Photo: Stefano Archetti/REX / TT
Sample of authors
Durbridge, Francis
The British crime writer Francis Durbridge was born in Hull in Yorkshire. He was educated at Bradford Grammar School in Bradford, and then at the University of Birmingham where he studied English and Economics and gained a degree in 1933. That same year he succeeded in selling his first radio playscript. He worked for a while at a stockbroking firm but subsequently devoted all his time to...
Photo: Ulf Andersen/Getty Images (1986)
Sample of authors
Deighton, Len
The British author Len Deighton was born as Leonard Cyril Deighton in London. His father was a chauffeur; his mother worked in a hotel kitchen. He was a boy when he helped his father as a volunteer during the London Blitz. After leaving school he worked briefly as a railway clerk, and at the age of seventeen he joined the Royal Air Force Special Investigation Branch as a photographer. He then...