Chester H. Opal was a one-shot author, at least as far as the world of crime and mystery fiction is concerned. The single entry for him in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin is:

LORRAINE, JOHN; pseudonym of Chester H. Opal
      * Men of Career (Crown, 1960, hc)

   According to what Al has learned, Mr. Opal was born February 9, 1918, and died on February 27, 2006. Neither date was known before. The subtitle of Men of Career is: A Novel About the Foreign Service, which makes the following Internet discovery come as no surprise:

   Deposited with Georgetown University’s Foreign Affairs Oral History Program is an interview with Chester H. Opal (USIA), or the United States Information Agency.

   Further investigation reveals that in his folder is a transcript of an interview he had with G. Lewis Schmidt, in which he discussed Poland (1946-49); Italy (1949-50); Planning Staff (1950-52); Vienna, Austria (1952-53); Mexico (1954-56); Naval War College (1956); Saigon, Vietnam (1957-60); Deputy Director of Television Service (1961-62); Schmidt Task Force on Europe (1962-63); Assistant Director for Europe (1963); Beirut, Lebanon (1964-66).

***

   Playwright Robert Lord, born in New Zealand on July 18, 1945, also has but one credit to his name in Crime Fiction IV, as follows:

LORD, ROBERT (Needham)
      * Country Cops (Broadway, 1988, pb) 2-act play.

   Based on information from Contemporary Authors, Mr. Lord lived in the US between the years 1974 to 1990, when he returned in New Zealand, where he died of cancer in January 1992.

   Further biographical information can easily be found on the Internet. A complete list of his plays can be found at http://www.playmarket.org.nz/, for example.

   Also learned from that website is that Mr Lord, “wrote numerous television programs as well as the screenplay for the New Zealand feature Pictures. At the time of his death, he was working on the screenplay The Big Ditch.”

   Described as a black comedy farce, Country Cops was first produced at the Dorset Theater Festival in Vermont. Synopsis:  “Set in a police station in small-town New Zealand. Jasper Sharp is sent from the city to solve a murder.”