W.J. Burley

W.J. Burley was a well known British author of crime novels. He is best known for writing crime fiction novels featuring the chief protagonist detective Charles Wycliffe. Burley’s depiction of Wycliffe as West Country’s area CID superintendent was widely recognized and later served as the basis of successful 1990s television series called Wycliffe. Another popular character created by author Burley in his writing career is that of a zoologist & amateur detective named Henry Pym. Even though Burley enjoyed a successful and long writing career, he has attracted very less critical attention that seems quite surprising. This can be easily understood from the fact that his death in 2002 was hardly noticed by the world of crime fiction. The reason behind this was the private nature of the author. For a large part of his literary career, he was associated with the CWA, but he was never seen in any of its activities.