[4][5][6] His novels include the best-seller Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1940), as well as They Cracked Her Glass Slipper (1941), Their Rainbow Had Black Edges (1943), Mad with Much Heart (1945), Slippery Hitch (1948), Choice of Two Women (1951), and his late career come-back There Is a Death, Elizabeth (1972).

[7][8] Butler worked as a chemist early in his career, before becoming a writer for the advertising and public relations firm Pritchard, Wood and Partners Limited, based on Savile Row, London, eventually becoming its director.

[10][13] The Digit Books re-print of Butler's sixth novel, Choice of Two Women, published in 1960, stated that Kiss the Blood Off My Hands had sold in excess of 750,000 copies.

[24] After the option expired, the novel's film rights were sold to actor-turned-producer Burt Lancaster and his agent, business partner, and co-producer Harold Hecht, in mid-1947.

The film starred Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, and Robert Newton and was released in some markets under the titles The Unafraid or Blood on My Hands, due to objections from fundamentalist groups.

The lawsuit was eventually sustained in favor of the defendants by Judge Stanley Barnes at the Los Angeles Superior Court on 6 July 1948, long after filming had wrapped up.

[30][20][31] The film which starred Glynis Johns, Dermot Walsh, and Charles Goldner was directed by Gordon Parry and released in January 1949, distributed through Columbia Pictures (which also financed the production).

[33][11] The rights were scooped up by Howard Hughes via RKO Radio Pictures,[34] who had given actor Robert Ryan the freedom to chose any story as his next starring vehicle; he picked Mad with Much Heart.

[35] Hughes assigned John Houseman as producer and Nicholas Ray as director for a film version originally titled Dark Highway.

Butler married his secretary, Beryl Bradley, on 27 June 1936, at Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire.