The definitive biography of an author whose life was stranger than her fiction! RICE WAS ON THE COVER OF TIME: Craig Rice, the author of twenty-three novels, countless short stories, and a number of true crime pieces, once rivaled Agatha Christie in sales. Rice’s popularity with the reading public (FDR was a fan) landed her on the cover of Time in January 1946. However, the past fifty years have seen her fall into relative obscurity. “Rice was something of a mystery herself,” Marks says. “Nearly every identification point about her was in dispute: her birth, her real name, her number of marriages, her number of children, her canon of fiction, and the cause of her early death.” Following a trail that led from Venice, Italy, to Venice Beach, CA, Marks talked to a number of her contemporaries, her family, and her friends to find the answers to those questions. Rice’s life touched on many of the great authors of the 20th century including W.H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, and Jack Kerouac.  The biography covers her life and firmly establishes the oeuvre of Rice’s novels and short story works.