Born Percival Charles Rodda in Port Augusta (South Australia), died in the United Kingdom. Worked as journalist in Australia — Adelaide and Melbourne — but went to New York in 1919 and became a music critic there, then to London in 1926 and became a well known writer of crime fiction. He wrote under the pseudonyms Gavin Holt and Gardner Low, and published collaborations with Eric Ambler under the pseudonym Eliot Reed.