Dennis Lynds

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Dennis Lynds (1924–2005) was a renowned author of mystery fiction. Raised in New York City, he earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart during World War II, before returning to New York to become a magazine editor. He published his first book, a war novel called Combat Soldier, in 1962, before moving to California.

Under the pseudonym Michael Collins, Lynds published the Edgar Award–winning Act of Fear (1967), which introduced his best-known character: the one-armed private detective Dan Fortune. The Fortune series would last for more than a dozen novels, spanning three decades, and is credited with marking a more politically aware era in private-eye fiction. Besides the Fortune novels, the incredibly prolific Lynds wrote science fiction, literary fiction, and several other mystery series. He died in San Francisco in 2005.