Max Braithwaite (1911–1995) was born and educated in Saskatchewan. Raised on the prairie, he later served during the Second World War and settled in Ontario, where he worked for many years as a freelance writer. Though long resident in eastern Canada, much of his writing reflects a close familiarity with prairie life and landscape.
The Secret Circle Mysteries were a Canadian-published set of juvenile adventure stories issued in the early 1960s. Each volume stands alone, with different authors and characters, but shares a common emphasis on youthful resourcefulness, outdoor settings, and mystery plots rooted in Canadian locales.
In The Mystery Of The Muffled Man, two teenage boys in a small northern town set out on a winter excursion and find themselves stranded during a blizzard. Their predicament is complicated by the presence of a suspicious stranger.
