Henry Leverage

Henry Leverage was an early 20th-century writer of pulp fiction and mystery stories. Reliable sources agree that he wrote popular novels and short fiction, and that his life story has long been a little murky, with some details reported differently in later accounts.

What stands out most clearly is the unusual mix of writing and lived experience in his career. He served time in Sing Sing, where he continued to write and was associated with the prison newspaper, The Star of Hope. That background seems to have fed directly into the hard-edged, vivid feel of his fiction.

Leverage is especially remembered for Whispering Wires, a 1918 novel later adapted into a 1926 film, and for work that also reached the screen in the silent era. If you like crime fiction with pulp energy and a strong sense that the author had seen more of life than most, his stories are an intriguing find.