Деннис Линдс: Жизнь и творчество американского писателя-детективиста

American mystery writer (1924–2005)

Michael Collins is the best known pseudonym of Dennis Lynds (January 15, 1924 – August 19, 2005), an American author who primarily wrote mystery fiction. Over four decades Lynds published some 80 novels and 200 short stories, in both mystery and literary themes. He was a recipient of the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America (MWA), the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Private Eye Writers of America and the Marlowe Lifetime Achievement Award from MWA, Southern California Chapter.

Lynds was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the only child of actors who were touring at the time. He grew up in New York City and fought in Europe during World War II, earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. He studied chemistry (Bachelor's degree in 1949) and journalism (Master's degree in 1951). After working as a magazine editor in New York, he moved to California in 1965 to write full time. Married to thriller author Gayle Lynds, he lived in California until his death.

Beginning in 1968 with The Mystery of the Moaning Cave and ending in 1989 with Hot Wheels, Lynds wrote fourteen novels under the pen name William Arden for the juvenile detective series The Three Investigators, which was originated by Robert Arthur, Jr. Under this same name, he also wrote five novels featuring private eye Kane Jackson, a former military policeman who has become an industrial security specialist after leaving the military. The first Jackson novel, A Dark Power, appeared in 1968. As Arden, Lynds also wrote the highly regarded espionage short story "Success of a Mission," which was a finalist for the 1968 Edgar Award for best short fiction.

Prolific, explaining that he had more ideas than he knew what to do with, in addition to his Collins name, he created additional series under the pseudonyms Mark Sadler, John Crowe, and Carl Dekker. For a few years, he published under three of these pseudonyms at the same time at three different publishing houses — Dodd Mead, Random House, and Bobbs Merrill. For many years, The New York Times listed his books annually as among the nation’s top mysteries. One year, two appeared on the same list, each written under a different pseudonym. He also penned 8 Belmont Books mass market paperbacks of The Shadow from 1964 to 1967 under the Shadow's author by line Maxwell Grant.

As he was writing detective novels, he also published literary books and some 100 literary short stories. Five of the stories were honored in Best American Short Stories. He was twice short listed for the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. His mystery and detective short stories have appeared in Best Crime & Mystery Stories of the Year many times. Twice he was the guest of honor at literary festivals in France honoring the American detective novel.

In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Lynds's work took another turn. He began lacing his detective novels with short stories, biographies, and symbolic vignettes, a literary technique that recent mystery writers have copied and expanded. Critic Richard C. Carpenter discussed it in Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers:
"Powerful and memorable, [these new works] indicate that Collins has embarked on a new course after some 60 books. Truly he is a writer to be reckoned with."