Marvin H. Albert was born January 22, 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and served as a radio officer in the Merchant Marine during World War II. After working as the director of a children's theater troupe in Philadelphia, he moved to New York in 1950 and began writing and editing for the magazines Quick and Look. Albert turned to writing full time after the success of his novel The Law and Jake Wade in 1956. He wrote under a variety of pseudonyms in a variety of genres, including mysteries, westerns and movie novelizations. In 1965 he moved to Los Angeles, where he began writing screenplays, then moved to the south of France in 1976. That year, the Mystery Writers of America named his thriller, Gargoyle Conspiracy, the best mystery of the year. Albert died of a heart attack on March 24, 1996, in Menton, France.