John McPartland

In addition to his pulp work, he is known for his more standard novel, No Down Payment, which was later made into the movie of the same title, directed by Martin Ritt and starring Joanne Woodward and Tony Randall, among others.

Later as an Army reservist, he was called back during the Korean War and served with the pacific division of the Stars and Stripes newspaper where he was a staff writer.

It was revealed during estate proceedings that he had a legal wife and son in Mill Valley, California, while at the same time, a mistress in Monterey who had borne him five children, and who as Mrs. Eleanor McPartland, was named the city's "Mother of the Year" in 1956.

The settings of his books were usually the seamy underworld of urban and suburban America, and featured plots involving romantic intrigue, international espionage, extortion, drug trafficking and crime syndicates.

"[5] Many of McPartland's pulp novels have been reprinted since their initial publication in the 1950s; some are currently in print, including Big Red's Daughter and Tokyo Doll, both reissued by Black Curtain Press in 2013.

In 1948, McPartland wrote "Portrait of an American Communist," an exposé for Life magazine "in which he delved into communism's socially aberrant nature and the racy, lusty associations with free love."