E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

According to Wikipedia: "Edward Phillips Oppenheim (22 October 1866 – 3 February 1946) was an English novelist, in his lifetime a major and successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers.

Edward Phillips Oppenheim was born 22 October 1866 in Leicester, the son of Henrietta Susannah Temperley Budd and Edward John Oppenheim, a leather merchant. He worked in his father's business for almost twenty years. He went to Wyggeston Grammar School.

Oppenheim's literary success enabled him to buy a villa in France and a yacht, then a house in Guernsey, though he lost access to this during the Second World War. Afterwards he regained the house, le Vanquiédor in St. Peter Port, and he died there on 3 February 1946."