During the 1940s and 1950s, the husband and wife writing team of Frances and Richard Lockridge were popular names in the mystery genre. Beginning in 1936, the Lockridges wrote twenty-six novels in the Mr. And Mrs. North series.

Richard Lockridge (1898 - 1982) was born and raised in Missouri, and attended the University of Missouri. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, Richard returned to Missouri, joining the staff of the Kansas City Star. While in Kansas City, Richard met his future wife, Frances Louise Davis (1896 - 1963).

After marrying, the couple moved to New York City.  It was then that Frances came up with the idea of Mr. And Mrs. North -- she devised the plot and Richard developed the characters -- some of which he had used in earlier writings.
 
Following Frances’s death in 1963, Richard stopped writing the Mr. and Mrs. North novels and began writing other works until his death in North Carolina in 1982.

Mr. and Mrs. North Series

The Norths Meet Murder (1940)
Murder out of Turn (1941)
A Pinch of Poison (1941)
Death on the Aisle (1942)
Hanged for a Sheep (1942)
Death Takes a Bow (1943)
Killing the Goose (1944)
Payoff for the Banker (1945)
Death of a Tall Man (1946)
Murder Within Murder (1946)
Untidy Murder (1947)
Murder is Served (1948)
The Dishonest Murderer (1949)
Murder in a Hurry (1950)
Murder Comes First (1951)
Dead as a Dinosaur (1952)
Death Has a Small Voice (1952)
Curtain for a Jester (1953)
A Key to Death (1954)
Death of an Angel / Mr. & Mrs. North and the Poisoned Playboy (1955)
Voyage into Violence (1956)
The Long Skeleton (1958)
Murder Suggested / Murder is Suggested (1959)
The Judge is Reversed (1960)
Murder Has Its Points (1961)
Murder by the Book (1963)