Hugh Cecil Asterley (10 May 1902 – 1973) was a British writer and colonial administrator, who wrote crime and mystery stories and novels, usually with a south-east Asian setting, as H. C. Asterley.

Asterley was born in Souldrop, Bedfordshire.

Asterley was a civil servant, who spent much of his career in Singapore.

His first novel, Rowena Goes Too Far was published in 1931. A bestseller in the UK, it was banned in Australia due to customs belief that it “lacked sufficient claim to the literary to excuse the obscenity”.^[1]

His 1961 novel, Escape to Berkshire, was a change in style, being a post-nuclear war survival novel about the destruction of, and escape from, London.

• Rowena Goes Too Far. London: Jarrolds, 1931.
• A Tale of Two Murders. London: Jarrolds, 1932 (published as Mortmain in the USA).
• Land of Short Shadows. London: Jarrolds, 1933.
• Jungle Leech.. London: Jarrolds, 1935.
• Escape to Berkshire. London: Pall Mall Press, 1961.

• H C Asterley's 1951 Colony of Singapore passport