Dennis Yates Wheatley (1897-1977) was an English author whose prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling writers from the 1930s through the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series was one of the main inspirations for Ian Fleming's James Bond stories.
Born in South London, he was the eldest of three children of an upper-middle-class family, the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He admitted to little aptitude for schooling, and was expelled from Dulwich College. Soon after his expulsion Wheatley became a British Merchant Navy officer cadet on the training ship HMS Worcester. During the Second World War, Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section, which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans. His literary talents gained him employment with planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for the War Office, including suggestions for dealing with a German invasion of Britain. During his life, he wrote more than 70 books which sold over 50 million copies.

Jun 1792 - Aug 1794
The Man who Killed the King tells the story of Roger Brook-Prime Minister Pitt's most resourceful secret agent-during the Great Terror when more than a million people perished and the Terrorists found that the guillotine did not work quickly enough. This, the second phase of the French Revolution, opened with the storming of the Tuileries in June, 1792, and in the months that followed, the Liberals were mown down by cannon fire, drowned by the thousand, and flung back into the flames of villages burnt to the ground.
And amidst all this brutality and bloodshed, Roger Brook, a Commissar in Revolutionary Paris, faced terrifying hazards trying desperately to rescue Queen Marie Antoinette and other members of the Royal Family from a mob thirsting for revenge.