Darwin LeOra Teilhet was born May 20, 1904 in Wyanet, Illinois. As a teenager, he traveled in France and worked as a juggler in a circus. He went on to write a monthly column on broadcast radio for Forum magazine from 1932 to 1934, and performed intelligence work during World War II. Teilhet later became executive assistant to the president of Dole Pineapple in Hawaii, taught journalism at Stanford, and worked as a screenwriter. Teilhet published his first mystery in 1931, Murder in the Air, and went on to write several novels featuring detective Baron von Kaz, three of them with his wife Hildegarde. He also used the pseudonyms Cyrus Fisher (young adult novels, one of which won the Newbery Honor award) and William H. Fielding (crime thrillers for Gold Medal Books). Teilhet died April 18, 1964, in Palo Alto, California.