Arthur Somers Roche

Mystery thriller writer Arthur Somers Roche was born in Somerville, Massachusetts. He was the son of James Jeffry Roche, a prominent Irish-American author, journalist and diplomat and Mary Frances Halloran, a native of Massachusetts who died of pneumonia in 1885, some months shy of her thirtieth birthday. Roche attended The College of the Holly Cross in Worchester and later Boston College, from which he graduated with a law degree in 1904. Within two years he grew tired of the profession and in 1906 entered the field of journalism with the New York World. By 1910 Roche was contributing short stories to national magazines and a few years later published "Loot" (1916), his first novel. America's involvement in World War One put Roche's writing career on hiatus while he served as a captain with the US Army Military Intelligence Division. After the war Roche became one of the more prolific authors of that period. In all, before his untimely death at age fifty-one, Roche wrote twenty-three novels, scores of short stories and worked on two plays. Roche would often use his adopted home state of Florida as a backdrop for his fast paced mystery thrillers. In 1921, Governor Thomas G. McCrea of Arkansas was so impressed with Roche's novel "A Day of Faith". He declared November 21, the day the book was released, a state holiday. In 1910 Roche married Ethel Kirby Rowell of New York City. She passed away in 1915 around the time of the birth of their son James Jeffrey. On September 28, 1917, he married Ethel Pettit of Stuttgart, Arkansas and became a father for the second time the following year with the birth of their son Clyde. Ethel was also a writer who would go on to survive her husband by some thirty-four years. Arthur Somers Roche passed away from heart disease complicated by pneumonia at his home on Via Bellaria in Palm Beach, Florida. Along with his wife he was survived by both of his sons.