Danny Ahearn was born Daniel Francis A'Hearn on September 8, 1901, the oldest of nine children. In 1926 he was wounded in a gun battle in Brooklyn where two men were killed. In 1934 he received 2 ½ years in New York's notorious Sing Sing Prison for fraud—his second term there also for fraud came in 1937. Though not a writer of any sort—he was, in fact, a career criminal at this time—he wrote How to Commit Murder in 1930. Later on he would be a reporter for The Daily Worker and several newspapers, as well as script writer for Warner Brothers in Hollywood in 1932-33. At 45 years of age, he was sentenced to 20 years to life for robbery. Ahearn died in Manhattan on November 3, 1960.