Francis Iles was one of the pseudonyms for Anthony Berkeley Cox (1893-1971). He was born in Watford and served in World War I before working as journalist for Punch and The Humorist magazines. He wrote his first novel in 1925 and enjoyed success with his many detective books and short stories.

In 1930 he co-founded the famous Detection Club alongside famous crime writers such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. He wrote four novels under the pseudonym Francis Iles of which Malice Aforethought was the most famous.

John Rhode was a pseudonym for the author Cecil John Charles Street (1884-1964), who also wrote as Miles Burton and Cecil Waye.

Having served in the British Army as an artillery officer during the First World War, rising to the rank of Major, he began writing non-fiction before turning to detective fiction, and produced four novels a year for thirty-seven years.

The Sunday Times said `he must hold the record for the invention of ingenious forms of murder', and the Times Literary Supplement described him as `standing in the front rank of those who write detective fiction'.

Rhode's first series novel, The Paddington Mystery (1925), introduced Dr Lancelot Priestley, who went on to appear in 72 novels, many for Collins Crime Club.

Once dubbed 'The King of Detective Story Writers', Freeman Wills Crofts was an Irish railway engineer whose brilliant first mystery novel, The Cask, was motivated by an extended illness in 1919.

Outselling Agatha Christie, and renowned for his ingenious plotting and meticulous attention to detail, Crofts followed up with The Ponson Case (1921) and no less than thirty books featuring the iconic Scotland Yard detective, Inspector French.