on a single clue which could point, in succession, to three or four or five suspects. The stories were often very contrived and highlighted artifice. These were not the noir novels—although Boucher became very familiar with the whole range of mystery writings. He reviewed novels for the San Francisco Chronicle when World War II called away its usual reviewer (Boucher’s asthma made him undraftable). He also did reviews for the New York Times and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, among other places. He further refined his skills reviewing operas—another favorite. As well, his facility with languages made it possible for him to read mysteries from other countries. He translated a number for EQMM, including the first translation of Borges’s work into English. This wide-ranging knowledge of the genre made him more than a reviewer—he became a critic, able to place a work in the history of the genre, show how it fit and did not, and draw connections between it and other writings.
Boucher published his first mystery novel, The Case of the Seven of Cavalry, while he was in southern California. These he followed with six more, as well as a number of short stories. In large part, these works were based on autobiographical details—set on the UC Berkeley campus, for example—and were well-received.
In the early 1940s, he and Phyllis and their two sons settled back in Berkeley, where Boucher did some teaching work and also expanded upon his writing. He did more reviews. He wrote a number of radio plays, building on his early interest in theater, and continued to translate. He also became involved with politics—Boucher was a stout liberal, working for the left end of the Democratic Party. His MWA advocacy was thus part of a broader philosophy. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he even experimented with a collective form of writing that, it seems to me, reflected this political orientation, working with other MWA locals to combine and write a novel that followed a coherent synopsis but which had different authors writing different chapters.
