Kyril Bonfiglioli

Mortdecai, a film based on the books directed by David Koepp and starring Johnny Depp in the title role, was released in January 2015. The film was a box office bomb, and received overwhelmingly negative reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes aggregated rating for the movie stands at just 12%.

Bonfiglioli's second wife Margaret wrote and compiled a posthumous anthology of works and anecdotes, called The Mortdecai ABC (London: Penguin / Viking, 2001), ISBN 0-670-91084-8.

Don't Point That Thing At Me was awarded the 1973 CWA New Blood Dagger for the best crime novel by a hitherto unpublished writer.

Bonfiglioli wrote four books featuring Charlie Mortdecai, three of which were published in his lifetime, and one posthumously as completed by the satirist and parodist Craig Brown. Charlie Mortdecai is the fictional art dealer anti-hero of the series. His character resembles, among other things, an amoral Bertie Wooster with occasional psychopathic tendencies. His Mortdecai comic-thriller trilogy received critical plaudits back in the 1970s and early 1980s. The dry satire and black humour of the books were favourably reviewed by The New Yorker and others. The books are still in print and have been translated into several languages.

Bonfiglioli was born in Eastbourne on the south coast of England to an Italo-Slovene father, Emmanuel Bonfiglioli, and English mother, Dorothy née Pallett. His mother and brother died in an air raid when he was 14. Having served in the British Army from 1947 to 1954, and been widowed, he applied to Balliol College, Oxford, where he took his degree. After his divorce from his second wife he lived in Silverdale in Lancashire, then Jersey and Ireland. With Keith Roberts, he edited Science Fantasy magazine for a period from 1964 to 1966, appointed by David Warburton of Roberts and Vinter Ltd.; and the successor Impulse for its first few issues in 1966 before handing the reins to Harry Harrison. He died in Jersey of cirrhosis in 1985, having had five children.

Kyril Bonfiglioli (born Cyril Emmanuel George Bonfiglioli; 29 May 1928 – 3 March 1985) was an English art-dealer, magazine editor and comic novelist. His eccentric and witty Mortdecai novels have gained a following since his death.