IF YOU’RE a fan of classic crime writing you can attend a talk next week about Monmouthshire’s rival to Agatha Christie.

In her day, Ethel Lina White was a heavyweight in the crime, mystery and suspense genre, penning the likes of the story that became Hitchcock classic The Lady Vanishes, and throughout the 1930s equal in reputation to such celebrated wordsmiths as Christie.

And the lid will be lifted on her life and times next Tuesday afternoon ( (June 2, 2.30pm), when one of the world’s leading authorities on the writer will be giving a talk at Abergavenny Library on her works and the Golden Age of Detection.

During her hugely successful career, she wrote 17 novels and over 100 short stories.

Her 1936 book “The Wheel Spins” was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock into the movie “The Lady Vanishes” – which is quite apt, considering that after her death from ovarian cancer in 1944 at the age of 68, White slowly disappeared from view, and her books went off the radar for all but the most dedicated adherents of suspense fiction.

The Abergavenny-based writer who once said, “I never intended to write,” had literally vanished – mirroring the fate of 1930s-40s celebrated Monmouth crime author Dorothy Bowers, who has been rediscovered in recent years but of whom there is no known picture.

Thanks to Barnsley man Alex Scurko, who has written a PhD on the life and works of White and will shortly be making a presentation on the author at the British Library's bi-annual seminar on crime fiction, the lady is at long last slowly beginning to appear again.

“During her lifetime, Ethel was always quite averse to any form of publicity, and I don’t think that helped with her posthumous reputation,” explained Alex, who has reluctantly accepted the title of being the world’s leading authority on White.

At the moment there is simply no one else studying and writing about the Greta Garbo of letters with the same degree of obsessive interest.

His enthusiasm for the Abergavenny author and determination to reestablish her rightful rank in the pantheon of novelists is evident.

Alex explained, “There’s so little known about Ethel because she was such a private figure. She even had a habit of putting out false information to throw interested parties off the scent.

“In fact, in a rare interview, she even once went as far as to say, “I was not born. I have never been educated and have no tastes or hobbies. This is my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

As statements go, it does a good job of capturing a somewhat reclusive and obsessively private mindset.

Interestingly, it was the Hitchcock connection that led Alex Csurko to a five-year study of Ethel Lina White.

During his undergraduate studies on the great director, he was introduced to ”The Lady Vanishes,” and this led him to do a PhD on the author.

And although overlooked nowadays, Alex believes that White was a true innovator and deserves to be recognised as such.