Bruce Graeme

Bruce Graeme (1900-1982)was a pseudonym for Graham Montague Jeffries.  Born in London May 23, 1900, he served at age 18 in the Westminster Rifles Regiment during World War I, and worked as a reporter throughout the 1920s in Ealing at the Middlesex County Times.  He also worked as a film producer during the 1940s. According to a biographical blurb on the rear dust jacket panel of one of his later books Graeme was “a persistent traveller, making frequent trips in Europe and to the U.S.A., and when in England [he] lives in an Elizabethan farmhouse in the weald of Kent.”

Jeffries also wrote under the pseudonyms David Graeme (claiming he was Bruce's cousin), Peter Bourne, Jeffrey Montague, Fielding Hope and Roderic Hastings.  He was astonishingly prolific in crime and adventure fiction writing more than 100 books over a period of sixty plus years.  He also managed to pen a few nonfiction works in history and true crime. In addition to his bookseller/writer detective Theodore I. Terhune he created five other series characters:  Supt. William Stevens, Inspector Allain of the Sūreté, Det. Sgt. Robert Mather, Inspector Auguste Jantry, and -- the character he is probably best known for -- Richard Verrell, alias "Blackshirt," a professional thief who becomes a successful crime novelist.