Francis Duncan was the pen name of William Underhill (1918–1988), a British writer who published over twenty works of detective fiction between 1938 and 1959.
[3] Largely neglected after his death in 1988, the success of a reprint of his 1949 novel Murder for Christmas in 2015 has led to further works being brought back into print.
[1] Born in Bristol in 1918 to a working-class family (his father was a docker at Avonmouth[2]), Underhill obtained a scholarship to Queen Elizabeth's Hospital school, but was unable to afford to attend university.
[4] Underhill began writing in his spare time to supplement his income as a debt collector for Bristol City Council.
[3] A reprint of his 1949 novel Murder for Christmas in November 2015 proved commercially and critically successful, leading the publisher Vintage Books to put out a call for information about the author, about whom they had no details.