Canadian detective fiction writer Robinson is the author of the Inspector Banks series.

The stories are set in Yorkshire, London, Canada (often Toronto) or the United States.

Those from anthologies often involve a theme specified by the editor, which is given below if stated by Robinson in the Afternotes to the collection.

Two stories in Not Safe After Dark set in wartime (1940s) Yorkshire involved Frank Bascombe a "special constable in the war".

And Cornelius Jubb was intended as the third; it refers to "Constable Bascombe", although he could not use the full name "Frank Bascombe" in the collection for copyright reasons; see Afterward to collection .