Plots and Gunpowder - Verner, Chris

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Résumé :
John Robert Stuart Pringle was born in London in 1897 and became a leading writer of detective thrillers debuting in 1927. His early novels, including numerous Sexton Blake stories, were issued under the name of Donald Stuart. But after his first novel as Gerald Verner, The Embankment Murder (1933) Verner became his adopted name, although he continued to write occasionally as Stuart, and as Derwent Steele and Nigel Vane. He has written several plays the best known being Towards Zero adapted from the novel of the same title by Agatha Christie. Following his death in 1980, Verner's fiction slipped out of print, but the last decade has seen an astonishing revival of his books on both sides of the Atlantic. His son Christopher Verner had never enjoyed any lengthy discussion with his father exploring in detail his father's early life. His father always seemed keen to avoid discussing it. After his father's death Chris became curious, intrigued, and desperate for information that would enlighten him about his family history. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined what he would discover. He began to delve into archives, and to his amazement the clock began to tick rapidly backwards, item after item forcing him back in time, until it stopped at the year 1754, and like a giant jigsaw puzzle the fascinating history of Gerald Verner and his origins as a member of the Pringle family emerged. This fascinating biography is complete with a full bibliography and an Introduction from Martin Edwards.

Biographie:
Christopher Verner was born on 13th December 1949 and brought up in Richmond, Surrey, England. His father was thriller writer Gerald Verner, born John Robert Stuart Pringle on 31 January 1897. He lived a colourful life while producing an extraordinary output of novels and plays. Chris began writing a biography of his father in 2010, Plots and Gunpowder, completing it this year. He was delighted to have the biography accepted by Level Best Books for publication in 2021. Like his father, he began his working life in Stage Management. He began as a student at the original Mermaid Theatre in Blackfriars, London, in 1967; spent five years at The National Theatre at the Old Vic in Waterloo until 1974; then Company Manager for The Black Mikado musical until 1976-after which he left the theatre world to form his own company to design and carry out special effects, principally for film and television, including Danger UXB, Time Bandits, and 1984, plus over four hundred television commercials. Apart from a posthumous collaboration completing his father's unfinished manuscript, The Snark Was A Boojum, he has completed a novelette The Man On The Train and a full-length novel The Seventh Virgin, both featuring his father's detective 'Mr. Budd'. He lives in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England with his wife Jenny.