Ernest William Hornung (June 7, 1866 – March 22, 1921) was an English author and journalist who famously inverted the detective formula. He is best known for creating A.J. Raffles, the 'gentleman thief' of late Victorian London, who combined cricket with daring midnight burglaries. Interestingly, Hornung was the brother-in-law of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, yet he chose to write from the criminal's perspective rather than the detective's. His stories added a sophisticated layer of moral ambiguity to the genre, exploring the thrill of the hunt through the eyes of the pursued, and became an enduring influence on early crime fiction.