Basil Copper became a full-time writer in 1970. In addition to horror and detective fiction, Copper was perhaps best known for his series of Solar Pons stories continuing the character created as a tribute to Sherlock Holmes by August Derleth. He also wrote a series of 52 hard-boiled thrillers featuring the Los Angeles private investigator Mike Faraday, an obvious and acknowledged homage to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. The first being The Dark Mirror.