He was reportedly descended from some of the earliest English colonists and held a variety of odd jobs before turning to fiction.
Character actress Edna May Oliver starred as Palmer's heroine, Hildegarde Withers, a spinster schoolteacher who was an amateur sleuth—something of an American version of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, although considerably more comic and caustic.
[3] The casting of Oliver for the role was a coincidence, as Palmer had been influenced by her performance in the Broadway production of Show Boat when creating the character.
This first novel inspired Palmer to collect pictures and statues of penguins and create a personal trademark featuring one of these birds.
Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene (1969) was completed by Fletcher Flora upon Palmer's death and published posthumously.
He scripted the first three Bulldog Drummond films for Paramount and later entries in Columbia's Lone Wolf and RKO's The Falcon series.