What goes up must come down, and Craig Rice's meteoric rise to the top of the mystery writing heap by 1946 was rivaled only by her rapid descent into semi-obscurity. Her face once graced the cover of Time magazine, but today her books are found in second hand stores.
The mystery surrounding Rice was almost as puzzling as her books. Where was she born? What was her given name? What novels and short stories did she publish? Who did she marry and how many times? How many children did she have? Where did the penname of Craig Rice emanate from? How did she die? In the forty years since her death, the answers to these questions were buried under piles of confusion, lies, and exaggeration. In the 20th century how could these basic questions of a person's life be so vague?
Jeffrey Marks began a quest to learn the answers. His research took the better part of a decade. He traced Rice's oeuvre back to original manuscripts to determine authorship. He tracked down relative, friends, and other writers to learn answers on Craig's name, her heritage, and her descent from superstardom into drinking, mental illness, and trouble with the law.