[1] William Marshall worked as a playwright, journalist, proofreader, and morgue attendant and was a teacher in an Irish prison.
He was also the author of several series of police novels set across the globe and in various centuries.
[2] In the Yellowthread Street series, the detectives of the Yellowthread Street police station in fictitious Hong Bay, Hong Kong – DCI Harry Feiffer, a European born and raised in Hong Kong; Senior Inspector Christopher O'Yee, half-Chinese, half-Irish American, and all neurotic; and the ever-bickering team of Inspectors Auden and Spencer – attempt to find the rational basis for inexplicable and seemingly bizarre crimes.
[3] The Yellowthread novels show the influence of Ed McBain in their overlapping plot-lines, snappy dialogue, world-weary detectives and often difficult civilians.
[4] Marshall's novels manage to juggle violence, suspense, and slapstick humor in his twist on the police procedural form.