Pierre Louis Boileau was born on 28 April 1906 in Paris, the son of Léon and Maria Boileau (née Guillaud). His studies prepared him for a career in commerce, but he had been passionate about detective fiction since childhood. He changed several occupations while also contributing short stories and novellas to various newspapers and magazines. Then he wrote a series of novels about André Brunel, a dapper private detective specialized in difficult cases. Boileau's novel Le repos de Bacchus was awarded the prestigious Prix du Roman d'Aventures in 1938. He was drafted during World War II, taken prisoner in June 1940, and spent two years in a stalag, where he met Jean-Paul Sartre. Boileau was released from the camp due to his medical condition. He returned to Paris in 1942, and enlisted as a social worker for the Secours National, an organization helping the disadvantaged. His work involved visiting penal colonies and interviewing criminals. He resumed his writing career in 1945 with the novel L'Assassin vient les mains vides, and scripting a couple of successful radio series in 1945–1947.
Pierre Ayraud was born on 3 July 1908 in Rochefort-sur-Mer to a family of seamen. He lost one eye in a childhood accident, which prevented him from going into a seafaring business. In his youth, he used to go fishing on the Charente river near two hamlets called St. Thomas and Narcejac, and he remembered them when picking his pen name – "Thomas Narcejac". He studied at the universities of Bordeaux, Poitiers and Paris where he received degrees in literature and philosophy. He moved to Nantes in 1945, where he became a professor of philosophy and literature at the Lycée Georges-Clemenceau, and held this position until his retirement in 1967.
Narcejac began writing pastiches of various crime fiction authors which were published in the collections Confidences dans ma nuit (1946) and Nouvelles confidences dans ma nuit (1947). At the same time, he wrote his first crime novel L'Assassin de minuit (1945). Narcejac also partnered with Serge Arcouët, who used the pseudonym "Terry Stewart", to produce a series of novels imitating American thrillers. They were published under the joint pen name "John-Silver Lee".

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