Dennis Lynds, 81, Detective Novelist
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Dennis Lynds, an award-winning author who helped modernize the private-eye novel in a series of tautly written mysteries featuring the one-armed Dan Fortune, died Friday in San Francisco. He was 81, and had been ill for some time.
In a career spanning more than four decades, Lynds wrote more than 80 novels and short stories.
The first Dan Fortune novel, “Act of Fear,” was published in 1967 and won the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for best first novel.
The last novel in the series, “Fortune’s World,” was published in 2000.
The Fortune novels were praised for their writing and for their willingness to reflect on contemporary political and social controversies.
“I write mysteries to say something, not just for entertainment,” Lynds told the Santa Barbara News-Press in 1982.
Lynds, who was born in New York and moved to Santa Barbara in 1965, started out as a technical writer.
He also edited science and trade publications and wrote television scripts for Alfred Hitchcock and “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”
