Anne Hocking


Naomi Annie Hocking Messer, known as Anne Hocking and nicknamed "Mona," was an English crime writer, best remembered for her detective stories featuring Chief Superintendent William Austen.

Life and career

The daughter of Joseph Hocking, niece of Silas Hocking and Salome Hocking and sister of Elizabeth Nisot and Joan Shill, all writers, Anne Hocking was a prolific mystery writer, author of more than 40 genre novels between 1930 and 1962. One of them was made into a British crime film in 1957.
She was married first, in 1910, to Frederick William Dunlop, who died in August 1914 in Buckinghamshire. She married secondly, in 1918, to Henry R. Messer. She died at Battle Hospital in Reading, Berkshire in 1966.

''Chief Superintendent William Austen'' Series