Help Please

[Mic1234]

The Week, Theme and Variations, stuck on one clue,

27/30 Variation - pen-name of American novelist (6,6), if I have the rest correct, letters are

CL?I?E/M?R?AN

all help appreciated, otherwise, have a great Christmas

[JJ109]

Claire Morgan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Highsmith

... Her 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley has been adapted for film multiple times. Writing under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, Highsmith published The Price of Salt in 1952, the first lesbian novel with a "happy ending";[5] it was republished 38 years later as Carol under her own name and later adapted into a 2015 film.