Nothing But Murders and Bloodshed and Hanging

A murderer is identified by a team of oxen. A dead man rises from a watery grave to indict his killer. A phantom hearse gliding through Melbourne’s slums foretells violent death. A seamstress turns ­detective to avenge her friend’s homicide. A locked-tent mystery.

Such are the themes of Mary Fortune’s ingenious and dramatic crime stories. Between 1865 and 1910 she wrote over 500 of them; they compr...