James Frederick Wynne Hannay (1906-c.1985) was the son of James Owen Hannay, who wrote as George Birmingham. Both James Owen Hannay's two daughters wrote as well.  One, Theodosia Frances Wynne (Hannay) Hickey, in particular became a successful children's writer and also published a mystery for adult readers (look to future posts on James Owen Hannay and Theodosia).

Hannay's elder brother, Robert, migrated not long after World War One to Dallas, Texas, where he became a prominent cotton broker.  By 1925, he had started his own brokerage firm, Hannay Brothers, with James, who had followed his brother to Texas.  The firm prospered and both men remained in Dallas for the rest of their lives. Many of their descendants still live in the city today.

In the 1930s JFW Hannay published seven novels, five of them mysteries. These latter books are The Thirteenth Floor (1931): Gin and Ginger (1931), a detective story set on a transatlantic ocean liner; When the Wicked Man...(1934), an inverted crime novel; Murder of Me (1937); and Three Alibis (1938).  Why Hannay apparently stopped writing fiction in 1938 at the young age of 32 I do not know, but I think it is to be regretted.  I have read his first three mystery novels and they are uniformly excellent.  None of them were published in the United States, not even his Dallas-set novel (more on this below), which helps explain their rarity and obscurity today.  Whatever the reasons, however, the novels are deserving of at least a modest modern revival.

http://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/dispatched-in-dallas-thirteenth-floor.html

Bibliography

Gin and Ginger (1931)

The Thirteenth Floor (1931)

When the Wicked Man.. (1934)

Murder of Me (1937)

Three Alibis (1938)