Leslie McFarlane (October 25, 1902 – September 6, 1977) was a Canadian journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and filmmaker who is most famous for ghostwriting many of the early books in the very successful Hardy Boys series, using the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.

The son of a school principal, McFarlane was raised in the town of Haileybury, Ontario.  He became a freelance writer shortly after high school.  He and his family moved to Whitby, Ontario, in 1936.  This period is described in his 1975 book “A Kid in Haileybury.”

The House on the Cliff (1927) is widely considered to be inspired by the landscape of Lake Temiskaming – McFarlane is said to have based the menacing cliff face and water approach described in the novel on a well-known 300-foot-high vertical rock face on Lake Temiskaming near Haileybury.   Read about it here: Northeastern Ontario Travel.