Lanham married a model Irene Stillman in 1928 in Clinton, CT, and had one daughter Evelyn (nicknamed Linda) in 1942.
His only books to have received significant levels of literary praise were both written in the 1930s.
"The Wind Blew West" is his most critically acclaimed work, and contains a fictional retelling of the Warren Wagon Train Raid of 1871 and the subsequent trial of the Native American defendants.
In 1940, Lanham received one of the Guggenheim Fellowships, which funded his novel "Thunder in the Earth".
In addition, three of his detective stories were turned into Hollywood films entitled: If I’m Lucky (1946); It Shouldn't Happen to a Dog (1946); and The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947).