ALAN LYLE-SMYTHE

A truly renaissance man, Alan Lyle-Smythe, known to readers as Alan Caillou, was at one time a professional hunter, a policeman, and a soldier. He was also a novelist, a screenwriter, and an actor. Born in Surrey, he lived for a while in his 20s in Palestine where he was a member of the British police force there. He became an expert in Arabic at that time and earned an MBE for his services. When WWII broke out, he was commissioned in the Royal Army where his experiences in the Middle East and his language skills made him a natural for the Intelligence Corps. It was while working in the North African area that he started using the covername Caillou. During his service he was a POW for a time before being freed and sent to Yugoslavia to work with the partisans there.