Ferguson Findley was born Charles Weiser Frey on April 3, 1910, in York, Pennsylvania. He graduated from West Point Naval Academy in 1934, then served in the navy. He wrote several crime novels in the 1950s, the first of which was My Old Man's Badge. His second novel, Waterfront, was made into a film under the title of The Mob in 1951 with Broderick Crawford. Frey began working as a foreign correspondent for New Jersey Standard Oil, eventually becoming an executive with Standard Oil Co. and moving overseas in 1957, which resulted in his quitting his writing career. Frey returned to the States in 1971 due to health reasons, and died January 28, 1974 in West Redding, Connecticut.