Background
Arthur Somers Roche was born on 27 April 1883 in Somerville, Massachussets, the son of James Jeffrey Roche, one-time editor of the Boston Pilot, and his first wife, Mary (Halloran) Roche.
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book
The Case Against Mrs. Ames
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Loot (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Loot Still, she was going to marry him. Tha...)
Excerpt from Loot Still, she was going to marry him. That. Was something. From the heights of the station to which she had been born the Lady Gwendolyn had stooped to lift him to her side. That she was also lifting to her side some scores of millions of good Amer ican dollars was beside the question. What was money as compared with caste? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Slander (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Slander She took a step toward the taxi; be...)
Excerpt from Slander She took a step toward the taxi; better the risks of a driver who was perhaps drunken than the ruin of clothing too costly to be easily replaced. But the skid that had deposited the taxi against the curb had put it out of commission for the while. The right front wheel was broken in two. She had been too be wildered to note that it listed so perilously that only a miracle kept it semi-upright. She turned in dismay as another great drop splashed against her cheek. Under her breath she damned the Gleasons as heartily as, in an unsubdued voice, the taximan cursed the weather, the machine, and the stupidity of female passengers who interfered with a, man's driving. Why had the Gleasons given a party in the city in July? Simply because they had just finally completed the altera tions to their penthouse, they had to ask two hundred peo ple to dine and dance and sup and drink. And two hun dred idiots, of whom Martha Blaisdell was one, had fore gone long week-ends in the country to spend Friday night with people whose only attraction was their money. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Four Blocks Apart
(Fictional love at first sight story by the author of "Mar...)
Fictional love at first sight story by the author of "Marriage For Two", "Among Those Present" and "The Age of Youth".
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Arthur Somers Roche
Edit ProfileEducation
After a year in the preparatory school of Holy Cross College, Worcester, Massachussets, he spent two years in that institution (1899 - 1901) and then entered the law school of Boston University, from which he was graduated at the age of twenty-one with the degree of LL. B (Bachelor of Laws).
Career
After graduating the law school of Boston University he practised law for eighteen months, entered newspaper work at the age of twenty-three, and at twenty-seven became a regular contributor to magazines.
Between 1910 and 1916 he lived in his parents' home in Castine, Maine, working as a free-lance writer. Although professing to dislike work, Roche disciplined himself to such strenuous and sustained effort that he became known as one of America's most prolific writers, and in the nineteen years between the publication of his first novel, Loot (1916), and his death in 1935, he produced, besides innumerable short stories, thirty-four other novels.
Many of his short stories and at least eleven of his novels in serial form appeared in Collier's Weekly. He was author of one play, The Crooks' Convention, and coauthor of a second, The Scrap of Paper (1917), neither of which was successful.
In the main Roche kept to the novel of mystery and intrigue, though upon occasion he attempted work in a more serious vein. In 1921 he published The Day of Faith, which dealt with the idea that if everybody would believe--and act upon his belief--in the inherent perfection of everybody else, by divine ordering universal perfection could be achieved.
New York, Newport, and Palm Beach "society" figures prominently in Roche's novels.
Heiresses and debutantes and daughters of wealth are kidnapped, implicated in murders, and compromised; millionaires, rich clubmen, and the spendthrift scions of the upper classes fall victims to racketeers, blackmailers, and the wiles of chorus girls.
Occasionally, as in The Case against Mrs. Ames (1934) and In the Money (1936) the author has newspaper reporters turn detectives and stalk the murderers.
In his best "thrillers" Roche's style is spirited, his character delineation adequate to his purpose, his dialogue amusing, the movement swift, and the suspense well sustained to the end. Typical of his novels are Loot (1916), Four Blocks Apart (1931), Slander (1933), and The Case against Mrs. Ames (1934).
In the First World War Roche served as captain in the military intelligence division of the United States army.
He made his home in Florida and died there of a heart ailment and pneumonia in his fifty-second year.
Works
book
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Slander (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Slander She took a step toward the taxi; be...)
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Four Blocks Apart
(Fictional love at first sight story by the author of "Mar...)
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Loot (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Loot Still, she was going to marry him. Tha...)
- The Case Against Mrs. Ames
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Slander (Classic Reprint)
Religion
New York, Newport, and Palm Beach "society" figures prominently in Roche's novels.
Views
Quotations: The governor of Arkansas was sufficiently impressed by Roche's book The Day of Faith to have November 1, 1921, proclaimed a legal holiday in the book's honor, and asked that at noon on that day citizens of the state repeat the formula of the book, "My neighbour is perfect. "
Connections
On August 12, 1910, he married Ethel Kirby Rowell of New York, with whom he had eloped; they had one son, Jeffrey. Being unable to eke out a livelihood on his income as a free-lance writer in New York, he moved to Castine, Maine, the home of his parents, in 1910, remaining there until 1916, when his fiction began to pay.
His first wife died in 1915, and on September 28, 1917, he married Ethel Pettit of Stuttgart, Arkansas, by whom he had one son, Clyde. She collaborated with her husband in one of his last novels, Callingham's Girl (1937).
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Born
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Died
February 17, 1935 (aged 51) -
Nationality
American