David Brierley was born in 1936 in Durban and has lived in South Africa, Canada, Greece and England, though currently resides in France. He has worked as a wholesale salesman, teacher in a French school, advertising copywriter and then as a full time writer. He has written numerous travel articles and twelve novels which have been set in France, Holland, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Tunisia, El Salvador, Brazil and Bolivia. This has meant research trips where he has been able to indulge his passion for travel. He hates talking about himself, but when the first 'Cody' books appeared, the Whodunit Guide to Crime, Suspense and Spy Fiction (1982) noted that they "showed a mind of considerable intelligence, sharp observation of contemporary mores in Europe and Britain and something of the early Le Carre mould".