Margaret Yorke obituary

Margaret Yorke, who has died aged 88, wrote more than 40 crime novels, was chair of the Crime Writers' Association and in 1999 won the CWA's Cartier Diamond Dagger for an outstanding lifetime contribution to the genre. Yet, despite her fecundity and relative success, she was never as well known to the public as some of her peers. This could have been because her one recurring character, an Oxford don called Patrick Grant, who like his creator loved Shakespeare, featured in only five of her novels. These all appeared in the 1970s, but Margaret was best known for her stand-alone novels, of which the first, Summer Flight, appeared in 1957. Like the author, the novels were robust and uncompromising, and displayed sympathy for the underdog.

She was born Margaret Beda Larminie in the village of Compton, Surrey, and spent her childhood in Dublin, where her Irish father had been posted by his employer, Guinness. Margaret only returned with her family to the country of her birth aged 13. Educated at Prior's Field girls' school, Godalming, she worked as a hospital librarian during the second world war, before transferring to the Royal Navy as a driver.

After a spell in the library at Christ Church, Oxford, which she loved, and an experiment with matrimony (she married Basil Nicholson in 1945), which she enjoyed less, she settled in a cottage in the picturesque Buckinghamshire village of Long Crendon. Here she became something of a Miss Marple figure, her comfortable appearance belying a forensically steely personality. She played a successful role in the fight for a Public Lending Right, and settled down as a key figure in the British crime-writing community. She was a loyal member of the CWA and of the Detection Club, to which she was elected in 1978.

Throughout her working life, she produced at least one full-length novel a year, as well as a number of short stories for a variety of anthologies and for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. One of her novels, The Scent of Fear (1980), won the Martin Beck award, presented by the Swedish Crime Writers' Academy, in 1982. Awards otherwise eluded her, though this was something about which she seldom, if ever, complained.

I first encountered her properly when organising a crime-writing conference for the CWA in Bath in 1987. It was entirely typical that hers should turn out to be the only room with no hot water and with broken windows. Something had gone wrong and she accordingly had a crisp word to say about this (when she did, people jumped). On the other hand, she approved of the programme and the speakers, and said so loudly and clearly. Subsequently I commissioned a number of stories from her for anthologies. I could always rely on her for sturdy competence and true professionalism.

I make it sound as if she lacked flair, and if so, this would be less than just. It is only that, in a world which seemed sometimes to honour flakiness, it was Margaret's reliability that shone. Once she agreed to do something, she kept her promise. If she occasionally suffered from "writer's block", she never let on.

One of her short stories began with "a nice young man" and she specialised in Viyella pyjamas, old-fashioned dressing-gowns and villages not unlike her own. In that sense she exemplified the type of crime fiction known as "cosy", but appearances were often deceptive. In fact, as in her fiction, Margaret Yorke was proof that what you saw was not what you got. She practised deception artfully and with style.

Her marriage was dissolved in 1957; she is survived by a son and a daughter.

• Margaret Yorke (Margaret Beda Larminie), writer, born 30 January 1924; died 17 November 2012