Photo: Popperfoto via Getty Images (1960)
Sample of authors
MacLean, Alistair
The Scottish author Alistair Stuart MacLean was born in Shettleston, Glasgow, in a Gaelic-speaking family as Alasdair MacGill-Eain (his Gaelic name was anglicised by the British authorities). His father was a Church of Scotland minister. While the author was still a baby, the family moved to a farm near Daviot in the Highlands. After the death of his father, his mother returned to Glasgow with...
Literary figures
Thackeray Phin
Gender: Male
For the last two years, the American professor of Philosophy, Thackeray Phin, has been in London where to his great delight he can solve some unusually complicated ‘impossible’ crimes. He is tall and thin and looks like George Bernard Shaw. He dresses eccentrically too, preferably in old-fashioned plus fours, and generally has an umbrella with him. John Sladek has written two entertaining and wel...