Sapper' is the pen name of Herman Cyril McNeile, born in 1888 at the Naval Prison in Bodmin, Cornwall, where his father was Governor. He served in the Royal Engineers (popularly known as βsappersβ) from 1907-19, being awarded the Military Cross during World War 1. McNeile started writing in France, adopting the pen name because serving officers were not allowed to write under their own names. When his first stories, about life in the trenches, were published in 1915 they were an enormous success. But it was his first thriller, βBulldog Drummondβ (1920) that launched him as one of the most popular novelists of his generation. It had several amazingly successful sequels, including βThe Black Gangβ, βThe Third Roundβ and βThe Final Countβ. Another great success was βJim Maitlandβ, featuring a footloose English sahib in foreign lands. Sapper published nearly thirty books in total, and a vast public mourned his death in 1937, at the early age of forty-eight. There are several feature films of his work.