James Hadley Chase

James Hadley Chase was a pseudonym for René Brabazon Raymond. Born in England on Christmas Eve, 1906, Chase left home at the age of eighteen and worked at a number of different jobs before he settled on being a writer. With a map and a slang dictionary, Chase wrote his first book, No Orchids for Miss Blandish, in six weeks. It was published in 1939 and became one of the best-sold books of the decade. It was later made into a stage play in London and then into a film in 1948, and finally remade in 1971 by Robert Aldrich as The Grissom Gang. Chase went on to write more than 80 mysteries before his death on February 6, 1985.