Anthony Lang ✝

John George Haslette Vahey (5 March 1881 – 15 June 1938) was a versatile and prolific Northern Irish author of detective fiction in the genre's Golden Age in the 1920s and 1930s. Although his work has remained largely out of print since the end of the golden age, he is now enjoying a resurgence of popularity, and some of his work is again in print, or available as e-books. Vahey was born in Belfast, Ireland on 5 March 1881, the second son of Herbert Vahey (c. 1839 – 6 December 1910), an Inland Revenue Inspector, and Jane Lowry (c. 1850 – 2 April 1930), who had married on 20 February 1879, at the Weslyn Church in Donegall Square, Belfast. He attended Foyle College in Derry and was also educated at Hannover. The 1901 census found Vahey living with his parents at 4 Sydenham Avenue, Victoria, County Down, Ireland. He was an apprentice architect. After four years as an architect's pupil he switched careers and took the exams necessary to become a chartered accountant. He abandoned this career when he started writing fiction, only returning to it during the First World War where he served in Wales as a Corporal in the Army Pay Corps.