Arden, William, 1924-2005

Dennis Lynds was born on January 15, 1924 in St. Louis, Missouri, where his parents, two English actors, happened to be working. Soon after the birth, the family returned to London, where Dennis would spend his early childhood. When he was six years old, they returned to the United States and eventually settled in New York City, where his father found work on Broadway. Dennis grew up in Brooklyn, where he felt that his British accent and bohemian parents isolated his from his working-class peers. He retreated into his imagination and began to invent exciting sotries of action and adventure which were inspired by the novels and plays to which his mother exposed him. However, his parents wanted Dennis to have a more stable life than they had known, and so they encouraged him to pursue a career in science. He attended Brooklyn Technical High School and, after graduation, took classes at the Cooper Union in Manhattan.

With America's entry into the Second World War, Dennis Lynds enlisted in the Army. Initailly, he hoped for a relatively safe job as a technical specialist, and even received some training at Texas A&M. However, he soon found himself on the front lines of combat in France, serving with the Army's 12th Armored Division. He received several medals, including the Bronze Star and the Purple Hear, and after the war, he returned to New York. He attended Hofstra College in Hempstead, NY, received a bachelor's degree in chemistry, and took a position in the laboratories of Charles Pfizer & Co. However, he grew dissatisfied with the elf: 'of a research scientist, and decided to pursue a master's degree in journalism at Syracuse University while working as a writer and editor for chemical industry magazines and journals.

Lynds devoted his spare time to writing short stories and poetry, which began to appear in literary journals. He also worked on a novel based on his wartime experience, which was finally published in 1962 as Combat Soldier. At the same time, he began selling numerous detective stories to Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, and proved quite popular with readers. In 1998, Dennis Lynds was awarded the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2003 he also received the Marlowe Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America. He died suddenly on August 19, 2005 at the age of 81.

From the description of The Dennis Lynds Papers, [ca. 1920s-2005] (University of California, Santa Barbara). WorldCat record id: 76772933