Hayes has divided his writing career between writing for the stage and writing fiction. Most of his novels operate with the same sort of tension seen in The Desperate Hours. The novel upon which the play was based was published in 1954 and was reprinted in 1985 by Carroll & Graf.

Readers impressed by Hayes's suspense writing can see another side of his stagecraft in his 1977 play Impolite Comedy: A Comedy in Three Acts. It is published by Hayes's longtime publisher, Samuel French, Inc.

In 1936, Robert Sherwood wrote The Petrified Forest, a play about a vicious gangster and his mob holding innocent people hostage in a diner. The role of Duke Mantee, the gang leader, was Humphrey Bogart's first main gangster role in film (Glenn Griffin in The Desperate Hours was his last). The Petrified Forest is available from Dramatist's Play Service.

Ariel...