Elleston Trevor (17 February 1920 – 21 July 1995) was a British novelist and playwright who wrote under several pseudonyms. Born Trevor Dudley-Smith, he eventually changed his name to Elleston Trevor. Trevor worked in many genres, but is principally remembered for his 1964 adventure story The Flight of the Phoenix, written as Elleston Trevor, and for a series of Cold War thrillers featuring the British secret agent Quiller, written under the pseudonym Adam Hall. In all, Trevor wrote over 100 books. He also wrote as Simon Rattray, Howard North, Roger Fitzalan, Mansell Black, Trevor Burgess, Warwick Scott, Caesar Smith and Lesley Stone. Life and work Early life Trevor was born (as Trevor Dudley-Smith) to an alcoholic stockbroker and his (also alcoholic) wife. He hated his prep school, Yardley Court, where he was beaten weekly for doing badly at Latin, and subsequently also disliked Sevenoaks School. He did not attend university, having been apprenticed as a racing driver and then recruited by the Royal Air Force as a Flight Engineer for the duration of the Second World War. He also wrote prolifically, having several story-books for children published while still serving in the air force. In the 1950s, he was a bestselling author of military adventure stories, published mainly, at that stage, by Heinemann. His spy writing started in the early 1960s and he was often described in the blurb to his paperbacks as "Adam Hall, the mystery author of international bestsellerdom". Private life Born in Bromley, Kent, he lived after the Second World War in Roedean, by Brighton, Sussex, before relocating out of the UK. He lived in Spain and France for fifteen years before moving in 1973 to the United States, where he lived in Phoenix, Arizona and where he died of cancer, in Cave Creek, in 1995. He was married twice — in 1947 to Jonquil Burgess (died 1986) by whom he had one son, Jean Pierre Trevor, and in 1987 to Chaille Anne Groom. He was proficient in karate. He also enjoyed flying kites and racing miniature cars. Writing The Quiller series focuses on a solitary, highly capable "shadow executive" (named after Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch) who works (generally alone) for a British agency in Whitehall called "the Bureau". Officially the organization doesn't exist, which allows a greater latitude to the sometimes-questionable and always hazardous operations it conducts. He narrates his own adventures. Quiller (not his real name)