Berkely Mather
| Berkely Mather | |
|---|---|
| Born |
John Evan Weston Davies 25 February 1909 Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom |
| Died | 9 March 1996 (aged 87) East Sussex, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Screenwriter |
| Years active | 1955-1969 |
Berkely Mather the pseudonym of John Evan Weston-Davies,(25 February 1909 – 7 March 1996) was a British author who published fifteen novels and a book of short stories. He also wrote for radio, television and the movies.
Shortly before World War I, Mather's family emigrated to Australia, where he received his education. He studied medicine, the family profession at Sydney University. Finding himself in England without prospects at the height of the Great Depression, he enlisted in the Royal Horse Artillery, but failed to gain a commission. He therefore applied to join the Indian Army, in which he rose through the ranks, becoming a sergeant at the outbreak of World War II in 1939. He served in the Iraq campaign under Slim, and ended the war as an acting lieutenant-colonel. After India gained independence in 1947, he rejoined the British Army, serving in the Royal Artillery until he retired in 1959.
Mather's first novel, The Achilles Affair (1959), was a minor best-seller, and his second, The Pass Beyond Kashmir (1960), which received glowing reviews from Ian Fleming and Erle Stanley Gardner, did even better. Ernest Hemingway owned copies of both these novels. Mather's espionage thrillers can be read separately, but are linked to each other by recurring characters, in particular the sardonic and resourceful British agent Idwal Rees, who appears in The Pass Beyond Kashmir, The Terminators and Snowline. The author's military experience and years spent abroad give his work richness and depth. His last three novels were an ambitious trilogy that followed the fortunes of the Stafford family in the Near and Far East from the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth.
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