Lee Edwin Wells was born on June 1, 1907 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He received a diploma in accounting and went on to become a licensed public accountant in California in the mid‐40s. Beginning in 1939, he started selling stories to the pulp magazines under his name and a number of pseudonyms. Wells then began writing novels in the late 1940s and published over 40 books in his lifetime, most of them westerns. Perhaps his most famous is Day of the Outlaw, filmed in 1959 by André de Toth and starring Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, and Tina Louise. He also became an active member of the Mystery Writers of America in Los Angeles, as well as writing for several TV shows including Highway Patrol. Wells passed away in San Diego on April 29, 1982.