H. C. Asterley

Hugh Cecil Asterley (10 May 1902 – 1973) was a British writer and colonial administrator, who wrote crime and mystery stories and novels, usually with a south-east Asian setting, as H. C. Asterley.

Asterley was born in Souldrop, Bedfordshire.

Asterley was a civil servant, who spent much of his career in Singapore.

A bestseller in the UK, it was banned in Australia due to customs belief that it “lacked sufficient claim to the literary to excuse the obscenity”.

[1] His 1961 novel, Escape to Berkshire, was a change in style, being a post-nuclear war survival novel about the destruction of, and escape from, London.