Kelley Roos

🔍 Ever wondered what happens when two mystery writers fall in love and collaborate? That’s exactly what happened with the two authors behind the pen name Kelley Roos. The result is a series of books where marriage and mystery meet.

🌆 Audrey and William Roos created sophisticated stories that balanced romance and suspense. Their Jeff and Haila Troy series, beginning with Made Up to Kill, brings to life the glamour and intrigue of mid-century New York City through the eyes of a crime-solving couple.

🎬 In this episode I’ll explore their versatility as writers—from novels to plays to television—and how the talented pair combined romance, wit, and suspense in their stories.

Where to start with Kelley Roos books? 

If you enjoy theater mysteries: Made Up to Kill - first book in the series

Their best known book is probably The Frightened Stiff 

For more classic whodunits, check out my books in print, audio, or ebook: 

High Society Lady Detective series 

1920s Lady Traveler in Egypt series

Sources: 

https://cozy-mystery.com/kelley-roos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audrey_Roos

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/327239.Kelley_Roos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Roos_(writer)

🕵️‍♀️ 📦 Cozy Books Corner Subscription Box (affiliate code), a book box curated for cozy mystery readers.

➡️ Use code SaraR5 and get 15% off! ⬅️

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Welcome to Mystery Books Podcast. I'm Mystery Author Sarah Rosette, and this is season six, episode two, and it's all about the author Kelly Roots. So we're continuing our look at Golden Age mystery authors that maybe are not as well known as Agatha Christie. With this episode, we're looking at Kelly Roots. That was the pin name for the husband and wife writing team Audrey and William Roos. And they wrote their mysteries together from 1939 to 1965. And that last name is spelled R-O-O-S. Very memorable. Alright, so a little background on the ruses. Audrey was born in 1912 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and William was born in 1911 in Pittsburgh. They both attended Carnegie Institute of Technology. And then after graduation, they married and moved to New York City to pursue their writing careers, and they were quite successful. They uh had two children, Carol Ruse Bell and Stephen Ruse. So let's talk a little bit about what they did. They did a little bit of everything. They published novels, short stories, and plays, and were involved in some of their books were made into movies. So their work was well, very well known at the time. And they published under their own name sometimes. Other times they published under the pen name Kelly Ruse. And so the pen name, Kelly, comes from Audrey Kelly's maiden name. That was her maiden name. And Ruse was the surname that they had. So they combined it to create this pen name when they published together. Now, most of their work, especially their mystery novels, featured themes about marriage and sleuthing couples. They had snappy dialogue and banter, and they were set in New York City, these big urban areas, and they a lot of times have romantic suspense elements in their books. Their most well-known characters were Jeff and Hala Troy, and they had a series with this couple living in New York City being sophisticated, witty, and solving crimes and navigating their relationship. So it's a very entertaining series. They had quite a few Hollywood connections, which is very interesting. William wrote teleplays for Kraft Television Theater and Goodyear Television Playhouse. And some of the teleplays he did on his own, some in collaboration with Audrey, and some of them are under the Kelly Ruse name, and some of them are not. Another interesting Hollywood connection for them was their uh 1942 novel The Frightened Stiff, which is about Jeff and Hala Troy. It's one of the series, was adapted into a film called A Night to Remember, and it starred Loretta Young. Then they had another movie made of one of their books. Their book, Ghost of a Chance, was published in 1947, and it became The Secret of Mystery, which came out in 1960, and it starred Elizabeth Taylor and Peter Laurie. Those are probably their most well-known books that were adapted into movies, but William was also a playwright and wrote plenty of plays that were on Broadway too. So their work was known in Hollywood and on Broadway. Their play, Speaking of Murder, was produced at the Royal Theater in New York in 1956, and they won an Edgar Award in 1961 for their television adaptation of John Dickinson Carr's The Burning Court. So there's not as much information about them as about Agatha Christie. So this episode is a little bit shorter, but I do want to tell you recommendations for where to start if you've never read the Kelly Ruse books. I would recommend starting at the beginning of the series, Made Up to Kill, which is the first book and it's uh set in a theater. So if you enjoy theater mysteries, that will be perfect for you. If you don't like theater mysteries, you can skip ahead to The Frightened Stiff, and that's the second book in the series, and you don't have to have read the first book to enjoy the second book. And that's the one that was made into the film A Night to Remember, starring Loretta Young. So you could watch the movie and read the book and see how they differ. So this is a super short and sweet podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it, and it's giving you some possibilities for your to-be-read pile. Um, if you have enjoyed it, I hope you'll tell a film mystery rear about it. If you can't get enough of 1920s Who Dunnits, check out my High Society Lady Detective series in ebook, audio, or print at Sarah Rosette Books.com. Happy Scouthing, and I'll see you next time.