GRAHAM, WINSTON

born June 30, 1910, Victoria Park, Manchester, Eng. in full Winston Mawdsley Graham English author whose mysteries and historical novels feature suspenseful, psychological plots that often hinge on the discovery of past events. The subjects of Graham's crime stories are usually ordinary people and amateur detectives who face moral quandaries. The title character and narrator of Marnie (1961; filmed 1964), perhaps his best-known mystery, is a professional fraud who subconsciously represses a traumatic childhood experience. Graham's other notable crime novels include The Forgotten Story (1945), Take My Life (1947; filmed 1947), Fortune Is a Woman (1953), The Little Walls (1955), After the Act (1965), Stephanie (1992), and Tremor (1995). Graham's historical novels, set in Cornwall in the 18th and 19th centuries, chronicle several generations of the Poldark family. These include Ross Poldark (1945), Jeremy Poldark (1950), The Grove of Eagles (1963), The Black Moon (1973), The Miller's Dance (1982), and The Twisted Sword (1990). Graham's The Spanish Armadas (1972) and Poldark's Cornwall (1983) are works of nonfiction.