Joe Gores has acquired a well-deserved reputation as one of the most skilled and versatile American crime novelists. He has won the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America in three separate categories--for best first mystery novel, best mystery short story in an American magazine, and best episode in a television dramatic series. For Hammett (1975), a fictionalized account of Dashiell Hammett's work as a private investigator, Gores received the Falcon Award for best detective novel from the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan. His prolific and varied writing has led to his recognition as one of the foremost current writers of the hard-boiled detective novel. As Philip French noted in the 10 October 1975 issue of TLS: The Times Literary Supplement, "Mr. Gores's style is hard-boiled to the point of being petrified."

Joseph Nicholas Gores was born in Rochester, Minnesota, on 25 December 1931, to Joseph Mathias Gores, an accountant...