He served in the Asian and Pacific fleets and spent time in the merchant navy before settling in Shanghai, where he married a Chinese woman.
After a succession of jobs, Dunning's second child was born in Connersville, Indiana and the family finally moved to St. Petersburg, Florida.
There Dunning became a boat builder and entrepreneur but fell afoul of the Internal Revenue Service and left the United States forever in 1959.
The family settled in Heidelberg, Germany and Dunning became a journalist for a local English language news sheet, and then an author.
Dunning held strong views on crimes against children and frequently advocated the death penalty for such criminals in the forewords of his books.