The Rev Charles Mickle

(creator: Henry Charlton Beck)


Henry Charlton Beck
The Rev Charles Cooper Mickle appears in six detective novels, mostly written in the early 1930s. These include Murder in the News Room (1931), Cakes to Kill (1932), Death by Clue (1933), and Murder in the Newspaper Guild (1937). I have not been able to obtain any of them, and could find no further information on the web. If you can help me with either the books or information about them, please get in touch with me via my guest book.

Father Henry Charlton Beck (1902-1965) was a well-known Episcopal priest and author of numerous books about South Jersey. His first job was as a staff writer on the Camden Courier Post. It was while he was there that he decided to research and write about out-of-the-way, largely forgotten places in southern New Jersey. He found he had a natural talent for drawing interesting memories from the characters he interviewed, and published a whole series of books about the district. He was a committed member of the Grace Episcopal Church but had to wait for years until after the end of World War II before he was accepted for a longed-for deaconate. In 1948 he was ordained as a priest, working at first in parishes, and later writing for church papers and lecturing full-time under special assignment to the Bishop of New Jersey. He died from a heart attack in 1965 at the age of 62.


There is a long and interesting article about Beck by Don Harris that is also available on a much easier-to-read pdf file.

His travel books are readily available from abebooks:



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Forgotten Towns cover
It is Beck's travel books, like this one, that are remembered. It's his detective stories that have been forgotten.
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