Third Time Unlucky

Laurence Meynell (1899-1989) was born in Wolverhampton and educated at St Edmund's College, Hertfordshire. He served in the Artillery during WW1, and after leaving the army in 1919 taught for a short time, before working as a land agent in the Midlands. He had always wanted to write, however, and after winning the publisher Harrap's novel competition in 1924 became a successful and prolific author who, although best known for his crime fiction, also wrote non-fiction and children's books. He was married twice, to writer Shirley Darbyshire, with whom he had a daughter, Ann, and to Joan Belfrage.