John Creasey Biography and List of Works

Prolific English writer, who published 562 books under 28 pseudonyms. Creasey's 21 police procedural stories, depicting police officer Gideon from Scotland Yard, have also gained critics' approval. Gideon's Day (1955) was adapted into screen in 1958, the director was John Ford. The novels followed his Scotland Yard team pursuing six cases simultaneously. Creasey has written plays, short stories, and juvenile books. Much of the author's work is now out of print, but his influence has been acknowledged by several of the leading English mystery writers.

  "Hester was picking up furniture and placing it on rugs which she had put over the floor boards which were smouldering, to try to slow down the burning. The room was thick with smoke, and there was no air from the tiny windows. She kept coughing, holding her stomach with the flat of her hands to lessen pain. Tears were running down her cheeks and she could not help herself.
   She fought for life, and all the time she thought:
   'They've put m here to die.'"
(from Black for the Baron, originally published under the pseudonym Anthony Morton)

Creasey was born in Southfields, Surrey. He was the seventh of nine children of Ruth and Joseph Creasey, a poor coach maker. He was educated at Fulhan Elementary School and Sloane School, both in London. From 1923 to 1935 he worked in various clerical, factory, and sales jobs while trying to establish himself as a writer. His first book was published in 1930 and first crime novel, SEVEN TIMES SEVEN, two years later. In 1935 he became a full-time writer. In 1937 alone, twenty-nine of his books were published.

His earliest series featured department Z in counterespionage stories, beginning with THE DEATH MISER in 1933. The gentleman-adventurer the Hon. Richard "The Toff" Rollison appeared in INTRODUCING THE TOFF (1938). Creasey's novels as Anthony Morton featured the reformed jewel thief John "The Baron" Mannering, beginning with MEET THE BARON (1937).

In 1953 Creasey was a main force behind the founding of the British Crime Writers Association. He won the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1962. He also was several times an unsuccessful candidate for Parliament, and in 1967 he founded the All-Party Alliance movement, urging voters to choose the best candidate regardless of party. Creasey was married four times. Two of his sons, Martin and Richard, became series characters in his books. Creasey spent his later years living alternately in England and in Arizona. He died on June 9, 1973.

Among Creasey's best known characters are The Hon. Richard "The Toff" Rollison, Roger West of Scotland Yard, Sexton Blake, Gordon Craigie from "Department Z", Dr. Palfrey, Bruce Murdoch, Patrick Dawlish, Dr. Emmanuel Cellini, Superintendent Folly, John Mannering ("The Baron"), and Gideon of Scotland Yard.

Pseudonyms: Gordon Ashe, M.E.Cooce, Margaret Cooce, Henry St. John Cooper, Norman Deane, Elise Fecamps, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J.J. Marric, James Marsden, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton, Ken Ranger, William K. Reilly, Tex Riley, Jeremy York. - For further reading: Good, God and Man: An Outline of the Philosophy of Self-ism by John Creasey (1967); John Creasey - Fact of Fiction? A Candid Commentary in Third Person, With a Bibliography by John Creasey and Robert E. Briney, 1968; John Creasey: Master of Mystery, Harper&Row, New York, 1972; The Durable Desperadoes by William Vivian Butler (1973); The Police Procedural by George N. Dove (1982)

Gideon series: created by John Creasey as J.J. Marric. Creasey derived the pseudonym for the series from his own initial, J(ohn), and that of his wife J(ean), and that from his sons' first names, Mar(tin) and Ric(hard). Commander, formerly Supernintendent, George Gideon is a massive policeman with a gentle voice. He has pale-blue eyes and a pale face. Gideon's Day, the first of the twenty-two books about the slow-moving policeman, appeared in 1955. - In 1965 John Gregson portrayed Commander Gideon in a series of twenty-six fifty-minutes long programs produced by ATV / England.

Gideon has risen through the ranks at the Yard, he drives his men hard, though always fairly. He has a devoted wife, Kate, and two youngsters. Gideon is absolutely implacable in his devotion to the law, his convictions have been compared to those of the prophet Gideon in the New Testament. Gideon knows his criminals and his town, as in the story 'Gideon and the Young Toughs' from 1970.- "Behind Piccadilly, in Soho, there lurked much crime and vice, as well as fine food, some happiness, and quite a lot of goodness. Piccadilly Circus itself was so brightly lit, so well populated and so well policed, that it was seldom the scene of a crime. A youth or a girl who did not know his or her way about might run into trouble in the side streets, but never in Piccadilly."

the first: GIDEON'S DAY, (1955)