Harry Kemelman's best-selling series of mystery novels made its debut in 1964 with Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, which won the Edgar Award of the Mystery Writers of America for best first novel. The seven books in the series, each named for a different day of the week, have made Kemelman's protagonist probably the most famous rabbi in all fiction. Set in a small New England community of Jews and Gentiles, these self-contained but sequential narratives have created an original type of mystery-detective story. While Kemelman relies on suspense and armchair detection to carry his plots, his real interest is in other and richer lodes: social commentary, religious philosophy, and human nature.

Born in Boston to Isaac and Dora Prizer Kemelman, Kemelman has continued to live in the Boston area. He attended Boston Latin School (1920-1926), Boston University (A.B., 1930), and Harvard University (M.A., 1931; postgraduate study, 1932-1933). After...