André–Paul Duchâteau was born in 1925 in Tournai (Belgium). He is a writer of comic strips’ scripts‚ short stories‚ and detective novels. His first novel was written at the age of fifteen. He also worked for the television‚ where he wrote scripts for two television movies: L’inconnu du telephone and Les Dupes. The book De cinq à sept avec la mort won the award Grand Prix de la littérature policière in 1974. He is well known for his series Ric Hochet (1955)‚ and was the literary director of the publisher Lombard for many years.