John K. (John Kirkwood) Leys

Born in Glasgow and educated at Glasgow High School and the University of Glasgow, he earned an M.A. in 1869. Later he was called to the bar in 1874 and practiced law in Newcastle-upon-Tyne before moving fully into literary work.

Reference sources describe him as the son of Rev. Peter Leys of Strathaven, Lanarkshire, and as a Scottish barrister and writer. By the 1890s he had retired from legal practice and moved to London to write fiction full time.

He is remembered for a sizeable body of novels, including The Lindsays, as well as mystery titles such as Under a Mask, At the Sign of the Golden Horn, The Black Terror, and A Sore Temptation. The sources consulted disagree slightly on his birth year, giving either 1846 or 1847, but they agree that he died in 1909.