Edna Solomon Sherry (1885-1967) graduated Hunter College on Staten Island in 1906. She taught English literature there for a while before embarking on a career as a professional writer. Her early work consisted of serials and short stories published in pulp magazines. Two such stories co-written with Charles K Harris appeared in Munsey's Magazine ("The Crimson Girl", March 1927) and Sweetheart Stories ("Strange Cargo", Jan. 24, 1928). She also collaborated with Milton Gropper on two early novels. Is No One Innocent? (1930), a police procedural mystery, is a novelization of Inspector Kennedy (1929), a play she wrote with Gropper. Grounds for Indecency (1931), their second book, published by lowbrow commercial publisher Macaulay sounds like a typical sexploitation novel that was a specialty of that publishing house. Sherry's first crime novel and arguably her best known work, Sudden Fear (1948), was adapted into the 1952 movie starring Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, and Gloria Grahame. One of the better B movies of the last wave of true noir cinema that came out in the 1950s it was nominated for four Academy Awards but won none of them.  She was married to Ernest Sherry, a dentist, from 1909 until his death.

Bibliography

Sudden Fear (1952)

No Questions Asked (1949)

Backfire (1956), US paperback title: Murder at Nightfall

Tears for Jessie Hewitt (1959),  US paperback title:  She Asked for Murder

The Defense Does Not Rest (1959)

The Survival of the Fittest (1960)

Call the Witness (1961)

Girl Missing (1962)

Strictly a Loser (1965)