About the Author
The prolific Lawrence Sanders (1920-98) enjoyed an enduring success as a best-selling writer of crime fiction, beginning with the publication in 1970 of The Anderson Tapes, the novel that introduced the character of New York detective Edward X. Delaney. Not only a bestseller, The Anderson Tapes won Sanders the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar award as the year's best first mystery novel.

Sanders' apprenticeship as a writer began in the 1940s, with writing jobs for such magazines as Mechanics Illustrated and Science and Mechanics. The experience in technical writing would later become an invaluable element in his precisely crafted thrillers. In 1968 and 1969, he published a number of short stories in the men's magazine Swank, all involving the character of Wolf Lannihan, a tough insurance investigator. With the blockbuster success of The Anderson Tapes and its 1971 film version, Sanders established himself as one of the most commercially successful novelists of his day. More than 30 novels followed, and the name Lawrence Sanders became a significant commodity in the business of publishing.

The popularity of the Edward X. Delaney character in The Anderson Tapes inspired a further installment, the even more successful The First Deadly Sin (1973), filmed in 1980 with Frank Sinatra as Delaney, the last significant screen role the singer/actor undertook. In all, there would be four best-selling police procedurals in the Deadly Sin series, the last appearing in 1985. In addition to Delaney, Sanders' novels feature a gallery of memorable sleuths such as Dora Conti, Samuel Todd, Joshua Bigg and Archibald "Archie" McNally. So distinctive and successful was Sanders' style -- spiked with his fascination with technology, the power of sex and the decadent lives of the wealthy -- that his characters lived on after the writer's death in 1998. McNally's Dilemma (1999) bears Sanders' name on the cover, though the actual writing is credited to Vincent Lardo.