Helen Eustis was an American translator (from French) whose reputation rests on two novels: The Horizontal Man (1946), which received an Edgar, and The Fool Killer (1954). Eustis was born in Cincinnati Ohio and educated at Columbia University New York. She was married to Alfred Young Fisher and later Martin Harris, and worked briefly as a copywriter. She has also written a children's story, Mr Death and the Redheaded Woman. The Fool Killer was made into a horror movie staring Anthony Perkins in a role not unlike that of his Psycho character Norman Bates.