John Rhode, pseudonym of Major Cecil John Charles Street Biography

British crime writer, commissioned in the Royal Artillery in 1903; under this name and that of Miles Burton he wrote over 140 detective stories between 1924 and 1961. The central figure of the Rhode stories is the polymathic scientist Dr Priestley (The Paddington Mystery, 1925), and of those written as Burton the amateur detective Desmond Merrion (The Secret of High Eldersham, 1930; US title The Mystery of High Eldersham). As Rhode he also wrote on true crime (The Case of Constance Kent, 1928) and under his own name on European history and politics (Hungary and Democracy, 1923; President Masaryk, 1930) and translated Halevy's Vauban, Builder of Fortresses (1924).