John Kirkwood Leys (1847–1909) was a Scottish novelist and lawyer. Born in Glasgow in 1847, he was the son of the Rev. Peter Leys of Strathaven, Lanarkshire. He was educated in Glasgow, took his M.A. from the University of Glasgow in 1869, was called to the bar in 1874, and practised law in Newcastle upon Tyne. He married twice. His first wife, Mary, died in 1876, leaving two sons; in 1889 he married Ellen Holligan, with whom he had five children who survived him. While practising law in Newcastle he published a legal treatise and A New Natural History of Birds, Beasts and Fishes (1886). He then turned to fiction, debuting with The Lindsays: A Romance of Scottish Life (1888). He retired from the law, relocated to the London area, and devoted himself full-time to writing, producing some eighteen further mystery and detective novels. Later in life he converted to Roman Catholicism, to his father's dismay. Two of his daughters continued the family's literary line: Mary Dorothy Rose Leys, a historian, and Helen Madeline Leys, who wrote fiction under the pseudonym Eleanor Scott. He died in 1909.
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