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...
Literary figures
Mike (Michael) Padillo
Gender: Male
After the Second World War, he was forced (through blackmail) to become a spy and executioner for an extremely secret American secret service. But he is also the part-owner, together with ‘Mac’ McCorkle, of a bar in Bonn. Michael (Mike) Padillo is half Estonian, half Spanish, and would like to live a life in calm and peace, but in a suite of novels by Ross Thomas he is obliged to undertake sev...