Illustration by Tony Masero
George G. Gilman was born Terry William Harknett in 1936, in what was then a small village east of London. Upon leaving school he abandoned all earlier ambitions and decided to become a professional writer, with strong leanings towards the mystery novel. He wrote short stories and books during evenings, lunch hours, at weekends, and on the time of various employers while he worked for an international news agency, a film company, a weekly book-trade magazine and the Royal Air Force. He turned to writing full-time in 1970, writing mostly Westerns which have been translated into a dozen languages and have sold in excess of 16 million copies.