Frank L. Packard

Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue (Dodo Press) Frank L. Packard

Frank Lucius Packard (1877-1942) was a Canadian novelist. He was born in Montreal, Quebec and as a young man went to work as a civil engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway. His experiences working on the railroad led to his writing a series of mystery novels, the most famous of which featured a character called "Jimmie Dale"; who first appeared in the novel The Adventures of Jimmie Dale in 1917. He was a wealthy playboy by day, but at night put on a costume and became The Grey Seal, who enters businesses or homes and cracks safes, always leaving a grey seal behind to mark his conquest, but never taking anything. Amongst Packard's other works are The Miracle Man (1914), The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1919) and The White Moll (1920).