Among her occasional ongoing sleuths were Canadians Dr. While she was not known for any one recurring detective (unlike her husband, whose constant gumshoe was Lew Archer), she occasionally used a detective character for more than one novel. In the early '60s, two of her novels ( Beast in View and Rose's Last Summer, the latter starred Mary Astor) were adapted for the anthology TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Thriller. Around that time, Warners bought the option on her novel The Iron Gates, with its portrait of a woman descending into madness, but reportedly Bette Davis and other prominent Warner Brothers actresses ultimately turned it down because the memorable protagonist is missing for the last third of the story. Many websites cite her as working as a screenwriter for Warner Brothers just after World War II, but no further details are given as to what she may have worked on, even on.
Read against the backdrop of Production Code-era movies of the time, they remind us that life as lived in the '40s and '50s was not as black-and-white morally as Hollywood would have us believe. Even as early as the '40s and '50s, her books have a mature and matter-of-fact view of class distinctions, sexual freedom and frustration, and the ambivalence of moral codes depending on a character's economic circumstances. Millar was a pioneer in writing about the psychology of women. Her books focus on subtleties of human interaction and rich psychological detail of individual characters as much as on plot. Millar often delivers "surprise endings," but the details that would allow the solution of the surprise have usually been subtly included, in the best genre tradition. In general, she is a writer of both expressive description and economy, often ambitious in conveying the sociological context of the stories. In some of the books (for example in The Iron Gates) we are given insight into what it feels like to be losing touch with reality and evolving into madness.
Unusual people, mild societal misfits or people who don't quite fit into their surroundings are given much interior detail. Often we are shown the rather complex interior lives of the people in her books, with issues of class, insecurity, failed ambitions, loneliness or existential isolation or paranoia often being explored. Millar's books are distinguished by depth of characterization.
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