John Leslie Palmer (4 September 1885, Paddington, London – 5 August 1944) was an English theatre critic and prolific author.

[2][3][A] After the war ended Palmer was a member of the British delegation at the Peace Conference in Paris, which commenced in January 1919.

[3][7] One of the members of staff supervised by Palmer at the Secretariat was Hilary St. George Saunders, a fellow graduate of Balliol College at Oxford.

Palmer heckled him from the audience and Saunders, feigning desperation, invited him onto the platform where the dual authorship was revealed.

Six of the 'Francis Beeding' novels are detective stories: Death Walks at Eastrepps (1931), Murder Intended (1932), The Emerald Clasp (1933), The Norwich Victims (1935), No Fury (1937) and He Could Not Have Slipped (1939).

The remainder of the 'Francis Beeding' books are spy novels, beginning with The Seven Sleepers (1925) and ending with There Are Thirteen (published after Palmer's death in 1946).

[9] In discussing their collaboration, Saunders commented that "Palmer can't be troubled with description and narrative, and I'm no good at creating characters or dialogue", adding: "Whatever the reason it certainly worked".

[10] Many of the 'Francis Beeding' books feature recurring characters such as the British Secret Service agents Alistair Granby and Ronald Briercliffe.