Shortly after his birth the family moved to Hanover, Germany, where Peter's father worked as a doctor and surgeon.

When the Nazis came to power and summoned Michael Rabinovitch to a Gestapo office and confronted him with transcripts of political conversations between him and his patients, he decided it best to emigrate to the United States before Peter turned 15 and face possible internment.

Margarete, a Lutheran, brought her other two sons, Valentin and Andreas, on the last ship of refugees before World War II broke out.

While at Western Reserve, Rabe met Claire Frederickson, also a psychology student and member of a family who had left Europe ahead of the Nazis.

This work served him well as Peter used these skills to write and illustrate his first book, From Here to Maternity (Vanguard Press, 1955; originally appeared in McCall's Magazine, September 1954, as "Who's Having This Baby?

The last books Rabe published before he backed off from his writing career were novelizations of episodes of the television series "Mannix" using the pseudonym "J. T.

He went on to two other marriages, neither of which lasted, and left the writing life to become a teacher of psychology at California Polytechnic State University.

Shortly before his death, Rabe had sent these to writer Ed Gorman in an effort to see them published and in 2010, both works will appear in a single volume from Stark House Press.

The emotional buttons Rabe pushes, the real contrast between the characters, and the morally and thematically ambiguous ending make it a nearly pitch perfect telling.

He wrote straight Gold Medal-type books such as Stop This Man!, Journey Into Terror, and Mission for Vengeance, as well as books that showed a lighter touch (Murder Me for Nickels, The Return of Marvin Palaver), dark and almost brooding (A House in Naples, The Silent Wall), and brilliant character studies of underworld figures (The Box, Benny Muscles In, Anatomy of a Killer).

He was a subtle writer, and the dialogue and choices made by his characters show them off in unusual ways, often with seemingly unpredictable behavior that turns out to be entirely consistent with who they are as well as the plot of the book.