After his death it came out that he had written as many as 15 novels
before his first, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, was published.
Lawyer who was both prosecutor and defense attorney before becoming a
writer.
As an attorney he defended both Eldridge Cleaver and G. Gordon
Liddy.
Mystery writer H.R.F. Keating selected The Friends of Eddie Coyle in
1987 for his list of the one hundred best crime novels.
His novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle was selected in 1985 as one of the
twenty best American novels since World War II by the British
Booksellers Association.