Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

William Watson was a Scottish author, playwright and newspaper editor. He was initially Literary and then Features editor of the Scotsman newspaper. Born in Edinburgh he attended Edinburgh Academy and then entered Edinburgh and Oxford universities but did not complete either course.

He commenced writing novels in 1969 with Better than One and then two historical novels entitled Beltran in Exile (1979) [also known as The Last of the Templars:] about the Crusaders and The Knight on the Bridge (1982) about the Cathars. These two latter books are generally regarded as his best works.

Between 1970 and 1972 he wrote two plays dealing with cannibalism and the mystery surrounding Roslyn Chapel. He wrote six spy thrillers under the nom-de-plume of J.K. Mayo between 1986 and 1997 using a middle-aged, irritable, Gauloise-smoking ex-army Colonel named Harry Seddell as his hero for these popular books. An interesting aside is his apparent enjoyment of using little-known and obscure words to enhance his excellent descriptions of places and intelligent conversations throughout the books.

(source: wikipedia)