John Haslette Vahey

Born in Belfast, John George Haslette "Jack" Vahey (1881–1938) was educated in Ulster and for a while in Hanover, Germany. He began his working life as an architect's pupil, but after four years switched careers and sat professional examinations with a view to becoming a chartered accountant. However, this too was abandoned, when Vahey took up writing fiction under various pen-names. He married Gertrude Crewe, and settled in the English south coast town of Bournemouth.

With a solid reputation for witty characterisation and ‘the effortless telling of a good story’ (Observer), Vahey's popularity with Crime Club readers and reviewers was later summed up in the Sunday Mercury: ‘We have no better writer of thrill mystery in England.’

In addition to the canon of Vernon Loder titles between 1928 and 1938, Vahey wrote initially aa John Haslette from 1909 to 1916, resuming writing in the late 1920s as Anthony Lang, George Varney, John Mowbray, Walter Proudfoot and Henrietta Clandon.

His writing career was cut short by his death at the relatively young age of 57.

From the Introduction by Nigel Moss to the 2015 Collins Crime Club edition of The Mystery at Stowe