Davis Troy is a reporter for a London newspaper.
In the parlance of today, he might call himself an investigative reporter but as the series was written in the early 60's, he is a journalist. He could call himself a foreign correspondent since his beat is the world but he tends to go with the simpler "reporter" title and leave it at that. As the series begins, he is stationed out of New York working for the Daily Globe, which seems to be one of the major papers in the British capital.
At 28 years of age when the first adventure is recorded, Troy has been in the business for many years already and has a solid reputation with his editors back home as well as his colleagues from rival papers. He is well liked and enjoys good repore with his workmates though he does tend to belittle those deskbound mid-level managers who think little of the things he has to endure in the field to get the story and then grouse at the expense reports afterwards. Still, the responses his articles receive keep the paper subscriptions high which means those further up the food chain do not complain too much.
Troy is described as a big man, tall and fairly muscular, but with a baby-face. It must be a very handsome one, though, because the young women he encounters take second and third looks and seldom refuse an offer of a drink from him. Troy likes to endulge in both booze and broads, as fellow reporters would call them, but Troy's manners do not let him think, let alone speak, poorly of the fair ladies who grace his table and often his bed. That is not to say that he is a complete gentleman, though, as he is quick to turn across his knee a young maid who helped herself to his wallet.
Troy's first name is Davis though it was supposed to be David. A typing error on the part of the hospital at his birth was not noticed until a day or two later and by then it was filed and done with. According to Troy, the error made his fellow Brits think he was American and not treat him quite the same. Now having spent more than a few years in the States and apparently not having much of an accent, Troy is sometimes mistaken for an American and when not, it is Canadian.
Liking a good story and wanting to be as good a journalist as he can be, Troy will often take the odd trip to far away places that other reporters would not. Leads that most would shrug off get him curious and his adventurous nature kicks in. This in turn leads to stories that very dangerous and powerful people would prefer not reported and puts Troy in the firing path and the reader in for a very good time.