Manning Lee Stokes was born June 21, 1911 in St. Louis, Missouri. His first novel, The Wolf Howls "Murder," appeared in 1946, and he went on to publish another 15 novels under his own name over the next 30 years. But Stokes also published a large number of pseudonymous works as Nick Carter, Paul Edwards, Jeffrey Lord, Ken Stanton, Kermit Welles, Kirk Westley and many others. He wrote crime fiction, men's adventure, science fiction, romance, gothics, westerns, mainstream and sleaze novels during his very prolific career. Stokes died January 5, 1976 in Peekskill, New York.