Margaret Larminie was born in Compton, Surrey, near Godalming,[1][2] on 30 January 1924.
During World War II she worked as a hospital librarian, then at eighteen she joined the WRNS as a driver.
She changed to the Yorke pen name to avoid readers' confusion with a similarly-named published family member.
[3] She published her first novel Summer Flight in 1957, and in Dead in the Morning invented an Oxford don sleuth, Patrick Grant, who shared her love of Shakespeare.
She lived in Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire until her death[5] at the age of 88 on 17 November 2012.