Luke Allan

Born William Lacey Amy in Sydenham, Ontario, on June 9, 1877, he later wrote under the pen name Luke Allan. He studied at the University of Toronto, trained as a journalist, and worked at the Medicine Hat Times as a reporter, then editor, and eventually owner.

His fiction career grew out of journalism. An early story published in 1911 introduced Blue Pete, a character who became the center of roughly 20 novels over the next several decades. He also worked as a war correspondent in Europe during the First World War and later traveled widely before returning to Canada in 1940.

Luke Allan became known for western and mystery fiction that often featured the North West Mounted Police and the landscapes of western Canada. He also wrote detective novels featuring Gordon Muldrew, along with many other books, and remained a productive popular writer well into the 1950s. He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, on November 26, 1962.