Obituary: Patricia Moyes, British detective fiction writer

A New York Times book reviewer once noted that the detective writer Patricia Moyes, who has died aged 77, "made drug dealing look like bad manners rather than bad morals".

Hers was a cosy genre of classic crime fiction, which continues to be successful in the United States while languishing in Britain, where most of her books are out of print. Earlier in her career, she had been a radar operator in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), an assistant to Peter Ustinov, a scriptwriter, translator and Vogue jounalist.

Moyes, was the creator of the imperturbable and engaging Scotland Yard detective, Henry Tibbett (initially chief inspector, and eventually detective chief superintendent), and his cheerful, but formidable, Dutch wife, Emmy. Tibbett features in 19 novels, from Dead Men Don't Ski (1959) to Twice In A Blue Moon (1993). Many Deadly Returns (1970) won the Edgar Allan Poe Special Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

The books were written in the well-established tradition of British detective fiction, in which solving the crime is the focus rather than the crime itself. But Moyes's perspective was international: she lived in France, Switzerland, Holland and the United States, before moving to the British Virgin Islands, where she died, and drew on her experiences of these places.

Patricia Pakenham-Walsh was born in Dublin; her father was in the Indian civil service and retired in 1938 as a high court judge in Madras. Penny (as she was always known) was educated at Overstone girls' school, Northampton, where she was an exceptional pupil. At 15, she sat an entrance examination for Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; the examiner stated that her papers were as good as any, but that she was far too young and should reapply.

When war came in 1939, Moyes added a year to her age in order to join the WAAF. She had always wanted to write and, while a flight officer, wrote review sketches for barrack concerts. Peter Ustinov invited her to be his technical assistant on the film, School For Secrets (1946) about the search and discovery of radar. They became friends, and she later became his personal assistant for eight years.

Moyes's translation of Jean Anouilh's play, Leocadia, was produced in 1957 in London and on Broadway, as Time Remembered, starring Richard Burton and Helen Hayes. She was assistant editor on Vogue (1953-58), and in 1960 collaborated on the script of School For Scoundrels, based on Stephen Potter's books, One Upmanship and Lifemanship. With the success of Time Remembered, she moved to France, where she wrote her first novel while recovering from a skiing accident.

After the break-up of her first marriage (1951-59) to photographer John Moyes, she married James Haszard, a lawyer and interpreter at the international court of justice in The Hague. The couple were renowned sailors and skiers, and Haszard only accepted his posting in the early 1970s, to the International Monetary Fund in Washington, on condition that their boat, wine cellar and cats were transported there too. On Jim's retirement, they settled in Virgin Gorda, where he died in 1994.

Penny loved cats, and, on Virgin Gorda, she was involved in a campaign to innoculate, treat and spay the wild cat population. Cats featured in many of her writings, and she wrote two books specifically about them: After All They're Only Cats (1973), and How To Talk To Your Cat (1991).

Jenny Chamier Grove writes:

Patricia Moyes's knowledge of radar was partly responsible for her first steps as a writer.

One night, the Air Ministry sent a signal asking for names of people with film script-writing experience and knowledge of radar. Patricia, who had worked on state-of-the-art short wavelength radar, but had never so much as seen a film script, looked longingly at the message, wishing she had the qualifications to apply. Next day, her commanding officer told her he had submitted her name. "Sir, you're crazy!" she said - but she got the job with Peter Ustinov.

She had a sharp eye for material for use in her plots; a chat with "a very nice greyhound trainer" in Surrey led to The Curious Affair Of The Third Dog (1986), and tips from a parasailing instructor in Jamaica came in useful for Black Girl White Girl (1990).

It was in a mystery bookshop in New York that she first met the crime writer Sarah Caudwell (Obituary, February 8). The two established an instant rapport, and soon managed to combine forces for book-signing tours. "We laughed our way all across the United States," Patricia told me later.

Friends thought them alike. They both eschewed the mean streets and wrote about murders among the well-mannered middle classes, but while Sarah tended to be vague and academic - puffing on her pipe and talking about Catullus - Patricia was practical, and made sure that they always arrived on time.

Even so, on one tour of the US, Sarah contrived to lose her travellers' cheques, passport, return ticket to England and raincoat. Slightly annoyed, Patricia expostulated. Sarah remained placid. Eventually documents - and equanimity - were restored. "Sarah might have been less calm if she'd lost her pipe," Patricia commented later.