Created by William Arden
Pseudonym of Dennis Lynds
(1924-2005)
KANE JACKSON is a former MP turned industrial security and corporate counter-espionage specialist, with a hard-earned reputation for competence and getting the job done, tempered only a little by fleeting moments of compassion–a stark contrast to many of the author’s other series detectives. He appeared in five hard, tight and typically excellent novels in the late sixties and early seventies by Edgar winner Dennis Lynds, under the pen name of William Arden.
Unfortunately, the series was overshadowed by some of the author’s other series, and now they’re mostly forgotten–and extremely hard (and often quite pricey) to find. I don’t think any of them even came out in paperback, except for A Dark Power (1968), the first in the series.
Dennis Lynds also wrote as Michael Collins, John Crowe, Carl Dekker, and Mark Sadler, among many, many other pseudonyms. His most famous creation is one-armed PI Dan Fortune, but he’s also found time to create PI’s Paul Shaw and “Slot Machine” Kelly. He also wrote many of the Mike Shayne short stories for Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine under the house monicker of Brett Halliday. Under the Arden byline, he also wrote several books in The Three Investigators series.
UNDER OATH
- “(Dark Power is)one of the best PI novels of the Sixties.”
— Francis M. Nevins in 1001 Midnights
NOVELS
- A Dark Power (1968)Â |Â Buy this book
- Deal in Violence (1969)Â Â |Â Buy this book
- The Goliath Scheme (1970)Â Â |Â Buy this book
- Die to a Distant Drum (1972; aka “Murder Underground”)Â Â |Â Buy this book
- Deadly Legacy (1973)Â Â |Â Buy this book
Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
