Rupert Croft-Cooke was an English biographer and author of fiction and non-fiction, including screenplays and biographies under his own name and detective stories under the pseudonym of Leo Bruce. Under this pen-name, Bruce wrote over thirty crime novels. He created two series, one featuring Sergeant Beef, a British police officer, and a second in which Carolus Deene, senior history master at the fictional Queen’s School, is an amateur detective.