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Portrait of John (f. 1926) Gardner Photo: Francesco Da Vinci/Getty Images (c.1992)

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Gardner, John (f. 1926)

John Edmund Gardner was a British novelist. He was born in the village of Seaton Delaval in Northumberland as the son of a clergyman. He briefly attended Cottham’s Preparatory School in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1931, and after the family had moved to Wantage in Berkshire in 1933, King Alfred’s School 1934–1943. He joined the Home Guard at the start of the Second World War and in 1943 the Royal Marin...

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Literary figures

Jack Butler

Gender: Male

Colonel John ‘Jack’ Butler has a high position in the secret British intelligence service. He has red hair (which is closely cropped), and is a conscientious and patriotic professional. He has three red-haired daughters, but his wife Madeleine Françoise de Latour d’Auray Butler vanished without trace and is presumed dead. Her husband is suspected of having killed her in one of Anthony Price’s spy...

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